Gold and Green Leopard Print Nails

Look at my nails! I don't konad often, but I was inspired by the colours of green and gold. And I have leopard print nails!

I used my favourite konad plate of all time, M57, for this KOTD (konad of the day). For the base, I used China Glaze Westside Warrior (which has made a brief appearance on my blog before, and for the gold, I used my favourite gold of all time, Orly Luxe (also featured on the blog before, not once, but twice).



I rather like this, it has a very safari-like feel. I'm also actually thinking this colour combination would make a great eye look - in fact, I have done a gold and green eye look before.



So there you have it, my nail look of the moment! What are your nails like right now?

BCA Manicure: Pink and White Freehand Nail Art

Breast cancer awareness month is every October, and so I thought I'd do my little bit by doing a couple of BCA manicures.

This manicure is pink and white. For the pink, I used Orly Rage, which is a very pretty BCA-ish metallic pink, even if the name of the polish isn't BCA-like at all. I mean, usually BCA polishes have very uplifting and inspiring names right? Like Courage, Hope, Strength, etc etc. I find it rather amusing that this is called Rage, nevermind that it isn't actually supposed to be a BCA polish. For the white, I used my trusty old Wet n' Wild White. Still the best white around, oh yes it is. Opaque in one coat, but I used two here to even out the surface.


All the art was done freehand with a skinny nail art brush (as you can probably tell). It was really quite easy to do. I just painted two coats of the base colours on the nails, then freehanded the ribbon and pink lines. Not much else to say, I guess!


So that's my BCA mani! Breast cancer is the 5th top cause of deaths, so if you're in the at-risk age group (50 to 74), the best way to detect breast cancer is to get a mammogram once every 2 years!

Tribal Nail Art: Summer Colours and Geometric Shapes

One of this Spring/Summer's trends is the tribal print, combined with eye-catching, bright colours. While I'm not actually a fan of wearing tribal print, I thought that it would be awesome to do a tribal-inspired mani on my nails. I've also been seeing a few tribal-inspired nail looks too, so I thought I'd join the club.

Let me show you a few photos that were indicative of the trend that inspired this nail art. The tribal feel is acheived by a mix of bright colours and geometric prints.

(Source)

Here, less geometric shapes, but bright colours nonetheless!

(Source)

For this look, I was really going for the bright shades and geometric shapes feel. The base is Essie Fondola Gondola, the green bit is Nails Inc Spring Mews (which I've used in an NOTD before), while the coral shade is Eyeko Coral (which, if you don't know yet, makes a fantastic pedi colour for summer. The gold lines were done with Orly Luxe, which has to be my favourite gold polish ever, because I keep raving about it.



All this was done freehand. I simply painted Essie Fondola Godola, then I painted Nails Inc Spring Mews and Eyeko Coral at an angle to get the geometric shapes. I then painted over the lines with Orly Luxe, and painted in a small triangle with Luxe as well. It isn't the neatest nail art around, but it was quite fast to do, and if I probably had a bit more control the lines would turn out neater. Oh well, nail art isn't exactly my strongest suite. You can see I really messed up the gold lines badly.



I liked the combination of colours - so gorgeous and summery and girly, as I liked the geometric shapes, but I think it was marred by my own crappy application.



What about you guys? Have you tried a tribal-inspired manicure yet? Tell me!

Anti-Valentine's Day Nail Art: Shattered Hearts!

Not everyone loves Valentine's Day. Some don't have a significant other, some don't like the crass commercialization, and some just aren't the type to make a big deal out of things. So, here's my Anti-Valentine's Day nails - shattered hearts!

I figured, since I already paid my dues by having Valentine's Day nails (not once but twice! C.f. my Valentine's Day nails with a touch of spring and my Neon pink and black Valentine's Day nails), why not do an Anti-Valentine's Day mani? I decided to work with the theme of being heartbroken, and decided to have a girly pink base with broken hearts.

The pink base was Orly Rage (I've previously compared Orly Rage and GOSH Frou Frou), a gorgeous opaque, non-streaky and non-brush-strokey pink foil. (Is non-brush-strokey even a word?) The black hearts were made with OPI's Black Shatter, although any black crackle polish would have done too.



