blue with a chance of grey

It’s blue! It’s grey! It’s blueish grey!
And I made it matte! Yay!

China Glaze – Sea Spray
Collection: Anchors Away | Spring 2011

Sea Spray is a polish that I’ve been iffy on for the longest time. When the collection first came out, I fell in love with this pastel blue grey. So much so that I didn’t notice the ugly shimmer in it until I was standing in line for the cashier at Sally’s. And then I put the bottle back on the rack and spent the next year debating whether I should buy it. Finally, they were going on clearance for discontinued production and I got my bottle for three bucks.

 

I don’t have any pictures of the polish un-mattified since I really hate the way that looks. Just imagine this with a strong opalescent sheen. I can’t really say I love this polish. The application was just okay, the formula being a little hard to work with. I didn’t really myself chance to test out the wear time  on this, but I can say after two days of wear it was still chip-free. Of course, that may be because whenever I wear my nails matte, I put on a rapid dry topcoat and then top with a matte one to make the mani last longer as matte topcoats aren’t know for great wear times. Also, don’t quote me, but I think I’m wearing Matte Magic from China Glaze here.

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lights: Natural; indoor | China Glaze – Sea Spray/Matte Magic

blu…blu…blurple bubbles!

Scheduled post!

Maybe I should blog in gifs *insert thinking mustache*.

For the past few months, I’ve been forcing myself to step out of my colour comfort zone. I unintentionally almost always wear uber bright, crisp, ridiculously vibrant colours or shades of blue, red,  grey, and green. Colours like purple, burgundy or pink has never been able to catch my eye, especially pink as I’ve had an unexplained fear/hatred toward the colour since youth.

I find myself to be more tolerant, or even drawn, to various shades of purple. Be it deep, rich, velvety hues of royalty or light, spontaneous pixels of pastel lilac and lavender, I’ve tried them all. Although I’m still not comfortable with the lighter shades on the purple spectrum, I’m definitely more accepting of the colour. Being the indeterminacy of blue and purple, blurple have slowly become one of my go to colours. Still no pinks tho.

OPI – Ink
Collection: Night Brights | Fall 2007

OPI Ink has long become a staple in any OPI collection. It’s a signature blurple highlighted by blue and purple shimmers with a hint of pink and gold under harsh lights. The formula is quite sheer and patchy on the first coat, but a careful second coat smooths out all the kinks and bald spots.

The Night Brights collection produced several OPI favourites. Along with Ink, My Private Jet (albeit the formula/colour change controversy) and Light My Sapphire have it into the moodier basics for any OPI lover.

Whew, why was this post so serious sounding?

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Indoor; natural | OPI -Ink

oldie in the nudie

Nail crisis!

Too much time spent in the print shop has caused several broken nails and uneven growths. *sad face*

Whilst I nurse these injuries back to health, a few oldies but goodies are to be shared with the masses. First up, we have an oldie in the nudie (teeheehee).

Zoya – Cho
Collection: True | Spring 2012

Out of the two nudes in the True collection, I was really only drawn to Cho. Despite the shimmer in it, the warm nude out effect it gives was something I had been looking for for quite a while. On my skin tone, it wears a tad too pale as my hands have a fairly strong pink undertone to them, but it’s still a wearable true beige shade.

The shimmer in Cho is barely detectable under natural lighting, but under strong sunlight or fluorescent light, the shiny particles are rather prominent. The finish is very opaque and formula is very Zoya-sque in wear and application.

Camera: Samsung Galaxy S | Lighting: Indoor; artificial | Zoya – Cho

new year (and birthday) with red

Hi there, long time no blog huh?

I have personal shit, like feelings and other fun stuff.

Mah birfday was this past Wednesday, yes my birthday is the most ordinary sequence of numerals in existence — zero one/two three. It’s awesome. Didn’t really have time to think about what to wear for it and this was a last minute decision.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – 270 Racey Rouge 

This is a polish I picked up months ago but have never wore because it’s not really my type of colour. In the bottle, it’s definitely a berry red with a strong blue undertone but it really doesn’t translate well onto the nail. Under most lighting, the polish simply look like a slightly muted crisp red. I tried really hard to duplicate the original bottle colour in the pictures in shooting and processing to give you guys a better idea of what it actually looks like.

The upcoming year in the Lunar calender is the Year of the Snake. Having being born before the Chinese New Year in my year of birth, I barely squeezed myself into being a Snake (my lunar birthday is 12/27). In the Chinese tradition, one celebrating their birth zodiac year must wear red (and participate in different blessing and evil warding activities) to welcome wealth and bliss into their birth cycle. It’s hard to explain. BTW, Chinese New Year is Feb. 10 this year!

