ABC Nail Challenge - IDK

ABC Nail Challenge
Day 9
China Glaze IDK

IDK was a part of the China Glaze OMG Collection in, I believe, 2009. This collection along with Kaleidoscope are one of the most popular and hard to find polishes, minus eBay. IDK is a purple holographic shown in 2 coats. This picture was taken with indirect sunlight. To see its crazy holographic, you can also look at the color under the kitchen stove light. 

ABC Nail Challenge - He's Going in Circles

ABC Nail Challenge
Day 8
China Glaze He’s Going in Circles

He’s Going In Circles is a part of the China Glaze Kaleidoscope Collection, which was released around 2009. The nail polishes from this collection is hard to find now, unless you go to eBay and pay more than $10 a bottle. It is easily one of the best collections China Glaze released. The collection contains holographic polishes and He’s Going in Circles is a holographic light green (shown in 2 coats). I love, love, love this polish to death. Another crazy story is that I had this polish a while back and sold it (TERRIBLE ME) but then I had to get my hands on it again (I missed it so much T__T). 

ABC Nail Challenge - Electra Magenta

ABC Nail Challenge
Day 5
China Glaze Electra Magenta

Electra Magenta was a part of the China Glaze Tronica Collection, which is a ‘holographic’ collection that came after the OMG and Kaleidoscope Collections. I guess it was supposed to be similar to the previous 2 holographic collections, but honestly I liked the other two more than Tronica. Anyways, Electra Magenta is a magenta holographic polish which also highlights a lot of the silver in the polish as well. The holographic isn’t as apparent as the polishes in OMG and Kaleidoscope but it does show in the sun and light. Electra Magenta is shown in 2 coats. 

ABC Nail Challenge - Crystal Ball

ABC Nail Challenge

Day 3
China Glaze Crystal Ball

Crystal Ball might be one of the older China Glaze polishes before the B3F (correct me if I’m wrong), since it has a silver cap. Anyways, Crystal Ball is a burgundy/dark scarlet creme that’s packed with small holographic glitters. This polish was VERY easy to work with and it was opaque in 2 coats. 

Mesmerize

Hello everyone! I hope your week has been going well so far. :) Today's post is to show my recent mini haul I had on the 4th. The funny thing was, I wasn't expecting to go but the train I normally take home had to go to a different route so I thought, why not since I haven't gone there in a while. To my surprise I ended up with a number of polishes that I love. Here's two today to show and a picture of my haul.

top - OPI My Address is Hollywood, Skull & Glossbones, Save Me, Pink Friday, Did It On 'Em & Fly

bottom - Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times, Mesmerize, China Glaze CG in the City, Midtown Magic  & Skyscraper and Duri Divas Only

The first polish I'll be showing is Essie Mesmerize, I've actually wanted this polish a lot but I never got it, thinking I had something similar but after getting it and swatching, I LOVE IT! The color and the formula is rich and beautiful!♥ Super smooth application and the color is so glossy! Mesmerize is more like a royal blue creme, which reminds me of OPI Dating a Royal but I feel like Mesmerize had a better formula and DAR is more jelly like. This is shown in 2 coats, however, I could've gone with one coat too.

The next polish I want to show is Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Time, which is similar to Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Hidden Treasure (the flakie one). This is only one coat of SOTT over Mesmerize and I feel like SOTT applies more flakies than HT. However, it's a pearl like clear base filled with tons of flakies that shine orange, red, pink, yellow and green. This is an easier substitute for those who don't have Hidden Treasure, but another option would be Nubar 2010.

Thanks for stopping by and happy polishing! :)
Katherine

p.s. - Did you notice that I'm trying to make my pictures look more professional? Lmao, I've kept it in mind that I should've been using a plain background so that it doesn't overpower the polish but sometimes I get too excited and I don't have the proper background to make the picture really bring out the polish. Tell me if you guys like this!

For the New Year

Hello everyone! Sorry for the late post for the beginning of the New Year! :( I've been so busy working, that I even hit overtime hours at work, despite being a part time! LOL. I need to take advantage of that since school will be starting in about a little over 2 weeks! Anyways, before the New Year, my cousins came to visit me from Atlanta without their mom for the first time since November :(. It definitely wasn't the same but they definitely needed to keep the tradition of their mom coming here a few times a year. I stayed by my cousin for more than a week and she felt sad when I wasn't sleeping next to her the night I left. :'( But I am glad she and her brother came because it keeps my grandma happy and company while they are here. Anyways, to make it short, my cousin also stayed over my house so I did her nails and my nails. :P Her nails were based off of my nails and I added onto my nails based off of what I did on hers :P


For my nails, you can't really see the colors as well as I thought they would show up on my camera. But I tried to do the ombre mixed nails with Catrice Let's Mauve On on my pinky, China Glaze Something Sweet with OPI Teenage Dream layered over it on my ring finger, OPI DS Reserve on my middle finger, OPI Glitzerland on my index finger and for my thumb I have Misa Spark My Heart That's A Start. I also want to start displaying my rings along with my nails, something different each time to also display my growing collection of rings :P The bird ring was ~$4 on eBay, and I ordered the black version as well! I liked this ring because I believe Forever21 had a ring like this but I didn't get a chance to get my hands on it. And it is a two finger ring.

