Mosaic nail art with Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle

Had been a busy week, so much so that even though my previous mani was pretty chipped, I simply had no time to change it :( But anyway, at least I managed to do this one during weekend.

Base is a shamrock green - Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle, the yellow is Bourjois Jaune Trendy and blue is Essence Date in the Moonlight. I applied Essie As Gold As It Gets on the green as well. The white lines are using acrylic paint. I always wanted to try out a mosaic design but gosh, I wanted to give up after the first nail (ring finger), haha.... But I persevered and really liked the result (^_^), even though the lines are not crisp.

Click read more for plain swatches of Vert Chlorophylle.

Cherry blossoms / sakura flowers on China Glaze Hello Gorgeous and Essence English Rose

When I discovered the cherry blossoms stamp on BM313 in my previous post, I decided I just had to do a proper cherry blossoms theme mani the next time, and China Glaze Hello Gorgeous and Essence English Rose were the perfect base for it ;) 

I first painted on the branches with acrylic paint, then stamped on the sakura flowers with Konad White. After that, I added OPI Pedal Faster Suzi to the centre of the flowers and dotted white paint around them. 

This is definitely one of my favourites, so I probably wouldn't be posting the next few days as I will keep them on as long as I can :p

A few more pics below cos I like them so much....haha

Thanks for viewing!

China Glaze Hello Gorgeous and Essence English Rose stamped with Color Club Miss Bliss

China Glaze Hello Gorgeous and Essence English Rose were applied alternately in this mani, along with stamping with Color Club Miss Bliss with BM203.

China Glaze Hello Gorgeous is well named as it is indeed gorgeous :p It is dense light pink and holographic glitter polish and above is 2 coats. It dries to a matte finish and even though I put a top coat, I can still feel the texture.

Essence English Rose is a medium rose pink creme and I was a little worried it will look oldish, but I ended up liking it quite a lot :) It is pretty opaque, one coat could almost conceal the nail line and 2 coats were definitely enough.

Although Miss Bliss was a little thin, the stamp came out quite clearly and I thought that it helped English Rose to match Hello Gorgeous a bit better. My left hand is not shown here as the polish was not quite dry and my stamping created creases :( 

Update: You can see it with nail art here :p

Below is without stamping and top coat.

Thanks for viewing!

Essence Destination Sunshine and A Lovely Secret with flowers

The reason why I did this mani was because I saw the NARS Pierre Hardy Sharks Nail Polish Duo on Makeup and Beauty Blog and really liked the yellow-lavender pair :) But I figured I should have similar colors in my stash and decided to use them together. 

Base is 2 coats of Essence Destination Sunshine and I dotted white polish for the flowers before adding the lavender dots with Essence A Lovely Secret as flowers and in the spaces in between. I still need more practice with dotting but I like the spring-like look of this mani :)

Pls click read more for plain swatch of Essence Destination Sunshine.

Essence Home Sweet Home blushes - Knits for chicks and Wool-d you cuddle me

This is my first non-nail related post and that's because when I saw the Essence Home Sweet Home collection, amazingly I walked away with NO polish and 2 blushes instead :p Above left is Knits for chicks and right is Wool-d you cuddle me

Below is a shot with natural light. Thought the sweater imprint was pretty cute :)

Please click read more for swatches.

Blue Japanese-like print with Essence Let's get lost, You belong to me, Glisten up

Yesterday I put on Essence Date in the moonlight and I wanted to do some nail art on it, so I ended up painting this gradient Japanese-like print that I saw from a magazine on my middle and ring fingers. The strokes are kinda messy but my freehand skills unfortunately are really only at that level :p

The index and pinky I tried doing the saran wrap technique for the first time, but I guess I should have dabbed off more of the add-on color and waited for the first layer to dry before putting the second (>.<)

Anyway, polishes used were from left, Essence Let's get lost, You belong to me and Glisten up. Glisten up is a very lightly tinted polish with turquoise blue flakies and glitter, and really pretty over the blues :)

Thanks for viewing!

Essence Date in the moonlight and Ludurana Flocado

Above is 2 coats of Essence Date in the moonlight and 1 coat of Ludurana Flocado. Flocado has green and blue flakies suspended in a greyish base and I like it as a topper over dark blue shades.