In my head, this seemed like a good mani, since shatter polishes naturally crackle, so they lend themselves well to the "shattered hearts" look I was trying to achieve. The hard part was getting them to take the shape of a heart! I tried everything - freehand, tape, self-made stencils using paper and scissors - and nothing worked really well. They just looked like random shapes, not hearts. In the end, I just filled out the heart shapes more fully using my Wet n' Wild Black nail polish.



I don't know if these look anything like hearts to you, but that was probably the best I could do. I liked the concept and the "shattered hearts" idea, but I'm feeling a bit meh about my execution. But still, here's my Anti-Valentine's mani! What do you guys think? Shattered hearts, or just mere blobs?

Orly Fantasea NOTD: Multi-chromal, Multidimensional Shimmer

Orly is one of the most underrated nail polish brands to me. There's something about the Orlys I have that just makes them that little bit more special. Maybe it's the range of colours, or maybe it's that the application and the wear time of Orlys works very nicely on me. In fact, their Foil FX Collection sometime back was the only nail polish collection of which I bought every single colour, and I would totally guard Orly Luxe with my life.

Today I present Orly Fantasea, another guard-with-my-life shade. I love, love, love this shade so much, and truly, I have never seen another shade quite like it (if you know of anything similar, let me know!). I bought it after reading one of the older entries on Scrangie's blog, and I'm so glad I did! It's absolutely, gorgeously multi-chromal and multi-dimensional, and the base colour is purple, my favourite colour! What's not to like? Behold the beauty!

Orly Fantasea is hard to describe, just because it's so complex. It's a purple multi-chrome that looks pink and bronze in different lights. I also love the shimmer - you have that smooth duochrome due to the pink/purple base colour, but there's also some bronze-ish shimmer thrown in, that just takes that shade to the next level. In the photo above, you see how it looks purple. In the photo below, Fantasea is showing off it's pink size, with a little bit of bronze.



And here's Fantasea, in indoors light. With this light, you can really see that there are bronze/copper/gold-ish shimmer bits in the polish. They contribute to that bronze/copper flash that sometimes appears at certain angles in the polish. Apologies for my fingers being in the same pose for all 3 photos - this NOTD was actually taken a year ago (that long, yes!), and I happened to stumble upon it when I was looking through some of my older photos in my laptop.



The only downside there is to Orly Fantasea is that it's very sheer. What you see on my nails is 3-4 coats, and you'd need at least 3 coats to prevent VNL (Visible Nail Line). Thus, when I use Fantasea, I tend to layer it over another polish, as in this previous NOTD where I layered Orly Fantasea over Barry M Vivid Purple. If I were to wear it alone all the time, I'd probably run out of my bottle of Fantasea, so I try to save it by layering (purple and black make great options)! But I thought, why shouldn't I wear such a great colour on its own, for once?

Orly Fantasea, how I love you so much! There's nothing I don't like about this shade - the duochrome effect is gorgeous, the shimmer adds depth to the shade, and I love that everytime I move my fingers, my nails display a different flash of colour, whether I'm indoors or outdoors. And I don't even have anything that's remotely close to Fantasea in my collection! What can I say, despite the sheerness, this shade is just such a beauty.

Orly Fantasea + Barry M Vivid Purple = Multidimensional Awesomeness!

There's something about the colour purple that I love so much, and I can't quite explain why. It could be that purple is a colour with enough oomph to not be boring, and yet still remains a colour that's pretty work-appropriate, or it could be that purple was the first colour of nail polish I tried, and fell in love with. Whatever the matter, I love purples, and I'm constantly trying to create more pretty purples to wear on my nails.

In one of my experiments, I tried creating a multidimensional purple on my nail, and I layered Orly Fantasea over Barry M Vivid Purple. Now both are gorgeous purples in their own right, and a quick google will turn up plenty of pretty NOTDs featuring one or the other worn alone, but I just had to try them together.

Here is the result:



Orly Fantasea, one of those hard-to-find but oh-so-gorgeous polishes, is a very pretty colour, consisting of multidimensional shimmer in a sheer purple base. It's the shimmer in Fantasea that's showing up on the nail and giving the entire layering experiment it's complexity. However, Orly Fantasea is quite sheer when worn alone on the nail, which is why I chose to layer it. I didn't want to waste my precious bottle of Fantasea trying to build up the colour by using 4 coats!

