Essie Bordeaux

Rich maroon jelly. Maroon, defined as a brownish crimson shade, is the perfect description of red Bordeaux wine (also known as Claret). It looks brighter on the nail (compared to the bottle), but it deepens in low lighting. It’s still looks red, just deeper and sexier.

The formula has a tendency to be patchy. Be sure to give it a few more minutes between coats and to paint with a light hand. I prefer doing three coats to bring out the richness of the jelly.

Doesn’t this look gorgeous? It was taken directly under a fluorescent daylight bulb. It’s distinctly darker because it was taken at night. While it may be lighter in daylight, it certainly matches the bottle color here. I think it looks beautiful either way.

Thanks for looking!

Polish Days: 7 Deadly Sins

This month’s theme is the 7 deadly sins – envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath. I confess to having committed all of them before, some more than others. Instead of any specific sin, I was inspired to do a blood splatter. Because it was blood that washed my sins away.

Polish Days: Back to Nature

Where I live – near the equator – the weather can be simply labeled as either rainy or sunny. We don’t have four distinct seasons, but there are two monsoon seasons: December to March, and June to September.

My nails were inspired by the cloudy skies of the monsoon season. The blue and white show off a bright but cloudy day we often get during this month. It gets pretty windy too so I tried to make the clouds appear as though they were moving.

Essence Dotted Fish Tails

I did this manicure for the Essence Nailed It! Nail art competition. I admit, it’s not my best and it looks thick because of all the layers. Still, I like how the colors look together. If possible, please vote for my design by liking it on Facebook (:

I started out with the dots – I didn’t really have an idea in mind, I just wanted to practice the technique. It turned out rather pretty so I kept it. Then I searched the web for simple nail art ideas and settled on the fish tail for the rest of my nails.

Take at look at the other entries here. If you like my design, please vote for me by liking my picture, thanks!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• Essence Walk Of Fame (2 coats)
• Essence Irreplaceable (2 coats) – dotted on index finger
• Essence A Lovely Secret (2 coats)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

Essie Sag Harbor

Collection: North Fork (2009 Summer)

Greyed powder blue with silver pearl shimmer. As mentioned in Polish Days: Sentimental, this was my very first salon brand I ever bought. I love how the fine shimmer creates a pearly but non-frosty effect.

My bottle has a lot of mileage on it and had thickened over time. A bit of thinner solved that so I had no issues whatsoever. As one of my first loves, I dread the day I will finish the bottle. Luckily, China Glaze Sea Spray and L’oreal High Tide are both extremely close enough to be call dupes.

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Essie Sag Harbor (2 coats)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

Polish Days: Sentimental

This month’s Polish Days theme is sentimental so I decided to dig out two of my oldest polishes to create a manicure. Yes, two. If you can’t see both polishes in my picture above, fret not. Because my second shade is a sheer stamp over my base – it’s real subtle in person too.

Polish Days: Geometry

I’m so excited to be participating in my first Polish Days! It’s an event organized by Hannah for bloggers to post a themed mani simultaneously across the world.

Essie Lapis Of Luxury & Orly Snowcone

While both polishes are in the cornflower blue category, Lapis Of Luxury has a bit more periwinkle. It’s not so obvious in the picture above but definitely noticeable in person (as shown in the sunlight shots below).

Unless you have a soft spot for cornflower blues, I’d say you don’t need both. I’m keeping them both because Snowcone is great as an opaque cream but I do love my squishy polishes too!

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• Essie Lapis Of Luxury (3 coats) – index and ring fingers
• Orly Snowcone (1 coat) – middle and little fingers

Happy 47th Singapore!

Singapore celebrates her birthday today! Over here, we always have a parade with lots of marching, performances and fireworks. The fireworks are a real treat as it’s illegal to set them here bar exceptions like these.

I knew that drawing stars and a crescent was out of my league so I didn’t try. I wanted a soft white (instead of stark) and a dark red (instead of bright) so it’s what I used. Then I spied Dorothy and just had to put her on my thumbs!

(Please ignore the retarded claw pose) Did you manage to see the holo? Thanks for looking and have a great National Day!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
Index / Middle
• OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu! (4 coats)
• Spectraflair Top Coat (2 coats)
• Cult Nails Wicked Fast (1 coat)
Ring / Little
• Essie Bordeaux (3 coats)
• Ozotic 518 (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)
Thumb
• Essie Bordeaux (2 coats)
• NYX Girls Dorothy(1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

Essie Lapis Of Luxury

Collection: Resort (2010 Summer)

Periwinkle cornflower blue jelly-cream hybrid (crelly). I hesitated on getting this for the longest time, thinking that Orly Snowcone was a dupe. But when finally put it on, I loved it!

