the California Gurl manicure!

Kristen came over to my place one evening as I had promised to work some magic on her nails! Well, truth be told, I was never certain if I could perform some gorgeous look on her nails! :P She had wanted a fruity manicure and the only stuff I had were fimo pieces of little fruits. However, I havent tried them on myself hence did not want to try it on her... What if they didnt last?! And I wasnt sure if I had the colours to hand paint some fruits on her nails...

So after rummaging through my ever-expanding stash (my Kleancolors, 40 of them, arrived just a few days before!), we came up with some colours that caught her eye and I helped coordinate them by swatching on a card.

Here it is, after cuticle remover, shaping of nails and the real deal with some China Glaze Peppermint Cuticle Oil...

Kleancolor Iridescent Fuschia topped with Kleancolor Chunky Holo Candy.

Orly La Playa topped with Sally Hansen DVD.

Added some rhinestones in turquoise, pink, purple, blue and silver little balls... for accent on middle and thumbs.

Sorry for the blur photos :( The chunky holo candy added some sparkly orange bits with a neon pink jelly texture to the base colour.

I liked how the pink and blue came together. DVD was gorgeous with the duochrome shine. And the pink did not disappoint as the chunky holo bits added a different texture as well. 

You may check out Kristen's post on this :) 

Thank you, Kristen, for trusting me with your nails :D It was so much fun albeit I was still pretty nervous :P The rhinestones and little balls kept slipping out of my tweezer!

<3

SpaRitual In Pink Collection 2011 Swatches

What's this?

We all know Zoya has their spoons, and OPI has their swatching charts provided to their distributors. What about SpaRitual? They have their Chroma Guide that comes with a pebble-shaped polished swatch. 

Numerology

Numbers. Look under your China Glaze bottles and you see some numbers there, coding each colour of every collection. Usually running numbers in the same collection. 

Take this up a notch. How about numbers 1 to 9, each with a meaning embedded in them? 

This is what SpaRitual adopted. Adding the model numbers on the label at the bottom of each bottle to come to a single digit,-

e.g

10357 = 1 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16 = 1 + 6 = 7

7 becomes the number that represents this particular polish and lets see what it may say.

Strength from In Pink 2011.

Number: 2

Colour Suite: Earthy Low Notes

and there's a quote on the right column that talks more about the polish and how wearing this will affect the Chakras or energy centres in one's body. 

Knowledge.

number 5 and Colour Suite: Airy Sopranos.

Clarity. 

number 9 and Colour Suite: Dramatic High Notes.

While you might not wanna give two hoots about what 'gibberish' this may seem to you, you cant deny that it adds something more fun to your daily polish episode! Plus, it is now a new way of choosing what colour to wear for an important event happening the day after! 

To find out more about Numerology and the Chakras in SpaRitual polishes, you will need their Chroma Guide. 

Comes in the way like those colour guides go, those you get to look at at an interior designer's office, for example :)

Back to the polish!

Now, lets take a close look at the little swatches shall we?

Strength. Reminds us all of Zoya's Faye or OPI's Rally Pretty Pink.

It's a darker pink base with golden shimmer and needs 2 to 3 coats for good coverage and opacity. No issues with application, no bald spots, nada. Dries to a smooth shiny surface. Swatches are WITHOUT topcoat.

Knowledge is a gorgeous glitter that works very good for layering too! 

I have very yellowed nails so this does affect the photo...

Pale pink translucent base with crazy holo and gold glitter...

The last photo shows the pink base the best. Under bright morning sun.

The swatch took me 3 thin coats and I could do more to achieve the one you see in the little pebble swatch. 

Here it is layered over Shooting Star SpaRitual from Twinkle 2011

Pretty gorgeous there!

Dries slightly gritty. Nothing a topcoat cant smoothen out :)

Knowledge, when removed. Yummy glitter explosion.

Clarity. Pale pink glitter suspended in a clear base.

Very sparkly with three coats to give a good coverage. Sadly, these glitters are in a regular size. Reminiscent of China Glaze's Dollhouse glitter polish.

Here is how they stack up.

Last two photos are taken indoors, under a light source.

All three bear different characteristics and perhaps appeal to different moods as well. I appreciate all three enough to want to own them. 

So, why In Pink?

As we might already be aware of, Breast Cancer awareness month is coming right up in October. And a part of the proceeds go to this charity, Cancer Schmancer!

