Cirque Bejeweled: Deep Blue Holographic Polish!

Summer is officially here in Singapore (it's really very hot!) and with the heat, means holographic polishes! You guys know how much I love my holos, so I thought I'd show you one more holo that I'm loving right now! This is Cirque Bejeweled. Doesn't it just look so lovely?

Cirque Bejeweled: A deep blue holographic nail polish.

Cirque is one of the indie brands that I've gotten into lately. They're a little pricey, like indies tend to be. I tend to buy my Cirques from either Mei Mei Signatures or Luxola. Between the two, Luxola is more pricey, so if I'm buying from there I only ever wait until they have a 30% or larger discount (at which point the price would be the same as Mei Mei Signatures). Both have free shipping, so it just depends on which site carries the colour I want, and which site has it cheaper.

Butter London Trout Pout: Pinky-Coral and Springy!

Butter London is one of the brands I've become enamoured with lately - despite their hit-and-miss quality, as well as their high prices, there's just something about those cute rectangular bottles, with their pretty colours and cheeky names, that makes me just want a few more shades. And so here is one of my latest Butter London acquisitions, which I think is perfect for whatever warmer Spring weather is coming up - Trout Pout!

Butter London Trout Pout

I happen to be wildly in love with this colour at the moment - it is so perfect for the season, as we look at all the Spring-themed collections and products the various brands are putting out. Just look at that gorgeous colour!


Butter London Trout Pout: A perfect colour for Spring

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.

Chinese New Year Nails: Make Up Store Doreen

Chinese New Year has arrived, but unlike previous years, I haven't managed to do any CNY nail art! But, I didn't let my nails go bare! I painted them with Make Up Store Doreen!

Chinese New Year Nails: Make Up Store Doreen, which I finally decided not to ignore.

Isn't that pretty? I actually bought Doreen a long time ago (gosh, it sounds like I'm buying a person, but I'm not), and used it a couple of times last year, and then forgot about it. But, with Chinese New Year around the corner, I was rummaging through my nail polish stash, and I decided that this beauty needed another go! I mean, CNY is the perfect season for red, right?

Illamasqua Velocity: Pantone Colour of the Year Radiant Orchid-ish Nails!

In a previous post, I've been going through my Pantone Colour of the Year Radiant Orchid makeup items in my stash. And this time round, I'm looking at another nail polish shade - this time it's Illamasqua Velocity!

Illamasqua Velocity: A Pantone Colour of the Year-ish colour!

I already have quite a few Illamasqua nail polishes, but I'm always game for more because the quality is pretty darn good. I've never come across a dud yet, and every Illamasqua nail polish I've tried has been fantastic.

Butter London Jack The Lad: Christmas Green Glitter

This year, I happen to be pretty busy during the Christmas season, so unlike previous years, I didn't get the time to do any Christmas nail art. But, I did manage to squeeze in a little Christmas cheer on my nails! Behold, probably the most Christmassy green ever, Butter London's Jack The Lad!

Butter London Jack The Lad: My Christmas green this year.

Butter London isn't actually a UK-based brand, despite the brand name and the colloquial British names. Butter London is actually based in Seattle, USA, and if you look at their About Us page, you'll notice that also, the top C-suites of the brand are all people from the US, too. It seems like the only vaguely British thing about the brand is that was founded by a British person, Sasha Muir, who now lives in the USA. I've never pointed this out before, but as the brand picks up in popularity, I realized I was coming across people who actually thought it was a British brand (doesn't help that esteemed fashion publications like Elle UK, no less get it wrong, too), and they seem so surprised to think that a US brand could capitalize on the world's Anglophilia. It's not the first time I've seen brands trying to masquerade as coming from another country - if you recall, my post on Elianto cosmetics noted that the Korean stylings of the brand really belied a Malaysian origin.


