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.

Crow Toes Merope

Collection: Pleiades (2012 Winter)

Taupe base with blue/ pink/ red duochrome shimmer and small translucent flakes. I’ve been looking for a blue to red duochrome every since I saw this. Merope definitely fits the bill and the shimmer even has an additional green flash.

Innisfree 103 Autumn Leaves

Collection: Poem (2012 Summer)

Blessed Christmas!

Reddish brown/ orangey gold duochrome foil. The foil particles also have a strong pink flash that’s hard to capture. This is a gorgeous autumn shade but I think it’s a great shade for Christmas too. It’s much prettier in real life though.

I don’t know if all Innisfree polishes have a scent, but this one smells like orange chocolates to me. Some of you might not like the scent – I didn’t initially but my nose is a little sensitive. I found the formula easy to work with after I added some thinner. I do prefer polishes with a thinner consistency because I tend to do medium to thick coats.

I hope you enjoy your Christmas festivities! Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad!

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
Luke 2:11 (NIV)

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• Innisfree 103 Autumn Leaves (3 coats)
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

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)

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 England

I really like the classic white jersey. It’s timeless so I decided to use my new white jelly to create an elegant effect.

England’s home jersey is a very clean white with red accents. The stamp I used makes me think of a lions face – the team’s nickname is Three Lions (look closely at their crest).

I loved how this turned out despite my less-than-perfect stamping. The dots from the stamp didn't appear very well so I used a dotting tool to fill them in. It was raining when I took these shots so the two pictures above are under direct lamplight instead of sunlight.

Thanks for looking!

Polish peels:
• NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
• OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu! (4 coats)
• China Glaze Thunderbird (RA-120) – 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.

Euro 2012 Portugal

Are you a football fan? If you’re not, I hope you’re bear with me during this period of Euro madness!

This is Portugal’s away jersey. It’s definitely one the more weird unique jerseys in this year’s competition. Since I’ve brought up this country, no, I’m not a Cristiano Ronaldo fan. I prefer Lionel Messi ;)

I used striping tape and scotch tape to create the lines. I know the lines are not perfect but I’m rather happy with the results. I would say that it’s an improvement over my previous tape mani here.

Thanks for reading!

Polish peels:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (1 coat)
• Orly Au Champagne (3 coats)
• OPI Jade Is The New Black (1 coat) – index & middle fingers
• Essie First Dance (1 coat) – ring & little fingers
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (1 coat)

All jerseys featured are for illustrative purposes only.