Which caught your eye? 

<====>

For Singapore:

To purchase, please email to squovalicious@hotmail.com. Thank you! :)

Etude House new (to me) glitters!

I am showing you two Etude House glitters I have picked up over the last month. They are a Pink PK021 and a Blue glitter BL019. They cost me 11.90SGD each. 

I use them to layer over similar colours.

On the left is a green creme layered with BL019. 

Beside it is a finger in a red creme layered with PK021.

The last finger here is in SpaRitual Break of Dawn.

This is PK021 upclose. It has silver, pink, blue and hexagon glitter all in different sizes suspended in a magenta pink jelly base. One coat is great to layer over any polish for more pizzazz. :)

This is one coat of BL019 over a dark green creme. It has various sizes of blue, silver hexagon and hold glitter suspended in a blue base. A base much like the colour of OPI Absolutely Alice blue.

Which one do you prefer? 

I love both as much, they are pretty special glitters and their jellyish base makes for good building up and also allow the glitter to have more depth on my nails :)

Look at the blue...

And the pink...

Please click to enlarge the view. They are gorgeoussss.... :)

Essie Footloose + Elianto Opal Glitter + Love&Beauty purple glitter

I sold my Essie Demi away. It wasnt such a good choice, on hindsight as I love the lacquer very very much. For its colour, tone, wear and finish! Oh well...

So, I got myself Essie Footloose and I thought, well it might make up for it.. But no, it is still not the One I wanted and saw in Demi.

My Demi.....

This is how I wore Essie Footloose.

Layered with Elianto's Opal Glitter, which is essentially a blue iridescent glitter with the occasional hexagon silver glitter.

Then I layered Love&Beauty purple glitter over. Love&Beauty is a forever 21 brand of polish... Got it in a giveaway prize last year :)

Glitters always look better in real life when their dazzling goodness is captured in our eyes.

Love the blue and purple combination of glitters over the Footloose base. 

More glitter tips coming your way!

China Glaze: 108 degrees

I bought the whole set of 6 China Glaze Island Escape Collection. I dont think I'll regret my choice as the colours are pretty unique to my collection and they apply not too bad too.

Let's see.

Pardon the chipping as I wore this to work last time and it couldnt withstand all the packing, cleaning and picking at labels LOL. 

It is more pink than Raspberry Festival and has a pink flash to it. Very electric and very hot!

Needs 3 coats to be at its richest and probably most opaque. I should use this to layer over a maroon sometime and see how they stack up to be :P

2 more Island Escape colours coming up!

Check out my other blog here for pictures of my Taiwan Graduation Trip in May, post on my departure from VIBE, beauty products review! :) Appreciate the love!

Diamond Sparkled Nail :)

Thanks for the lovely comments :) I thought i should dedicate a post for my nails hehe, gotten much compliments on it, and i specially bought the rhinestones for the look too :D

Here's the photos:

I do like it a lot too, I had it on for about 4 days, which is REALLY long! :D 

The pink base I used was jelly-ish and Seche Vite as a topcoat did give the illusion of gel nails :) The holo glitter was actually a purple holo glitter from Daiso which was super sheer :D I used it to blend the purple tips and pink base. All was done freehanded so there was no straight edge... The purple tips were done with an Arezia polish that I got in a 'lucky bag' of nail items! (more about that in a haul post up next..) 

<3 

China Glaze's Awakening + CND Jade Sparkle over Kitoko Kalani's burgundy-brown

Sorry I only had one decent photo of the layering experiment. Loved it very much, in some light it looks duochromey, in others, the green sparkles are strong.

China Glaze's polish worked rather well too, a little brush-strokey but with Seche Vite, looks much better. It is a raspberry pink with golden shimmer, very nice duochrome :) Very hard to find swatches of this online.

**** Thank you all for the lovely comments, concern, suggestions and experiences shared with me in my past few posts. :) The support really lifted my spirits up and Im consulting a doctor tomorrow. I hope all goes well for me and also for u, reading this. :) Jan of 2011, not too late to start loving ur self, inside and out. <3 ****

2nd last manicure before 2011 :)

OPI was streaky as hell! but it was a pretty pink, a tad too stark white. but it will do fine as a base for nail art :) 

I did this simple manicure with the theme of PINK :)

love it!