Barry M Vivid Purple, the base colour, is a purple with gold shimmer that's opaque in 1-2 coats, and one of the standouts in the entire Barry M nail polish lineup (in my opinion anyway). The gold shimmer doesn't really show through after the layering, but I'm sure it's in there contributing in some subtle way.



I don't know about you, but I absolutely love the effect. The resulting purple is a gorgous deep purple with a certain multidimensional shimmer quality that I love. I can't quite describe it, but it seems to me to look like little flecks of shimmer just capture the light and wink at you. I can make out pink and blue, but I'm sure there are more colours in there I can't describe. It's not a duochrome, but it sure is pretty.

Application for both Barry M Vivid Purple and Orly Fantasea was smooth, and the entire combination lasted for about 4 days before chipping, which was average for me. I definitely love this colour, and I'm sure I'll wear it again soon!

Gold Foil Dupes? Orly Luxe, Etude House Lucidarling Sparkling Royal Gold, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold

With Christmas coming up, you absolutely know you have to have a gold foil in your nail colour arsenal. After all, gold is one of the colours of Christmas, and the foil finish, with its metallic-like surface, is so festive. Even if it isn't Christmas, a gold foil is a gorgeous colour to have anyway. And the good thing about gold foils is that there's a shade of gold foil to flatter every skintone, from cool to warm, from dark to light.

So here are a couple of gold foil comparisons. Up for swatching are Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, and Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold. As always, it's a source of slight amusement that the product names of Asian brand cosmetics are always so much longer than Western brands - it can't just be nail polish, it has to be Lucidarling (whatever that means) Fantastic Nails :P



L-R: Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold

Well, I guess they're not dupes. And they may not all be gold foils. But let's see how they hold up to swatching, shall we?

Here are the 3 polishes swatched on my nails:


L-R (Index to pinky): Orly Luxe, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold, Orly Luxe

As you can see, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold isn't really a foil. But it's a pretty gold polish, nonetheless. It does have a metallic finish, but not the fine-grained finish of a foil. It's a good option for those who don't like foils, but want something gold and metallic.

Orly Luxe is a cult favourite among foil finish fans, and I absolutely see why. It's a bright gold that isn't so warm-toned that it's unwearable for cooler-toned people. There's just something about it that catches your eye.

Etude House Sparkling Royal Gold (I'm not going to type out the entire name) is also a foil, but it's a bit more muted, and slightly warmer than Orly Luxe. I also like it a lot, and I think this would be a great substitue for anyone who felt Luxe was too OTT with the bling, and wanted a more subdued version of Luxe.

Here's what Luxe looks like in the context of my fingers, just so you can see the contrast of nail polish against skin:



L-R (Pinky to Index): Orly Luxe, Etude House Lucidarling Fantastic Nails 01 Sparkling Royal Gold, Collection 2000 Aztec Gold, Orly Luxe

In terms of application, all were good. I had no trouble with any of the three. But Orly Luxe and Aztec Gold were a lot more pigmented than the Etude House version. Both Luxe and Aztec Gold were opaque in one coat, but you'll need 2-3 coats with Sparkling Royal Gold before you don't see any VNL (visible nail line).

I'm glad they're all different - it totally justifies having them all :P But for anyone who wants just one, my personal favourite would be Orly Luxe. However if you can't get your hands on it (since Orly is one of those hard-to-find-outside-the-US brands), then it's great to know that Collection 2000 in the UK has a viable replacement, and that Etude House also has something similar for us Asians.

ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly vs Orly Iron Butterfly: Dupes or Not?

Awhile back, I was gushing over ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly, the ubercool matte tar grey polish. I mentioned in the post that there were similar colours, so I thought I'd do a comparison post today swatching Fuggen Ugly side-by-side with one of its sisters, Orly Iron Butterfly.

Here are comparison swatches:



L-R: First 2 fingers ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly, last 2 fingers Orly Iron Butterfly

As you can see, there are similarities and differences. The similarities are that both are matte, and have the same black-grey base. Both also apply very well, although I feel like Fuggen Ugly applies a bit better, because it goes on in thinner coats.

The differences are that Iron Butterfly has much bigger silver glitter than Fuggen Ugly. Fuggen Ugly isn't totally matte - there are very minute silver shimmer that adds a dimension to the colour, but the shimmer isn't visible on the finger, unlike in Iron Butterfly, where you can clearly see the discrete pieces of silver shimmer.