Sidenote – Chinese zodiacs are assigned according to the lunar calendar, meaning that you may have been reading about the wrong  zodiac off paper place mats in Chinese restaurants. The Chinese New Year usually falls in January to Feburary each year so all you Jan. and Feb. babies may be living as the wrong animal. Just FYI.

Note to self – Go back to watermarking and then resizing. These pictures are fuzzy as fuck.

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: indoor; natural | Insta-Dri – Racey Rouge

 

blue sparkles for christmas!

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Generally cheeriness all around!

Now onto the nail polish.

I was planning on a special Christmas mani, but a friend’s birthday party got in the way of planning for that so this happened.

(in order from light to dark)

American Apparel – The Valley
Collection: Fall 2011

China Glaze – Shower Together
Collection: ecollection | Spring 2008

China Glaze – Little Drummer Boy
Collection: ‘Tis the Season | Christmas 2010

Milani – Blue Flash
Collection: Rockstar Heavy (One Coat Glitter) | 2011

This is really just a standard sponge gradient nail with a layer of blue glitter on the tips. I normally don’t do any sort of nail art ‘cept for the accent nail, but hey, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Might as well go all out right? Besides I was re-watching Sherlock (the BBC drama) and had plenty of time to space out my sponging without feeling bored out of my leopard print Santa hat (it’s glorious, btw).

The sponging’s a bit rough on some of the nails (hence the sparkles for distraction), but you really can’t go wrong with this whole gradient nail technique. Here’s a quick rundown:

1. You paint your base colour; let it dry dry dry.
2. Pick your middle colour; sponge sponge sponge and dry dry dry.
3. Pick next colour; sponge sponge sponge and dry dry dry.
4. Sparkles you dab dab dab.
5. Top coat.
6. Dry dry dry and clean that shit.

The end.

Oh, that red stuff on my thumb is a failed experimental mating of coral and red glitter. See? Accent nail!

sparkly, the new black

Sometimes, I really hate my blog post titles. Like the one above -.-”. Sometimes, I also hate myself. Who doesn’t?

Today, we are making acquaintance with  a Canadian polish. Exciting, eh?
*insert howl of “I AM CANADIAN!” here, hold the “eh” please*

Joe Fresh is a Canadian brand hailing from the great north and it’s on the affordable, fun-colours, colours-come-and-go-and-never-come-back route. Polishes are $4 CAD for each 6 ml bottle or 3 for $10 CAD.

Joe Fresh – Gunmetal
Collection: Several Winters Ago

I’ve owned this particular polish for almost two years and it’s astonishing that this is the first time I’m wearing it alone (with top coat). I’ve always wore it matte, usually with the Joe Fresh matte top coat. It’s that perfect metallic finish for that perfect suede finish.

One gripe I have with these bottles are the caps. They are giant and hard to work with when painting. The brush and stem are fairly short to accommodate for the stubby bottle and the oversized cap just mushrooms over your hand and nails when you are painting. But the brush itself is extremely workable. Wide but not too wide and has a nice sturdy flow to it.

Next, I shall contemponder what my Christmas mani will be. I’m thinking something to do with the Milani glitters. Sparkly!!!!!!!!

Camera: Olympus E-PL1 | Lighting: Indoor; natural | Joe Fresh – Gunmetal

bling up that accent

I really don’t do much nail art. I don’t have the patience for it. Most of the time I paint my nails, I end up nicking the fresh paint on my keyboard. Quick dry may be a god send, but 30 to 60 seconds is really too long for my ADHD self to indulge my nail polish for.

Now don’t quote me on this, but I am fairly sure both the polishes I am about to show you are discontinued/limited edition. I know for sure that the Milani was (somewhat) limited edition; the Orly I’m fairly certain is pretty hard to find (because it took me forever to find >.>).

Orly – Star of Bombay
Collection: Gems | Fall 2008

Milani 3D Holographic – 512 Cyber Space
Collection: Holographic | Late 2009 ~ Early 2010 (I think)

You guessed it! Phone pics again! It’s just easier, okay? Don’t judge. You are lazy too.

Star of Bombay is right up my backend alley. It’s dark, it’s blue, it’s inky, it’s black but not really. It’s deeeeep.

I was on a hunt for it for the longest time and found it in some back stock at a local chain grocery store. I swear retailers keep back stock for billions of years and then bring it out just to make themselves look good to OCD people like me.

Cyberspace is shiny, nice. Blue (a given), though icy in nature, like a frosty dead hottie. I’m a creep, get over it. I really wouldn’t call it  a true holo, but it’s still shiny and memorizing so who care, right?

And I coloured outside the lines! Fuck boundaries!

Now I go make food. =]

Camera: Samsung Galaxy S III | Light: Indoor; artificial | Orly – Star of Bombay | Milani – Cyberspace