Christmas Mani #2

   I would've wanted to put in as much effort in my second Christmas mani as in my first one, but I didn't have much time. I've also been so exhausted lately, so for my second Christmas mani I chose to keep it simple: two coats of The Face Shop RD 301 and two coats of 24K Crystal Teal Glass (the flakies one. Yes, apparently it has a name).

   And this is the result.

 

   This is with flash:

   With flash it doesn't look so Christmas-y, as the flakes become orange and gold, making it look more like a Chinese New Year mani than a Christmas mani. Actually, even without the flash it doesn't look so Christmas-y to me either, since the flakes flash blue and green instead of just green.

   But it doesn't matter. It's cheery enough for me :)

Christmas In Our Hearts and On My Nails

   I don't know about you, but these past few years, Christmas has ceased to excite me. Like any kid, I used to be so excited about Christmas - wrapping presents, getting presents, staying up for Santa, setting up the tree, etc. But now that I'm an adult, Christmas countdowns make me feel claustrophobic, carols make me want to throw up... you get the picture. The only thing I've been excited about is receiving my Christmas bonus.

   But I guess, now that there's a child in our home, Christmas is festive and bright again, something to look forward to. And you know I'm excited about something when I dress my nails for it.

   Ta-dah! My first Christmas mani!

   It doesn't look so nice and Christmas-y in the picture and it's just so frustrating being unable to capture its Christmassyness. It looks like a kindergartner drew red and green vertical stripes across my nails. But in person, I swear to Santa Claus, it looks like Christmas wrapping paper.

   I started by applying 24K Winter Sky as the base; it just doesn't show. I should have done three coats, methinks.

no flash

with flash

   And then the stripes with these babies. They're some brand-less polishes I picked up in Divisoria. Though the colors weren't so appealing, I couldn't resist trying out new polish, and at 4Php each, I didn't really lose anything. Plus, seriously, they looked like little babies in an orphanage just crying out to be adopted. So I did.

   The green polish looks more teal-ish here.

   And finally, 24K flakies that flash green and gold, which I could never capture. I tried but they just wouldn't appear on camera. 

 
   This is just the first Christmas mani. There will be more, especially since Christmas vacay is just two weeks away! You have been warned! haha :))

   (I do admit this first Christmas mani kinda sucks. haha :)) Oh well. :)

(Edit: my students and a colleague told me they actually liked my nails. That's surprising considering I thought my first attempt at doing a Christmas mani sucked. Yay for trying!)

My Stash So Far

 Think this is a lot?

Think again. This is only half of a container. I'm not yet that much of a polish addict, but I'm getting there.

 

 

NYX Sexy Plum + Dorothy

   After the Tinkerbell disaster, I just wanted to slap on some cream polish on my nails and be done with it. Frost, shimmer and glitter polishes are a bitch to remove. Then I realized I didn't have many cream polishes, and I don't feel like wearing the ones I did have. In any case, these days I haven't been able to leave my polishes alone; I always feel the need to add some glitter polish or do nail art.

   So I wore this instead. NYX Sexy Plum (aka eggplant nails) + NYX Dorothy.

   I have a confession to make though. Pictured above is how my nails look right now, after I retouched them. But this morning, my nails looked like this.

aka morning-after nails?

    Yes, I have a bad habit of doing my nails right before I sleep, or at most, an hour before. So in the morning I always end up with hair-and-bedsheet-marked nails. I can't help it, doing my nails relaxes me and helps me fall asleep at night. Sigh. Time to break bad habits.

 

Tinkerbell-inspired Mani aka Nail Art Fail

   The other day I was more stressed than ever (I'm not exaggerating. I've been so stressed I broke out in hives, which made me stress out more. I'm on steroids as I write this. And on top of that, I'm not allowed to eat processed food, chocolate, cured meat, which are basically what I live on, so I'm even more stressed now.), and as you can all guess, Keep Calm and Paint Your Nails is the motto I live by.

   So I did. And as I was feeling more stressed than normal, I dared to do nail art. Initially I wanted to do a Christmas mani even though these past few years Christmas just always succeeds in stressing me out (there's the S word again.). Anyway, I didn't have the right colors - I don't have the right shade of Christmas green although I did buy recently Winter Sky by 24K, a sheer white frost with gold shimmer.

   And then I saw this gold Konad polish (I'll post about "my" Konads soon) and this olive green frost with gold shimmer by Kelly, and I got an idea.

   I came up with this.

   I know, I'm sorry. I hope your eyes are insured. I didn't take it off right away because I was still trying to decide whether I liked it or not, but my mom decided for me. "It's ugly! Ugly! Take it off! Your nails look dirty!" she insisted.

   I wanted to make it look all wood nymph-y or Tinkerbell-y but my nails ended up looking like a fairy climbed out of a moss-covered well with her nails. Moss would've been good actually, but this looks like pus. Like fairy nails but with some sort of an infection. I should've stopped with the gold polish, I think.

OPI Grape Set Match

   I finally got to wear OPI Grape Set Match from the Serena Williams Collection. I know I said I'd wear last week's Pink Wednesday mani for a week, but I got bored with it. Plus I was getting really stressed out with work and I know I'm stressed out when I get this urge to paint my nails. Seriously. Last semester, during hell week for teachers (aka the one, two weeks before finals week) I was daydreaming of painting my nails while teaching in class.

   So anyway, here it is finally. And I'm glad I chose to change into this color. Looking at it makes me happy.

   The first picture was taken at a weird angle, I know, but it's just so hard to capture its shine and color because of all the micro glitter. 

  The photos were taken right after I applied the polish. Look at it; hardly any mess to clean after. I thank OPI's idiot-proof brush. (Except that little smudge on my palm. Ok, maybe not so idiot-proof)

   This color is just so happy and lively it makes me want to bust a move every time I look at my nails. I don't know if it's because dark purples go so well with my skin tone or if Grape Set Match is simply fabulous in itself.

Pink Wednesday - Stamp Succes!

It's still Wednesday in other parts of the worlds so this still counts, right?

No, you're not dreaming, those are really MY nails and yes, I used stamp art on them, and yes, I did it MYSELF. I just have to emphasize that because it's a fact that I suck at art. I am conquering my art-idiot self!

It's still far from perfect, but they do look pretty decent for a stamping newbie. And I'm so proud of it I think I'll wear it for a week!

I was hoping to use as base a pink polish that looks more pink than the one I have on - San San Tea Rose. But it was the only pink I have that's light enough to make the black (Calar) stand out. For the stamp I used Konad stamping plate S9.

I wasn't really planning to do a Pink Wednesday mani since I've been so busy these days, but the mani I had on chipped so I was forced to change it, so I thought, I might as well do a Pink Wed.

This was what I was wearing:

This is obviously the practice mani.

And I was so nervous at first. I was planning to stamp just the nails on my left hand but after seeing and liking the result, I got the courage to do my right hand as well. And it looked even better, I think.

Left hand

Right hand

I'm right-handed so it's really surprising that my left hand exceeded expectations. Maybe I'm like Rafael Nadal when it comes to nails - writes with right hand, kicks ass with left hand. Or maybe I was just lucky. I think it's the latter. :)