Date in the moonlight looked dark grey with tiny blue glitters in the shade but looks more blue under the sun (see below). It applies quite smoothly and 2 medium coats were enough to cover the nail line.

That's all for today....will show them with some nail art in the next post.

Thanks for viewing!

Essence Oh My Glitter and OPI Polka.com

Essence Oh My Glitter is a pretty purple polish with pink/blue shimmers and I immediately wanted to top it with OPI Polka.com which has similar pink and blue glitter. I put on 2 coats of Oh My Glitter (index has 3) and 1 coat of Polka.com. Polka.com is really a great glitter polish, no need to fish for the glitter and they spread out easily :)

Pls click read more for plain swatches of Oh My Glitter.

BYS Magenta stamped with Sally Hansen Pink Satin & China Glaze Passion

This is BYS Magenta (one of the color changing series), topped with Essie As Gold As It Gets (which is sadly not apparent here), stamped with Sally Hansen Pink Satin + BM206 and China Glaze Passion + BM313 and mattified with Rimmel.

I tried this polish out as I figured my nails were long enough to possibly see some gradient as the tips would be cooler in temperature. Please click read more if you want to see more pics of Magenta and my review.

Essence Ballerina's Charm vs Orly You're Blushing comparison

When I was deciding on whether to get Essence Ballerina's Charm, I was a little hesitant as I recalled Orly You're Blushing is a dusty purple as well and was wondering if they were too close to have both of them.

I took a chance and I'm glad to conclude that they are not dupes. Ballerina's Charm (left) is lighter and cooler, with tiny silver shimmers. While You're Blushing (right) is darker, slightly taupe-ish and no shimmers.

Hope to have helped if you had the same question in your head ;)

Thanks for viewing!

Bourjois Jaune Trendy vs Essence Little Miss Sunrise comparison

After the struggle to capture the color of Bourjois Jaune Trendy, thought I would put a side by side comparison with a true orangey yellow, Essence Little Miss Sunrise.

Doesn't Jaune Trendy look more mustard yellow like that, as compared to when it's on its own? :p

Below is a side by side shot. Feel that Jaune Trendy is more toned down and still wearable to office (if the environment is not too strict), while Little Miss Sunrise is brighter and more in your face.

In any case, they are not dupes and although I didn't think I was a fan of yellow/orange polishes, I really enjoyed wearing them :)

Thanks for viewing!

Essence Iced Latte stamped with China Glaze Awaken BM315 and mattified with Rimmel

I previously did Essence Iced Latte stamped with China Glaze Awaken here and thought they went well together so tried it again. Actually I chose a floral image from BM215 but it turned out quite badly as the flowers were positioned at the sides and got cut off so I ended up with random looking bits of grey everywhere. Didn't take a pic but below was what was roughly what I saw on my nails :(

Anyway, I had to clean it off (luckily I had top coated before that so I didn't have to redo the base coat) and I chose a simpler image in BM315. Simpler in terms of design but not in terms of stamping (>.<) As you can see, I had difficulty in aligning it straight and getting the lines imprinted clearly. But generally if you don't look closely, it is fine :p

At the end, I added Rimmel Mattifying Top Coat to get a soft look.

Click read more for plain swatches of Essence Ice Latte

Bourjois Jaune Trendy with abstract dandelions

Here is Bourjois Jaune Trendy, a mustard yellow, which appears orangey yellow here but I can't capture the right shade or color-correct no matter how I tried! (-_-)" Think I might have to try to get a picture in the sun to see if I can get it right.

Update: Tried another shot in indirect sunlight, it is a bit light but the color is more accurate.

Color Club Eternal Beauty on Essence Ballerina's Charm

Remember my DIY colored nail strips on nude polish previously? I mentioned that I wanted to cut out patterns and apply them so here is another try with Color Club Eternal Beauty! :)

Base is 2 coats of Essence Ballerina's Charm, a dusty lavender with silver shimmer, very pretty and work friendly. See below for plain swatch.

Click read more if you want to see how I did the mani :)