Weekend Mani: Pirouette My Whistle and some whites!

Hello all! It has been entirely way too long, and I know I've been a disaster about posting. A disaster. First graduation (I actually have a college degree now! *dances*), then a few trips around the world, and then med school. Yes, one day in the hopeful future, I may one day be an M.D. It's really quite exciting, but exhausting. Am considering a sideblog in which I sporadically detail my life of coffee, class, studying, and occasionally sleeping and eating. I am considerably more alive over at my tumblr, though it's slowly being taken over by vignettes from med school and random kitten gifs...

Anyway, to make up for this absence and the reason why I have this blog in the first place, here is my weekend mani! One that I actually did for the weekend because I was so tired of studying. OPI's Pirouette My Whistle is one of my favorite glitter polishes, but also the only one I got from the NYC Ballet collection. It's a delicate silver glitter polish with a clear base and larger flecks of shimmery white hexagonal glitter. Whenever I need a little pick-me-up and have the need to feel a little girly, I pull this one out and whatever color I'm feeling as the base for the moment.

On Thursday night, I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White as my base color, and here is a picture before I messed up my nails because I didn't let them dry completely. Excuse the yellow/redness of my fingers, these were taken at night under the lamp :\

Base: butter LONDON Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat
Top: butter LONDON Hardwear P.D. Quick Topcoat  
Base Color: Sinful Colors Snow Me White - 2 coats  
Glitter: OPI Pirouette My Whistle - 1 coat 

Of course, I had to redo. Sinful Colors's Snow Me White was a bit too opaque for me so I tried a sheer white from Essie (Allure) and I'm kind of loving it a lot. I wasn't as liberal with the hexagonal glitter as before, result of forgetting to shake the bottle before using to mix up the glitter, but it did its job as I get distracted every so often during my studying to look at my nails :)

 Natural Lighting

Sunlight

Base: butter LONDON Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat 
Top: butter LONDON Hardwear P.D. Quick Topcoat 
Base Color: Essie - 2 coats  
Glitter: OPI Pirouette My Whistle - 1 coat 

 Like/dislike? What other colors would you use as the base? I have another mani from a few months ago with various blue ombre base, keep an eye out for that!

Wet n Wild Bejeweled: Speak When Spoken To

I couldn't resist! And ended up painting my nails yesterday, despite my internal protests. Oh well :)

I was feeling a bit down and stressed lately, so I decided to go glittery and boy, does this help make me feel fab! This loverly (see what I did thar?) polish is from Wet n Wild's Bejeweled Collection. I picked this up a few weeks ago at Meijer for $2.99, but didn't have the chance to try it out yet. I don't wear glitters often, but this is dazzling.


Base: Seche Clear Base
Top: Seche Vite
Base Color: Urban Outfitters RGB Nail Polish in Eyes Wide Closed - 2 coats
BLING Glitter: Wet n Wild in Speak When Spoken To - 2 coats

I used a black base color under the glitter, and you can really see the color from the polish stand out (i.e., as opposed to no base color or a cream base). You can also see some of the black where I was being messy near the tips. This is filled with micro and some small circular glitters, with a purple-blue (and some teal in there) almost duochrome sheen--SO, SO, SO pretty under the sun, by the way. It took about two coats to completely cover the black, although the thumb actually needed an additional third layer. Also, Seche Vite top coat is superthick, so I ended up with a pretty smooth finish.

Sorry for the lack of pictures this time! Believe it or not, this was the one decent picture out of 20 that I took :\ As excited as I am to take this off in a few days (2 layers of glitter AND 2 layers of black? This is a nightmare waiting to happen...), I'm really considering the rest of the Bejeweled collection! Thoughts?

Sephora's Birthday Gift!

Short post, as I'm in the midst of exams and projects! But this past Sunday was my birthday and I was able to pick up my Sephora Beauty Insider's gift: fresh Sugar Kisses Mini Lip Duo!



This duo includes the Sugar and Sugar Rose tinted lip treatments with SPF 15.



These are so adorable and incredibly moisturizing. I actually got to try these babies back in January when my friend got her Beauty Insider's birthday gift and have been coveting them ever since. Many a times I had to resist buying the full size lip treatment because I knew I would be getting these soon. And boy, were they worth the wait. Too often has my friend told me to moisturize, moisturize, moisturize your lips! Thankfully I got these girls now :)

And wait, what else did I get for my birthday? A mini cupcake from the Cupcake Station! I picked Vanilla Petal :)



Cheers to finals time!



Also note: no new manis for awhile D: The nails on my right hand have been peeling as of late so I want them to rest for awhile. Will be posting some of my older manis in the meantime :)

Weekend Mani: Needle Marble/Needle Dragging

This post is long overdue! But figures that I would create this blog and tumblr right before finals began. So! Mini-hiatus until I finish up the rest of my exams and finals business in the next week and a half. But here's last weekend's needle marble/needle dragging mani!