I added the leopard print on my thumb after I added it onto my cousin's ring finger as her accent nail. I used China Glaze Something Sweet for the spots.

For my cousin's nails, I did OPI Teenage Dream layered over China Glaze Something Sweet, because she really liked the layering combination on me. :P And as she saw me taking pictures of my nails, she wanted some "professional" pictures of her nails as well! LOL. The ring is from H&M for ~$6? The ring was one of my first rings that I got when I started with my ring collection.

This last picture is the current picture of my desk space that I rearranged after I got the jewelry stand, the sparkly K and the Hello Kitty (right underneath the K) for my secret santa this year (THANKS SO MUCH JENN♥♥) and I love it!!! Also, my cousin got me a Hello Kitty picture frame holder that says hello. I have some pictures to add but I haven't added them because my mom says they're going to get dusty, so she wants to laminate them and then put them up there. Also the pink and green Hello Kitty Plush and the Panda Hello Kitty was given to me by my cousin too! The Hello Kitty picture is something I got last year when they were launching the Hello Kitty collection in Sephora. The white organizational divider holds my highlighters for studying in the back, my nail tools in the front and my base and top coats on the side. It's magnetic but it doesn't hold itself up with so many things in it, so I have 2 watch boxes underneath it to make it higher for when I have pictures on the picture holder. 

Thanks for stopping by and happy polishing! :)
Katherine

Blk-Bila-Bong

Hi there! Today's post is a swatch and layering post! 

Here's China Glaze Blk-Bila-Bong by itself in two coats. It's a dark blue base with blue shimmer. 

And here it is layered, starting from left to right:

- Cult Nails Unicorn Puke layered over China Glaze Blk-Bila-Bong

- Cult Nails Unicorn Puke layered over CND Sapphire Shimmer layered over China Glaze Blk-Bila-Bong

- CND Sapphire Shimmer over China Glaze Blk-Bila-Bong

Unicorn Puke over Blk-Bila-Bong is my favoriteeeeee♥

Thanks for stopping by and happy polishing! :)
Katherine

Adore

Hi everyone! Today's a quick post on something that I should've swatched and posted a looong time ago :P! Here's China Glaze Adore in ONE amazing coat of it's shiny foil blue!

Thanks for stopping by and happy polishing :)
Katherine

Memories of You.....

Hi everyone, sorry for the late post! >__< I hope you all are doing swell, I know it's been a while since I've last posted. I have done a few swatches for you guys, hopefully I'll be able to resize them sometime when I'm available. And I haven't felt like doing my nails since my nails were breaking and they're on the short side. I'm hoping it'll grow out soon.

Today's post is something I created because this day is a day to remember for me since today was the passing of my aunt. I've cried and cried but I wanted something that would allow me to remember her while still doing something I love, nail polish. My aunt was like my second mother and she treated me like her own daughter. Her daughter, my cousin, is a few months older than me but I feel like we're sisters and we're the closest family member in our entire family. I will always remember the late nights/early mornings that she would wake up and tuck my cousin and I in whenever I slept over at my grandma's house whenever they visited. I will remember the times in Atlanta when she would give me more medicine to take because of my coughing. My aunt and my two cousins were the only family members living in Atlanta while the rest of my family is in the Northeast. So whenever she came, our entire family would come together and she was the piece that connected my entire family together. Without her, our families lived their own lives in different homes. What hurts is that I can't be by my cousin's side, since she's in Atlanta and I'm here in New York. However, my parents are there so I hope she feels a part of me being with her in them. It hurts to see my aunt go, but I know that she isn't suffering as she was during her time here, since she had to battle throat cancer twice. I'm sad that she is no longer with us but I know she's in a better place watching down on my cousin, her brother and the rest of my family, smiling down and taking care of us.

With this, I decided that I wanted to create a nail polish of some that are precious to me, to remind me of her. And I named it Memories of You. Gu Gu, (this is what I call her in Chinese), this is for you and I hope you like it. I love and miss you♥ You'll always be in my heart.