Butter London Jack The Lad: Just so you know, Butter London isn't actually a British brand.
But let's proceed. Brand image and marketing aside, I've honestly been slower than most nail bloggers to take up Butter London with significant enthusiasm. Part of it is the price. $25 for a nail polish is just not really splurge-friendly - not that it has stopped me from racking up a tiny Butter London stash of my own. The other part of it is the fact that, well, Butter Londons seem to vary highly in quality. Some shades are really excellent, some are four-coats-and-there's-still-VNL kind of less excellent.

Black Cat Lacquer Just Like Honey NOTD: Indie Polishes

As you guys may know from my "OMG I bought nail polish AGAIN" posts on Instagram, I've recently been into indie polishes. I know I'm pretty slow to catch onto the trend, but man, all those darn nail blogs out there just keep making me want to buy myself a few indies so bad! And so finally I did.

Black Cat Lacquer Just Like Honey

For this post, I'm showing you Black Cat Lacquer Just Like Honey. Black Cat Lacquer, as you might guess, is an indie brand of nail polish, and like most indies is only available online. One of the things I really like about indie polishes is that they have the most interesting glitter combinations in bases that are just the right level of opacity/translucence, as well as pretty holos. I bought mine from Mei Mei Signatures, which ships internationally.


Black Cat Lacquer Just Like Honey: A sweet-like-candy colour

Halloween Manicure: Neon Orange, Glitter, and Stripes (aka I recycled an older nail look)

Remember my previous Halloween nails? Well, I decided that they could use a little more something - glitter! So I decided to glitterify them to my heart's delight!

Halloween Manicure: Neon, glitter and stripes!

I happened to buy a bottle of China Glaze Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces from Beauty Asia 2013 earlier this year, so I thought that would do it perfectly for glittering up my existing manicure.


Halloween nails: Neon orange, glitter and stripe designs.
The thing is, I'm not sure if I love the result more than the original. I have mixed feelings about it.

BCA Manicure: Pink and Girly with Illamasqua Loella and Etude House WH901 Cotton Candy Kiss

One of the things I love about nail bloggers is the fact that every year, they do a BCA (breast cancer awareness) initiative in October. This year, it is #polishuspink on Instagram (if you search for the hashtag, you'll see lots of pretty pink manicures from bloggers doing their bit to raise awareness). Since here in Singapore, breast cancer is actually the top cause of deaths in women, I thought another BCA mani wouldn't hurt!

My pink and girly BCA nails this year!

This time around, my mani is a simple one - no nail art, just glitter on top of pink. I had bought the Illamasqua polish in Loella during one of Illamasqua's online sales (the haul post for that is still sitting around in my Drafts folder, oops), and I had also bought the Etude House nail polish, WH901 Cotton Candy Kiss from their Dear My Nails range when my colleague went to Korea (they were cheaper there, and I couldn't resist asking her to get me a few bottles).


BCA manicure: Illamasqua Loella and Etude House WH901

Halloween Nail Art: Neon Orange, Purple and White Stripes

Halloween is coming, and part of the festivity means that a Halloween manicure is a must! This year, I happened to buy a neon orange nail polish, Illamasqua Gamma (which was also featured in a chalkboard manicure tutorial), and as you might expect, I couldn't wait to use it!

Halloween nail art - a very Halloween-y colour scheme!

I combined this with a purple, Illamasqua Baptist, and a white (a random LA Colors white striper, which was last seen in my Easter manicure), and I got this! I've been seeing this stripey design around lately, so I thought, why not try this out with some Halloween colours?


Halloween nail art: orange, purple, and white colours.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Manicure: Pink Gradient Glitter Nails

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I thought I'd do a BCA-themed manicure because breast cancer is actually the 5th top cause of deaths. If you're in the at-risk age group (50 to 74), the best way to detect breast cancer is to get a mammogram once every 2 years. And as with all illnesses, early detection helps!

My BCA manicure that's pink, shimmery, and IMHO, awesome!