Base: Seche Clear Base
Top: Seche Vite
Base Color: Sinful Colors in Soul Mate 1-2 thick coats
Marble Color: Urban Outfitters RGB Nail Polish in Eyes Wide Closed; Color Club & ArtClub nail striper in white
Ring: Angel Wing Ring from Forever 21 (Sold out)

I basically followed two tutorials over at Liquid Jelly and Mr.Candiipants. After layering a thick coat of Sinful Colors Soul Mate, I just added a drop or two of UO Eyes Wide Closed and used a (borrowed, thanks irl friend! ♥) thin dotting tool to make my marble pattern. Then I used the slightly larger end of the dotting tool to add a few dots where it seemed good! More pictures!




Excuse the messy cuticles! I got a bit lazy and didn't fix them like I originally planned. But these wore pretty well! There was absolutely no chipping, and they had been on for almost a week before any noticeable shrinking (drat Seche Vite sometimes, sigh). Otherwise, I'm really excited to try this again. I'm aspiring to create designs akin to this!

And surprise! Nail polish earrings from Cindy-y over at Square Polish! Thank you, Cindy! ♥ I can't wait to wear them :)

butter LONDON Lillibet's Jubilee

butter LONDON, oh how I love thee! Announced today, butter LONDON is releasing a new polish to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Julibee for her 60 years on the throne! So sweet!

Picture from butter LONDON's Facebook page

butter LONDON describes this new polish as "Lillibet's Jubilee is silvery, lavender metallic foil, heavily infused with holographic glitter!" and will available for order on April 9th. I'm such a sucker for metallic foils and holographic glitters, I wonder if I will be able to resist...

Sources: butter LONDON on Facebook, Kiss and Makeup

Window Shopping at Sephora

Don't you love impromptu shopping trips? Today (the day I'm writing this), I popped on a bus to the mall to look for some perfume at Sephora. I didn't walk out with a Sephora bag, but my left-hand fingers show how much fun I had at the big nail polish stand.

Thumb: NARS Shimmer Nail Polish in Orgasm - 2 coats
Index: Illamasqua Nail Varnish in Viridian - 2 coats
Middle: Dior Vernis Haute Couleur High Lasting in Graphic Berry - 1 coat
Ring: Dior Vernis Haute Couleur High Lasting in Lucky - 1 coat
Pinky: Julep Nail Color in Vanessa - 2 coats
* No top, no base

One thing I love about being able to try on nail polish is that even though I most likely won't get it (though, it happens... sometimes... often), at least I get to own it on my nails for the day. Or week, depending on when I take it off.

Unfortunately, while my phone's pretty smart, the camera is kind of dumb when it comes to lighting. Orgasm was a very pretty shimmery peach, but kind of clashes with my already yellow skin tone. Viridian is so pretty! Maybe it was the lighting in Sephora, but it looked iridescent like Deborah Lippmann's Wicked Game, but definitely a rich peacock green with a gorgeous teal shimmer. Graphic Berry looks much more fuschia in person than this picture, and Lucky was more of a bright coral color (than this orangeness) that reminds me of butter LONDON's MacBeth. I didn't feel much for Graphic Berry but Lucky was so fun! The only thing I don't like about Dior though, was the brush. It was quite thick, cut into a point and I had a bit of trouble with application. Finally, I just wanted to try a glitter. Vanessa would probably be a good topper to give a solid color a kick.

There ya go. Hopefully I will actually get the perfume within the next two days. Chic Week at Sephora ends on April 5th!

Also, I'm still playing around with the blog layout and added in a watermark to my questionable phone pics. Like?

Macaron Attempt 2.5

I have recently been inducted into the wonderful and delicious world of macarons. But it has been a long, hard process, one I have yet to overcome! I began this endeavor while I was at home during spring break at the end of February. Here be my story:

My first attempt resulted in me attempting to whip egg whites for over an hour before I realized, no, whipped egg whites don't look like that. So this was 0.5, because I never even made it to the mixing stage.

My second attempt was slightly better, but my egg white whipping technique lacked greatly. And the results are too ghastly to post on the internet.

Finally, my sister came home and we decided to make this together (she cringed at Attempt 1.5 above). She quickly corrected my egg white whipping technique and here was the end result:



The original almond flavored shells with a quick vanilla buttercream filling! My sister ate them right after they were out of the oven, but I got to try one (after giving so many away!) after a few days of aging, and it was even more delicious after the shells absorbed some of the moisture and flavor from the filling! I can't wait to try making these babies with different colors and flavors!

Recipe adapted from Giver's Log and Pastry Pal's macaron primer