So, which one should you spring for? A lot is going to hinge on the shimmer for most people. If you want a more matte shade, then ManGlaze is the one to go for. But if you want some bling, then Orly's version will be your preferred choice.

KOTD: Orly Foil Luxe and Wet n Wild Black

A few weeks back, my programme had a boat party for the postgraduates, and of course I had to go - it was free for students, and they provided dinner, and you know I'm all up for a free meal :P The dress code was formal, but in rebellion of the utter impracticality of wearing tuxedos and gowns in summer, our class chose to go informal anyway.

Anyway, the whole point of me telling you this is because it actually has something to do with today's NOTD. I started building my outfit around my nails, as I am increasingly wont to do lately, and I decided that I wanted to wear blingy gold nails with some konad. (Note to everyone: only weirdos like me start thinking about their nails before thinking about their clothes.)

Naturally, I picked out Orly Luxe, from the Foil FX Collection, and I stamped it over with Wet n Wild Black. I used Konad plate M81 for the design. And tada:



This is two coats of Orly Luxe, under natural light, konaded over with Wet n Wild Black, which is a really opaque black creme. I just LOVE Orly Luxe. It's probably the best gold foil ever, and definitely the standout of the entire Orly Foil FX Collection. I mean, good gold foils are hard to come by, and this one is smooth, easy to apply, and opaque in one coat (ooh, gold foil konad coming up!). And not to mention I love the colour - it's a shade of gold that isn't too brassy or too warm, and would be perfect on almost anybody.

After I had done my nails, I realized that my nails matched a skirt I had just bought a few days ago (on sale from H&M, yay for 50% off summer sales!). So I ended up wearing the skirt, just because they matched my nails! And yes I know I'm a freak for matching my clothes to my nails, and not the other way around. What can I say - I probably have more nail polishes than I have clothes.

Here's a photo of my nails against the skirt. See, see? They match!



And of course, since it was a boat party for postgrads, I managed to find something else that matched my nails:



That was my friend's bottle, LOL. I don't drink very much, primarily because alcohol is full of empty calories, and I've never thought it was worth putting on weight for, with the possible sole exception of pear cider, LOL. I know, I'm a weirdo, but that's a pretty convincing argument to me, LOL.

Anyway, that was my KOTD, and I promise the next post won't feature any alcohol :P

Orly Foil FX Rage and GOSH FrouFrou: Are They Dupes?

So the Orly Foil FX Collection, launched a couple of months back, has met with general aplomb from bloggers and nail polish lovers alike, being right on trend with its metallic take on golds, silvers and pinks. But of course, for us who aren't in the US, Orlys (is it me, or is it just that everytime I see the brand Orly I think - O RLY?!) are hard to come by, and when they are, they aren't cheap either. I know, doesn't it just make you want to cry? But I was lucky. One of my friends agreed to buy it for me and mail it here, so I have both Rage and Shine (I'm still trying to get my hands on Luxe). But not every girl could be so lucky, so I thought maybe I'd see if there isn't a dupe for it yet.

And sure enough, I found something I thought was dupey - GOSH FrouFrou! Actually, I had already done an NOTD with that colour! (Come to think of it - is it a NOTD? Or an NOTD? I know grammar rules say that if the first letter is a vowel, or has a wel sound, then it should be 'an'. So I guess since N sounds like a vowel, it should be an NOTD. But I always feel like typing 'a' because I'm seeing it in print, not hearing it in my head when I type...) Anyway, that NOTD was done waaay back when the only reader of my blog was my imaginary pet dog, but you can see it HERE. Wow, I never knew I was so ahead of the curve! Weird, I know.

Anyway the big question all my UK ladies want to know: are they indeed dupes?

Here are bottle comparison pictures:



L-R: Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou

They look pretty similar, don't they? They could be dupes!

Here are the comparison swatches:



My index and ring fingers are Orly Rage, while middle and last fingers are GOSH FrouFrou. That means L-R: Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou, Orly Rage, GOSH FrouFrou

Ooh, so close, sooo close. They're not total dupes though. Although both colours are metallic foil pinks, Orly Rage is a more beige, making it a beigey-pink, while GOSH FrouFrou is pinker. But otherwise, they're entirely alike - the way they apply is similar, the finish is similar, and both are just good metallic foil-y goodness that can be worn to work despite the bling, because the colour is so innocuous.