Although this takes three coats to even out the streakiness, I didn't mind at all. Look at that shine! It also levels out pretty well as no top coat was used in the pictures.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• Essie Lapis Of Luxury (3 coats)

Euro 2012 Germany

This is a simple design that I used a striping brush to do. I did manage to make the lines pretty straight but my yellow polish applied too thickly, causing an uneven bump even after I put on top coat.

This is the German’s home kit. I do like white kits because there’s just something elegant about the color. As for the team, I was disappointed when they were knocked out at the semis. I really thought that a final between Spain and them would have been great, but alas, it wasn't to be.

The weather over here has been rather finicky, so I settled on some lamp light shots. I'm sure you’re seen this white shimmer in sunlight a couple of times anyway.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Konad Special Polish Black (1 coat) – ring finger
• Essie First Dance (1 coat) – ring finger
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz (1 coat) – ring finger
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Czech Republic

Another subtle stamping – this time metallic on a crelly (cream + jelly) with an accent nail.

The Czech’s have what it seems to be a plain red home jersey with a short blue strip at the left shoulder. But upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that the top diagonal area has a faint checkered pattern.

My stamping wasn't quite up to standard this time. Luckily, one of the advantages of subtle stamping is that the mistakes are not very obvious.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Essie First Dance (2 coats)
• China Glaze Thunderbird (RA-103)
• Michelle M31 (2 coats) – ring finger
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Russia

This one’s a simple design: red nails with the flag colors as an accent nail.

When I first saw Russia’s home jersey, I thought the diagonal strip was just white and blue. Only after closer inspection then I realized that it was tricolored.

The accent nail gave me a bit of trouble because I painted the blue as the base color. The red was too jelly-like; resulting in a maroon like shade. The white section became too thick as it needed three coats to become opaque.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• Essie First Dance (2 coats)
• Michelle M31 (2 coats) – ring finger
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats) – ring finger
• Essie First Dance (3 coats) – ring finger
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Poland

Another red-white combination. It’s the easiest design in my opinion, so I decided to freehand the lines. The lines could be straighter and the red polish less thick – I guess I need more practice with the striper brush.

Poland is one of the two co-hosts this year. Their home jersey is rather simple and leaves me uninspired.

I really hope you guys haven’t been bored looking at the same polishes in the last few posts. As I mentioned earlier, I only have one white polish. I do love the shimmer and the fast drying time, it’s great! I’ll do a proper post on it in the future!

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Croatia

Checkered patterns! This is another one of my first attempts and I think I’m starting to get better at these tape manicures!

This is Croatia’s home jersey. I actually don’t like the red-white and blue-white color schemes on clothes. It looks a tablecloth or picnic mat!

I do love looking at them on nails though! I know it’s possible to do more squares but I like the symmetry of just four squares.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Denmark

This is my first time trying a ruffian manicure. I think I did a decent job as the lines are pretty clean. The bald spots were more of an application error than a problem with the polish itself.

Denmark is the other team that didn’t survive the group of death (together with The Netherlands). I think the matte/shiny stripes on the home jersey look rather cool. I don’t have matte/shiny stripes (a good idea to try in the future) but I have the non-matte version of my manicure.

These pictures were taken before the matte top coat was applied. The white polish used dries into a satin finish which is clearly different from the shiny finish of the red polish. The different finishes are definitely more obvious in real life!

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• Essie First Dance (2 coats)
• China Glaze Matte Magic Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.

Euro 2012 Netherlands

I’m quite sad that the Netherlands are out of the running already. They have a good range of talented players but it just didn’t translate into a good team.

Also known as Oranje, it’s no surprise that the home jersey is the same eye-catching shade. Did you know the top red band of the current flag was originally orange?

I have very little experience with freehand drawing so I used tape to create the crisp lines. I know my color choices are not the same as the jersey shows orange (red-toned) accents on an orange (yellow-toned) base. Since I only had one orange cream, I used red as an accent instead.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• OPI A Roll In The Hague (2 coats)
• Essie First Dance (1 coat)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.