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!)

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.

Trick or Treat!

   Happy Halloween! My niece went trick-or-treating for the first time yesterday. It's only the 22nd, I know, but the homeowners association of my grandma's village scheduled it yesterday.  Maybe because Filipinos go back to their hometowns and thus are away on Halloween? Or maybe so that the children can go trick-or-treating in other villages on Halloween itself?

greedy brats

   Whatever. This just means I can celebrate Halloween twice. And by celebrate I mean wear two different Halloween manis!

Spot the awesome Halloween mani!

   For my first Halloween mani, I used the black Calar polish I bought in Bangkok last week as the base for all of my nails except for the ring fingernail. And I must say I am impressed. When I go back to Bangkok I'll definitely buy more Calar polishes.

So how do you pronounce "Calar"?

    And for my ring fingernail I used Elianto Orange Red. I think it's misnamed though. I don't see any red. Do you?

   And then I topped it with my new discovery: 24k nail polish.

I'm in love

   I've never tried this brand before, but when I saw these two polishes, I grabbed them right away. They reminded me of Nfu-Oh polishes, which, unfortunately, I have none of. So I bought them, hoping they wouldn't disappoint.

   I used the orange one (they were nameless). It did not disappoint.

no flash

   It was light years away from disappointing.

with flash

   The flakes flash green and orange at the same time, my camera just can't capture it. Believe me, I tried.


   Each 24K bottle costs only 38php, making it even more awesome for a teacher  cheapskate like me.

   Oh and my niece won the Scariest Costume award. :) She wasn't scary at all, but other kids were dressed up in non-scary costumes like princess, fairy, pumpkin, etc.

   So, any ideas for my next Halloween mani?