My cousin Sean, my aunt, my grandma and my cousin Pauline

I've layered 2 coats of Memories of You on top of 2 coats of Essie Licorice for this manicure.

Memories of You is a franken which consists of:

• Wet N Wild Clear

• Essie Licorice

• Clarins 230 (a little bit)

• China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway

• OPI Movin' Out

• Star Gazer 308

• Cult Nails Unicorn Puke

Unicorn Puke, Movin' Out, Bermuda Breakaway and Essie Licorice were the main components of this franken.

I love the results of this franken and this is definitely a great reminder of my aunt. The multicolored flakies represents the memories and happiness of my aunt and the dark base represents the sadness of losing my aunt.

I hope you love this polish as much as I do.

Thanks for stopping by,

Katherine

Leopard Tutorial

Hello! Today is a tutorial for leopard/cheetah print! :) You don't necessarily have to use the same color combinations I did, and you can mix and come up with your own. Hope you enjoy! 

First, you start with your base color and in this case, I used Essence Color & Go White Secrets. 

Next step is to make "random" spots and I used China Glaze Golden Spurs for this. You can make it in different shapes, whether it's like an oval or just a random blotch.

Next I used Kiss Nail Art Paint in Black and slightly made a 'C' on the spot and made a backward C on the other side of the spot BUT not connecting to the first C.

Continue doing this on the other spots and then I added 3 random black spots to fill in the empty space.

And this is the end of the tutorial. Make sure you seal your nail art with top coat but be sure it's dry before you apply the top coat or else it will smear. Sometimes it happens to me even though I let it dry for a long time too. So apply top coat with caution!

I hope you enjoyed and happy polishing! :)
<3katherine

[PW] + Nail De Royale Review Part 2

Hi everyone! I hope you're doing well and enjoying your week so far. Today's post includes my Nail De Royale second part review as well as tackling Pink Wednesdays at the same time so I hope you'll enjoy. :) If you haven't read my first part of the review, you can read it here. If you've read, Nail De Royale contacted me asking if I'd be interested in reviewing some of their products that they have available on their website and of course me; I never really had the honor of doing reviews for companies said yes!, was happy to do a review. This review is my honest opinion and I am not influenced in any way to give a review a certain way.

The second part of my review package were 2 jars of glitter - Isis 151507 Deshret and Isis 151510 Pschent. Deshret. I was really excited for these because that way I'm able to make frankens(!!♥♥) with them :D!


First is Isis Deshret, which contains red micro glitters and gold hex glitters. I've created a franken with Deshret by adding clear polish, OPI Bright Lights-Big Color and OPI DS Reflection which both polishes gave it a coral red with golden shimmer to the base. You can kind of see the red micro glitters compared to Royale Pink, which is why I like this franken a lot. This was 2 coats and 2 layers of top coat. The application and drying time was good but it was a little bit bumpier, but that's expected with hex glitters most of the time. I really think this is an awesome franken, and I haven't named it yet... perhaps anyone would like to name it?

Next is Pschent, which contains pink micro glitter and silver hex glitters. I added Pschent to clear polish and China Glaze Something Sweet to create a light bubble gum pink (slightly) jelly with silver hex glitters, though you can't see the red micro glitters much and decided to name it Royale Pink, which seems fitting :P This was 3 coats and 1 layer of top coat. You could do 2 coats, which I was semi-satisfied with but it showed the free edge as a white rectangle across my nails so I decided to cover that with another layer.

Overall, I really like the products that Nail De Royale has to offer, especially Isis which is only $2.99 a jar - and I'm definitely going to order more in the future for some frankens! Perhaps maybe I'll be able to create multiples of the same ones that maybe my followers/readers would like and I'd take requests as well, though I'm not a great frankenist. :P I also loooove the customer service that they give as well, they were really friendly and we talked throughout the process before I received my review package. I love their packaging as well because they used saran wrap over the polishes/jars and then wrapped it again with bubble wrap. This shows that they are careful and that they put care into their packaging when sending their orders out. :)

If you haven't noticed, I decided to use a different watermark, LOL. I get tired of things sometimes and then I start wanting to use something new so TADAAAA!

Hope you all enjoyed, happy polishing & happy Pink Wednesday! :)
<3katherine

"Classic" Cheetah/Leopard Combo

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been working 3 days straight after having 2 days of rest from when I came back home and boy am I exhausted! I haven't worked that much in a while either! Today's post is another color combination scheme of the cheetah/leopard print, which I will try to do more combinations of so that I can experiment on color combinations that work well together.

