Beauty Asia 2014 Haul: Hakuhodo Brush and Nail Polish!

Beauty Asia 2014 was held for 3 days in February last week, and I am excited to say, since it was in a central area, I managed to head down during my lunch break to take a look! And of course, I couldn't resist hauling! This time, unfortunately, unlike last year, I missed the guided tour meant for press and media, so I guess I'll just focus on the hauls that I had this year!

One of the highlights of Beauty Asia 2014: Hakuhodo brushes!

Duochrome Flakie Nail Polish Swatches: Born Pretty Store Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Polish

I love my duochromes, and I love my flakie glitter, and recently, I found a source of awesome nail polish that is a duochrome flakie! And the best part is? It's not overly expensive, either.

Born Pretty Store duochrome flakie nail polishes!

These little bottles of awesome are the Born Pretty Store Dazzling Starry Magical Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Art Polish, (and, by the way, you can use code MCAW10 for 10% off your order). I had two colours, #4 and #11, so I figured I'll show you guys how they fared on me. These are fairly sheer, and I think they perform best over a base, although you can certainly layer them at 2-3 coats for opacity.

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Atomic Brain: Pantone Radiant Orchid with Duochrome!

Since my last post on stuff in my stash that was similar to Radiant Orchid, Pantone's Colour of the Year for 2014, I've decided that I should bust out some of those products and actually use them!

Pretty Serious Cosmetics Atomic Brain: Look at all that duochrome!

One of these is part of my slow downward spiral as I continue to throw the contents of my wallet into this black hole called "indie nail polishes", but my, oh my, the spiral sure is pretty! For today's example, let's take a look at Pretty Serious Cosmetic's Atomic Brain. Isn't it so pretty?

Cirque Epoch Review and Swatch: Deep, dark duochrome nail polish!

As I might have mentioned in a previous NOTD (nail of the day) post, yes I am absolutely into indie nail polish right now! One of the brands I've been trying out is Cirque (and if you've seen some of my Instagram posts you'll see some of those bottle shots and NOTDS already), and the polish I wanted to show you today is Cirque Epoch! I bought these online from Luxola when they were having a sale (although I rarely buy from them now - they're kind of overpriced compared to alternatives such as Mei Mei Signatures).

Cirque Epoch: Here it looks forest green, but the duochrome becomes more apparent in different lights and angles.

Cirque Epoch is a forest green glass-fleck-ish polish, mostly, but it does have very lovely duochrome in the right lights. I get blue and purple from it. It's this flash of other colours that made me swoon for this polish. I had to work pretty darn hard to capture the duochrome, because the lighting and my camera just weren't cooperating with me. I have no idea how those other nail bloggers do it, but darn they are good.

Summer At The Pool Duochome Layering NOTD: Sally Hansen HD Duochromes

After using Sally Hansen HD Polish in DVD for my previous mani, I got inspired and felt like layering further. So this time, I added Sally Hansen Byte, and this is what I got.

For those who need a recap, I used Nails Inc Belgrave Street as the base, and then layered Sally Hansen DVD and Byte, in that order.


I loved the previous mani, and I love this one too! I'm not sure if you can really see the difference between this mani and my previous mani in these pics, but there is a difference that is visible in person. DVD (blue reflects with a pink tinge in a clear base) already has a slight pink flash, but I feel like layering Byte (pink reflects in a clear base) on top really makes the pink pop, and brings it from being a blue that flashes pink to an actual duochrome. Awesome.


Anyway, I wore this mani to work, and when my mani flashed and twinkled in the sunlight during lunch (the effect is less obvious indoors due to the lighting), my colleagues claimed that my nails were "distracting". I was secretly happy.

I also went to the pool, on the pretext of getting some exercise (I was really just cocered by my sister into accompanying her), and then I noticed that in the water, my nails were absolutely twinkling and blinging in the water. So here you go: poolside photos, not of me in a bikini ('cause a model I ain't) but of my nails all prettied up.


It was hard to take these photos, by the way. The majority of them kept coming out blur. These were the best of the bunch. It was a pity, it really was. The blue pool would've made such an awesome backdrop for the nail colour...


Anyway, this has gotta be one of my favourite manis, since I love duochromes. Anyone else rocking a duochrome for the summer?