Chinese New Year Nails

Happy New Year Everyone! This is the year of the Horse and I was SO excited about it that I decided to pay tribute with my nails =)

I put a gold horse on my right pinky and a red horse on my left pinky. Red is good luck for me this year, along with purple and green. I am supposed to stay away from blue this year as it is bad luck... I have to figure out what to do without my blue jeans this year. That's going to be tough. Does that mean I have to dress up everyday this year? I hope not... Anyways back to the nails. The red on top of the gold came out nice but it was hard to see the gold on top of the red. I won't be repurchasing the Konad gold special nail polish. Also as a special note, I haven't been able to put a top coat (the brushing kind) over the nails with the pictures without it smearing. I've even tried it on the second day and it will still smear. What has worked are the top coats that are drops you squeeze onto your nails. I feel like they are not the same as the ones you brush on. But it might be just in my head. Here are the nail polishes I used.

From left to right.
1. butter london's nail foundation is the best looking basecoat I've ever used. Sometimes I'll just wear it because it just makes your nails look so nice in a natural way. It hides surface imperfections like vertical ridges.

2. is the gold Konad special nail polish. I don't like it. It's watery and I will not repurchase. I was hoping so much that the gold would stand out against the red but it didn't =( Lucky for me I only bought a sample size bottle.

3. OPI's An Affair in Red Square. I would describe this polish as a candy apple red bordering metallic- it's a really nice red red, not orangey red- I'm not a fan of those.

4. essie's Shift Power is a watery gold when it's in the bottle but not bad when you put in on your nail. 2 coats will make it pretty solid, 3 is the best. Would I repurchase? Probably not until I've tried other brands.

5. Konad's wine red special nail polish. I likey =) I've used this also for my minion nails post and will
probably use it in other posts. Will definitely repurchase when I run out.

6. OPI's The Impossible, from the Mariah Carey line is pretty cool. I didn't like it alone though. Even two coats, it was more pink than red. I expected it to be more like the bottle which is a nice red. However I made it work with putting An Affair in Red Square underneath. I am happy with the red that came out. I put this liquid sand polish on my left ring finger.

7. Holika Holika's gold glitter nail polish coming all the way from Korea! I had purchased this when I went to Korea many moons ago (but still feels like yesterday). This was way before all the (hard core- not) glitter polishes came out in the states, before crackle was born. I really like this polish. The glitter comes out nice and thick. I would describe the polish texture not as rough as liquid sand but it's definitely not flat as I hope you can tell from the pix. I put this one my ring finger on my right hand.

These are the nail plates I used, all by Konad plus the scraper and stamper

From left to right, top to bottom.
m66 (on my left thumb), s5 (on my pinkies), s9 (on my left pointer, left middle finger, and right middle finger), m23 (on my right thumb and right pointer).

P.S. If you notice there is actually a chinese character on my right pointer. It means bright, so hopefully this year will be a bright one for me =)

Hope you enjoyed my post. If you have any questions feel free to leave it in the comments. Let me know if you did anything special/ creative for this special holiday.

     

Allure- October 2013, Must Try These Products!

Allure is my absolute FAVORITE magazine and I know I'm behind on my reading but so what?! haha This is my must check out list from their October 2013 issue.

Tinted Lip Balm

• Loreal Color Riche Balm in Rose Elixir (I usually don’t like my balms or lip moisturizers to have color but this one just sounds too good not to.

-      Lip Balm Nivea 

• Lip Butter Smooth Kiss

Styling product

•  Carol’s daughter hair milk leave- in moisturizer

• Redkin Curvaceous Full Swirl (already purchased, will review when I try it)

Foundation

• Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua Ultra- light Skin Perfecting Make-up

• Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup Compact (I’ve already tried their Silk Foundation and it really is THE BEST foundation I have tried so far! So this one is a no brainer, I just hope it doesn’t disappoint since Silk Foundation raised the bar so high for me.)

Body Wash

• Neutrogena Body Clear Pink Grapefruit (I LOVE the smell of grapefruits!)

Nail Polish

• Clinique, a different nail Enamel in Black Honey

Cuticle Cream

• Essie’s Apricot Oil (swiped from my niece!)

Mask

• Murad Clarifying Mask

• Burt’s Bees Intense Hydration Treatment Mask

• Freeman Charcoal & Black Sugar Facial Polishing Mask

Deodorant

• Lavanilla the Healthy Deodorant

That’s my list. Have you tried any of these or something else you might recommend? Also if anyone can recommend a GOOD 2" curling iron, please leave it in the comments. Thanks!

Minion Nails

This post is dedicated to !Cassiebella!, who has inspired me to post again =) Happy New Year girl, this posts for you. I hope you like it!

So I was at a diner and I noticed my waitress had some yellow chipped nail polish Her hands were moving so fast I couldn't tell what she had on them but I could see it was more than just yellow nail polish.  Then I saw the cyclops eye and I knew it was a minion! I asked her and she confirmed it. I thought it was such a cute idea that I had to try it.

These are the polishes I used.

1.     Sally Hansen's Triple Strong Strengthener as a basecoat.

2.     Zoya's nail polish in Creamy. Btw- Zoya is giving 3 nail polishes away for free from January 7-13, 2014 (But you have to pay for shipping and handling, it's $12 but if you do the math- the polishes come out to be $4 each and that's still a good deal!! Here's the link http://www.zoya.com/content/category/something_big_is_coming.html and the code is COLOR2014. Please share with me what colors you ordered =)

3.     Konad's Special Nail Polish in Black.

4.     Island Girl Nail Art Pen and Brush. It's dual sided.

5.     OPI's Yoga Ta Get This Blue.

6.     Konad's Special Nail Polish in Wine (for the heart).

7.     I also used Konad's letter nail plates. M17 and M18 http://www.konadnailart.com/contents/en-us/d13_konad_image_plate_01.html

It was a lot of work but fun. Let me know if you try this or some other fun design or if you have any questions or comments. Happy polishing =)