DIY Wearable Version of the Super-Embellished Libertine Fall 2013 Nails

So after I went all out and blinged out my nails for my DIY version of the Libertine Fall 2013 look, I decided to try and come up with a more everyday-wear-friendly version of it. Basically, it didn't seem realistic to carry that much rhinestones on my nails, so I thought - what if I replaced them with glitter? And so, I proceeded to see how I could flatten out all the awesome 3D bling into a 2D version, while hopefully keeping the original look! And I eventually came up with this:

NYFW-inspired nail art - a much more wearable version of Libertine's Fall nails!

First, I had to choose the appropriate glitter. I thought of mixing various bits of glitter, but then I got lazy and settled on Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday, which I've previously featured in this post, and as a jelly sandwich! Anyway, I settled on Lippmann Happy Birthday because it had the same multi-coloured, jewel-y effect that the original gemstones had.


A 2D version of Libertine's NYFW 3D nail art, embellished with colourful jewels: here, sequins are used instead.

Libertine Fall 2013-Inspired Nail Art: Gold and Gems (AKA So Much Bling!)

As a total fashion noob, I've never heard of Libertine, but when I saw their nail art for NYFW (New York Fashion Week) Fall 2013, I just KNEW I had to try it. It was gold. It was full of gems. It had bling. And, it didn't require a heck-lot of precision. And look at what I came up with!

Libertine-inspired embellished manicure on gold base with gems!

Isn't it lovely and all blingy and stuff? This might make better sense if I showed you the original, at the runways of NYFW. The polish looks kinda gold-olive-muddy-a-bit-brown here, but it's described as gold (and it looks more gold) in the comments and in some other photos.

Libertine's Embellished manicure at NYFW Fall 2013 (Source)

When I saw this manicure, I thought, hmmm...blingy gems and jewels and stuff over a gold base. I can do this! So I decided to check out my stash of gold polish to see which one looked the most similar to the polish in the photos I was seeing.

Pond Manicure: My First Attempt at a Blue Pond Manicure

Recently, I saw a few pond manicures online, so I thought I'd give the pond manicure a try! For those who need an explanation, a pond manicure basically involves layers of a sheer polish, with designs (dots, flowers, or whatever you want) in between the layers. I'm not sure exactly how the pond manicure got its name, but to me, it's an apt name because the layering of sheer polish gives the designs on your nails the impression of being submerged in a pond. Kinda like they're underwater and you're viewing them from above the water.

My first ever attempt at a Pond Manicure!

For my first ever pond manicure, I decided to use Nicole by OPI Somebody Teal Love. OMG yes I have a Justin Bieber polish, and I bought it from TJMaxx when I was in California for a holiday! I bought it because it was cheap, but after I bought it, I didn't know what to do with it because it was so annoyingly sheer. The level of pigment in the polish was quite non-existent, kinda like Justin Bieber's musical talent, I guess. (Well, I guess since I'm above two decades old, I'm just too old and creaky to appreciate the wondrousness that is his singing.) But aging teen popstar jokes aside, this polish sat unused for a long, long time, because I couldn't bring myself to apply the 4-5 coats that was necessary for full opacity.


Using Nicole by OPI Somebody Teal Love (ugh, really bad name) as the "pond" colour.

China Glaze Swing Baby: Glamorous Gold Nails!

China Glaze Swing Baby is one of the untrieds in my stash. I bought it when it was a brand spanking new colour, and only just got around to wearing it! Swing Baby was a Fall or Winter (quite possible Christmas, in fact) release from 2010, I think. So given that this collection is a few years old, you can imagine that I've had it for a few years and have only just taken it out for a ride! Ah, such are the perils of beauty blogging when you have too much makeup and nail polish.

China Glaze Swing Baby: Look at all that gold on my nails!

Now that I'm wearing it, though, I wish I had taken it out sooner!

Illamasqua Collide: Neon Hot Pink Nails for Summer!

If you're a beauty junkie like me, you'll know that one of the benefits of summer is wearing neon nail polish! I kid you not. I always feel so much more like wearing neon polish when the weather is warmer. And you know what the classic neon to wear on your nails is? That's right, neon pink! It just so happened that I recently bought a bottle of Illamasqua Collide nail polish during the Illamasqua sale, so what better time to bust out this baby and put it on my nails?