I have swatched a few polishes which I will try to have resized and posts scheduled so I won't seem like I'm abandoning the blog. I do have a package I'm waiting for and then I will try to squeeze in a giveaway as well.

For this color combination, I've gone back to the classic - brown cheetah/leopard print. For the base I used 2 coats of China Glaze Golden Spurs which is lighter than the normal brown and it includes a gold shimmer as well. The base of the accent nail is 3 coats of Essence Color & Go White Secret and to complete the print, I used Golden Spurs and a black nail art brush.

The Hello Kitty Pez was one of the things I brought back from Atlanta :). I got it at the Dollar Tree, which makes me even happier because normally Pez is about $2 (?), I forget because I haven't gotten them in a long time (probably when I was a kid).

Hope you enjoyed and happy polishing! :)
<3katherine

[PW] + Nail De Royale Review Part 1

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well :) Today's Pink Wednesday features China Glaze Pool Party! This is shown in 2 coats and 1 layer of top coat. The picture isn't exactly color accurate because it's hard to capture its color but it's definitely a beauty and a favorite summer polish for me. Along with that I added a small nail art to the mani. as well so I hope you'll like it.

This is my honest review that is coming from me only and I am not influenced by anyone to do a review a certain way. Nail De Royale contacted me to do a review which I was happy to do. They were really friendly and they sent me a few items to review, 2 of which are in the picture above. China Glaze Pool Party and Omega Labs USA Nail Art Striper Brush in #175 were both used in this portion of the review. I received all my items for the review wrapped in plastic wrap and then bubble wrapped to make sure I received the package perfectly. I love how they carefully packaged it and went the extra mile with it. :) The formula was excellent for both and the striper brush as well. It's a bit watery compared to the other striper brushes that I have but I like this one more. I like this one more because when I'm doing nail art and it gets on the side of my nail and onto my skin, it comes off easier than the others which are more like regular creme polishes. Definitely a plus so far on my review and I'll be completing the next portion of my review, hopefully soon. :P

Stayed tuned and hope you enjoyed! :) Happy polishing!
<3katherine

Superhero Surprise

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing well :). Today's my bf's 21st birthday and I thought I'd surprise him by doing a Superhero mani. because he's been bugging me to do them especially since I found some on tumblr and posted them on his Facebook wall haha. So it took me hours to do these and I realized afterwards that I should've done my left hand with the Superhero symbols and my right hand with their heads - OOPS and too late haha! :P Next time. It was a challenge for me to do the symbols on my right hand but I'm pretty proud of most of them!

For the skin, I used a franken I created for it which was created with OPI Alphine Snow and China Glaze Sunset Sail

Thumb: Batman and his symbol - Batman reminds me of Swiper from Dora the Explorer LOL.

• China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz
• Kiss Nail Art in Black

Index: Green Lantern - I'm most happy about the symbol

• OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys
• Essie Pretty Edgy
• Kiss Nail Art in Black
• Kiss Nail Art in White

Middle: Superman - I really like how the Superman symbol came out

• China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway
• Essie Dramatic Drachmas
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz
• Kiss Nail Art in Black

Ring: Wonder Woman - I'm proud of her face LOL

• Essie Dramatic Drachmas
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz
• Kiss Nail Art in Black

Pinky: Flash - He looks a little funny to be but my bf doesn't think so. I also like how the Flash symbol came out.

• Essie Dramatic Drachmas
• Kiss Nail Art in Black
• OPI Alpine Snow
• China Glaze Lemon Fizz

My bf loved the surprise and he even uploaded it onto his Facebook so his friends can be jealous haha! And the picture was taken with his iPhone on the train.

Hope you all enjoyed and happy polishing! :)
<3katherine

Cherry Blossom

Hello there :) I hope you all are having a good day. Here's my recent nail art mani that I've sported. I got a few compliments on these as I wore them so I'm happy to share these with you. I know I haven't been doing much nail art, but trust me I'm trying to work my creativity sparks in my brain! 


Presenting.... my cherry blossom mani! This idea has been floating in my head for a while because I love cherry blossoms, even the Bath&Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom fragrance! I've held it off for so long because I'd hate to admit it but I didn't have any solid dark brown polish in my collection, AT ALL!! This was very shocking to me and I was able to get my hands on OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys from the Texas Collection. 


For this mani. I did 2 coats of China Glaze For Audrey as my base - added top coat to make it smooth and shiny. Then I used a thin brush and drew branches in strokes using OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys for the brown. After that's dried, I used a dotting tool and made 4 dots with white (OPI Alpine Snow) and 1 dot of pink (China Glaze Something Sweet). After all that's dried, I topped it off with top coat. :)

I think it could be perfected but this is my first try so don't bash me! :3


Hope you enjoyed and happy polishing!
<3katherine

Amazing!