So which one should you pick, if you somehow have access to both but only wanted one? (I think this is purely a hypothetical scenario though, since Orly is available in the US only for most part, and GOSH is only available in Europe for the most part.) Well if somehow you could buy both but only wanted one, then it would depend on your undertone, and how beige or pink you wanted your colour to be. I think the beige tinge in Orly Rage would suit warmer girls better, especially if they find GOSH FrouFrou too pink and unwearable, while the pink might work better on cooler-toned girls. I don't think it really makes that much of a difference though; both colours are neutral enough either way.

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm and Orly Foil FX Shine KOTD

There are times when I really hate my photo-taking skills, my camera, and my crappy looking nails, because on the rare times when I really like a KOTD, my photos never ever seem to do it justice. Today's KOTD, using a holographic polish (OOOHHHH HOLOS!) and an Orly Foil FX, is one case in point.

For the base I used Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm, also known in some circles as Chacha (you know, CHAinmail CHArm?). It's a beautiful black holo, and the holographic shimmer really shines through. Unfortunately, my camera didn't seem to like the holographic goodness as much as I did:



Please excuse the messiness, because that was a pre-cleanup picture (because I was going to konad over it). But the point is, that is a gorgeous holo which my camera didn't capture. I really like it, it's cool, and I love holos. Something about the colour-changing shimmer just captures me.

I could look at Chainmail Charm, but in one of my rare moments of brilliance, I thought I would konad over it, with one of the newfangled Orly Foil FXs, Shine (I've been trying to get Luxe - the gold one), using a full nail design from the Konad M78 plate.





I know it doesn't look like much in the photo, but can I pinky promise you that it looks soooo much better in real life? Orly Shine (and the other Foil FXs I'm told) make for good konading polishes, so I wasn't disappointed to konad with this. Shine is a Foil with plenty of bling to draw attention to any dull manicure! The Orly Foil FXs have not been disappointing so far - I've got Rage and Shine, and I've been trying to go after Luxe. I love the combination of black and silver, holo and foil, and bling and more bling! I just wish my camera and my skills were better at capturing this blingy goodness.

Nail Polish Haul: OPI, Essie, China Glaze, and Orly!

Awhile back, to reward myself for getting through a particularly stressful period of school (believe it or not, despite all my professors' assumptions about the "copious free time" we have, us grad students are actually a relatively busy bunch), I decided it was time to place an order of my lemmings. Hey, don't judge me - my groupmate bought himself a camera, so I figured it was perfectly reasonable for me to buy nail polish. And so I did. And these babies arrived all the way from the great USA, the land of cheap Chinaglaze, etailers of nail polish, and buy-1-get-1-free drugstore makeup promotions. Oh, just thinking about it makes me so jealous!

Anyway here is my amazing haul. Please pardon the crappy pictures, they were taken at night under my yellow lamplight, and I suck at using photo-editing software:



Ooh, China Glaze Khromes! I've been wanting these FOREVER for konading purposes! I got China Glaze Sci Fi, Robotika, Millenium, and 2030, in that order from left to right. I'm going crazy just imagining the konading possibilities! Oh, I also got Essie Chinchilly. Mmmmm, grey. But this is not any ordinary grey. This is grey with the slightest green tinge, so chic and unique.



Ooh holos! And duochromes! And my favourite nudey greige mushroomy colour! In order it was Orly Golden Halo (this one is supposed to be sheer though, darn), Orly Country Club Khaki (my favourite! I know I have enough greige nudes, but I can't help it...I need to collect them ALL), and OPI DS Signature and DS Extravagance. I kind of prefer Extravagance, because it has that jewelled quality to it in the base colour, but DS Signature shows more of the holographic "rainbow" in the bottle. I can't wait to try these on my nails - I just KNOW they'll be amazing!

So that's my stress-induced haul. I know I can't be the only one hauling during times of stress, and hey, I figure at least getting a few more pretties is a better way of coping with stress than smoking pot, gambling or drinking :P Yeah, yeah, I know I'm full of excuses...But I can't help it, they're all so pretty!