Illamsqua Collide Nail Polish: Perfect hot neon pink creme!

As it turns out, Illamasqua Collide was pretty darn neon. Since it's a creme finish, there's no shimmer to detract from its happy brightness. I'm not sure if you can see it in photos, my camera went a little wonky trying to capture the brightness. But in case you don't get the picture from my photos, just feel free to imagine a highlighter kinda pink and you're all set.


Collide is so named because with this on my nails, I'm too busy staring at my nails to notice other people in the street. Just kidding, LOL.

Edamame Nails! AKA China Glaze Westside Warrior

Don't you love it when your nails match your food? What, you mean you've never had that happen to you? :P I had painted my nails with China Glaze Westside Warrior, and also, I happened to have lunch at a Japanese restaurant. And one of the things we had was edamame! Yummy, yummy edamame! And I couldn't help snapping this photo with my iPhone, resulting in crappy iPhone quality pic I'm now sharing with you.

Look, my nails match my food!

Yellow Nails: I Actually Lurve Them! (AKA NOTD With Etude House Glittering Bloom Yellow)

Summer is coming, and all the brands are starting to put out their summer collections, and my nails are officially yellow! This is actually a really rare thing for me. If there are any longtime readers of my blog (love, love, love you guys!), you may vaguely remember that a long, long time ago, I had actually painted my nails yellow before, and I couldn't actually quite make up my mind as to whether I liked it or not. So I painted it that once, decided that maybe it wasn't really my cup of tea, and then I never wore it again. Or at least, I thought I would. You can see how that one turned out!

St Patrick's Day Gold and Green Gradient Manicure!

St Patrick's Day is coming up, and I always love any excuse to wear green! This time, for my St Patrick's Day nails, I decided to attempt a gradient manicure - sideways!

For this look I used three shades - a darker green, a lighter green, and a gold. The darker green was Etude House Petit Darling Nails GR609, the lighter colour was Nicole by OPI One Time Lime (OMG Yes I actually own a Justin Bieber polish! Well it was on sale and I was in the US on holiday...), and the gold was Collection 2000 (now known as Collection Cosmetics) Aztec Gold (which I really love and have worn before as an NOTD by itself).

My Blingly-est Chinese New Year Nails Yet!

Chinese New Year is coming (coincidentally this year it falls close to Valentine's Day), and over here, the celebrations get unabashedly loud and festive! You name it, we've got it - red clothes, red packets, blasts of festive Chinese music, stuffing yourself with food, cleaning out houses, buying new clothes, mad rushing to visit other people's houses - we do it all!

Anyway, I just had to join in the festivities via some nail art! Compared to my previous CNY (Chinese New Year - yes it's now acronym-ized!) nail art, this is definitely the most blinged out! The extent of my previous CNY manis involved freehand nail art and pearls, or konad stamping, or glitter gradients. But none have much glitter as this one!

For this, I used a base of Sally Hansen Diamonds and Rubies, and then I did two stripes of China Glaze Hi-Tek by hand, to "frame" the star rhinestones I'd be adding on later. Then, to bling it up, I added a coat of Models Own Disco Inferno. And then, to bling it up even more, I added on the orange stars in between the striped gold lines. I added three per nail, except for the last nail, where I could only cram two stars.


I really liked Sally Hansen Diamonds and Rubies as a base colour, since it was nicely pigmented - what you see was just one coat! Models Own Disco Inferno has gold, orange, and green glitter bits in various shapes and sizes, so all the colours were perfect for Chinese New Year! You know what the colours in this CNY NOTD remind me of? Yusheng (or lo hei)! (For those of you not reading from Asia, Wikipedia has an article on yusheng which will get you up to speed pronto!) I mean, yusheng has all of the colours in my mani, right? I mean, just look at yusheng:

Source: Wikipedia
And now look at my mani. I do think they match, colour-wise :)


This is by far the most glitter-infused CNY mani I've done to date, and I'm excited to show this off! Anyone else doing any manis for Chinese New Year?