Hey everyone, sorry for being MIA! I'm back-ish since my exams are over... for now until finals and spring break starts on Friday for me. I'm going to try to be working a lot so hopefully that'll allow me to have more mani's since I'll be putting on and taking off a lot.

So on Sunday, I was strolling along Soho with my mom and we came across this guy who can free hand spray paint these in 5 minutes with a blank canvas. He doesn't spray them neatly or anything just sprays and sometimes uses a few props to help cover certain parts to make it look like that. It's sooo amazing! He also uses magazines and a ruler and a carving/sculpting tool.

But after I left Soho to go to Times Square, I saw another Asian guy doing it there lol! And to think he was the only one! But I do have a video of him doing the 2nd one in 5 minutes. I'll try to post that when I can. :)

Here's a picture of my current mani. that I took with my phone this morning since there was sun! We had great weather in NYC on Monday but Tuesday and Wednesday, it rained... boo! So much for good weather lol so today is another sunny day and I had to take advantage of that :P My nails are still in the process of growing but I couldn't help myself :P

This is China Glaze 3D Fantasy from their recent collection, Tronica. It's a red/coral holographic but it's not a lot of holo goodness compared to the previous 2 collections of holo (OMG & Kaleidoscope). It kind of makes up for missing out on those 2 collections. The mani. is 2 layers of Orly Nail Amour (which I got on sale for $3.99!!) then 2 coats of 3D Fantasy and 1 layer of top coat. :) I was debating whether to do a black crackle over and tested with my nail wheel, but my mom doesn't like the crackle effect haha! But I'll post that later.

Last thing on my agenda for today, I recently got an email from Sara about The Fresh Air Fund. The Fresh Air Fund is in need of host families for this summer. Host families are volunteers who open their hearts and homes to children from the city to give them a Fresh Air experience that can change lives. If you could help to get the word out it would really help us place these wonderful children into a loving host family. It's only for up to two weeks, but it's an experience that can change their lives forever.

hope you enjoyed,
and happy polishing! :)
<3katherine

Crackled Anchors

Hey everyone! I've been a little busy with school work and I'm still trying to enter in all the entries because there's a lot more entries than I expected :P Currently, my nails are nubbins because I've been having a lot of breaks a lot so I cut them short. But in the meanwhile, I have a lot of nail pictures backed up so I'll be posting them in the meanwhile. :) Although you've probably seen them before, I hope you'll still enjoy :)

First is China Glaze Anchors Away Collection, I only got some of the collection, not all :P

* I believe everything was two coats, but maybe 3 for white cap. :)
1. Ahoy!

2. First Mate

3. Pelican Gray

4. Seafoam Spray

5. Starboard

6. White Cap

Then I added China Glaze Crackle Collection over them

7. Ahoy! + Lightning Bolt

8. First Mate + Crushed Candy
9. Pelican Gray + Fault Line

10. Seafoam Spray + Broken Hearted

11. Starboard + Cracked Concrete

12. White Cap + Black Mesh

Then I did another Anchors Away + Crackle combinations

13. Ahoy + Black Mesh

14. First Mate + Fault Line

15. Pelican Gray + Cracked Concrete

16. Seafoam Spray + Crushed Teal

17. Starboard + Lightning Bolt

18. White Cap + Broken Hearted

Hope you enjoyed & happy polishing :)
<3katherine

Catching Up

This is the last post before my giveaway ends in a little over 1 hour and a half. This is from a while back which I haven't been able to post and a lot of stuff is backed up but I'm trying! I'll probably show them off later since my nails are short again... wah! stupid work! >:(

Anyways, this is 1 coat of China Glaze White Cap over 2 coats of Seafoam Spray then 1 layer of top coat. WHAT A BEAUTY AM I RIGHT?! And I just had to show off my rings that day :) My 'love' and cheetah rings are one of my favorite rings!

Don't forget to enter into my giveaway! Please try to keep all entries in 1 comment please!

hope you enjoyed & happy polishing! :)

<3katherine

Nautical

Using my nails from the previous post, I decided to do a nautical theme mani. but this is my first time doing it and I haven't practiced really so don't hate on my nails! ^______^;

So all I did was add stripes to my nails & added an anchor on my middle finger (which looks crappy) with Kiss Nail Art Paint in White

Hope you enjoyed & don't forget to enter in my 300 follower giveaway!

happy polishing, <3katherine