Early Morning Hotness: Black Radiance Barely Pinnk

Ok, so I'm not a sheer girl. I think my nails look weird, not to mention I always have those stupid white dots because I'm forever clumsy. So sheers look weird.

But, sometimes sheers can translate well into opaque polishes. Such is the case for Black Radiance's Barely Pink

It's a shimmery, GLOSSY (no top coat in this picture!) soft pink color with shimmer. 1-2 coats make for a gorgeous sheer, 3-4 coats make it opaque and oh-so-pretty. I love Black Radiance, don't forget that it's an unbelievable steal at $1.99 at some Rite Aid stores!

Dahlia Darling

I do not like Sally Hansen's bajillion different nail polish lines. It makes life incredibly difficult sometimes. It would be so brilliant they were just condensed into just one line. Then again, maybe we wouldn't have like 80,000 variations of pink or red available for us.

Even though I give SH a lot of flack, it's easily one of the best and usually affordable drugstore nail polishes. That's because while I adore cheapo brands, Sally Hansen usually has a lot of variety, especially of late. But really, sometimes pink is just pink. And I say that as a polish whore with about 50 different shades of the same pink or red. But then again, I easily every color in the rainbow, even the colors I can't see.

Anyway, I LOVE Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine in Dahlia. It's one of the most multifaceted, "sophisticated" (read: not crazy BLING BLING IN YO FACE) glitter topcoats around. It's multicolored, fine shimmer with tiny gold flakes. I tried it over, what else, a pink Sally Hansen color, and fell in love. It was cloudy that week so I don't have fabulous pictures but you can see the results:

Oh, and True Tulip is a straight creme, so all this beauty is all Dahlia

See what I mean about the sophistication? It's so subtle, but wonderful.

As with all good things though, there is a downside. Dahlia is not a clear glitter topcoat, so it will slightly alter the base color to be a bit lighter. So, it works best with lighter colors and black. You can layer anything over black.

Here it is over a darker color, LA Flare Green (a beautiful green creme PS)



As you can see, the glitter also shows up a bit differently over LAF green. It's not unpleasant, but it does make a difference in color. That's really the only downside to this. But then I think about how great it goes over black and over lighter colors and I'm won over again. I'll have to play around some more but I'm definitely loving Dahlia.

Daily Circuit

So I just got caught up with two month's worth of posts from Nessasary Makeup when I realized that I haven't really been keeping up with my beauty blogs....I'm a little out of the loop with the new nail collections too (though I've seen pics of China Glaze's new collection via Jen who got them like months ago and they are quite amazing). It's like culture shock all over again!

Anyway, I decided to share my "daily circuit," aka the websites I visit as soon as Firefox opens.

1. Gmail/iGoogle- I'm obsessive about e-mails...my best friend, my sister and I are email junkies, so I usually have a Gmail tab open 24/7 on Firefox (oh, and I save every email cuz I treasure your feedback!). I recently discovered the usefulness of having an iGoogle page too.

2. Celeb Gossip- I think I've mentioned how celebrity gossip is my guilty pleasure. I hit up three sites: Dlisted, JustJared, and OhNoTheyDidnt. I love Michael K, he's amazing. Jared is probably the nicest celeb blogger out there (although Trent from Pink Is the New Blog is so nice too!) ONTD usually takes a LONG time to scroll through but the best part are the comments, which range from hilarious and catty to ...uh did she/he really say that?

3. Real News- after getting caught up in the latest antics of celeb shenanigans, I have to remind myself that sometimes the real world sucks. I love the news and being caught up on the latest world events and stuff, but sometimes it's really depressing. I like to go to BBC to get caught up on all world events, and then CNN for more U.S.-oriented news. Then, just because I get homesick sometimes and I'm one of those that loves their hometown, I peruse Sacbee.

4. Nerdy Stuff- EcoGeek & Engadget...I love all the scienfic talk about the environment and even though I don't understand like half of the stuff that's said on Engadget, it's super cool. Because even though I would never have the need for a G-Pen F-509 digital tablet, it doesn't mean I can't appreciate it.

That's a lot of interneting. Though I love beauty blogs, they're a bit of an afterthought. Sometimes I get distracted by Wikipedia (btw, my school was the featured article yesterday! It was amazing...and damn I should have screencapped it) and my whole daily circuit gets fragmented. But usually, these are the sites I frequent the most and are usually on the top of my Internet to-do list.

So, what are the sites you HAVE to visit every day?

Happy Year of the Ox

Don't ask why I'm still up at 4:50 AM. I've always been a bit of a night owl and sometimes I just can't sleep well. And sometimes I mess up my sleep cycle. Anyway, I have to be up in 4 hrs so I'll keep this post short and simple.

So I was talking to my sister on the phone today and she was telling me how she's been doing a lot of frenches lately because she discovered this method of doing french tips that's apparently amazing. Since I suck at them, she's going to teach me when I go back home for spring break. I'm excited for it!

However, until then, you guys are stuck looking at my crappy attempts at french tips. I did this one in the beginning of February during Chinese New Year and used those french guide stickers. It kind of worked but the glittery tips took forever to dry so they look kind of bad, sorry! I made the pictures smaller to spare ya'll the agony.

So without further ado, my funky french in honor of the year of the ox (and my aunt is an ox! But in China since ox's aren't that attractive they default to pictures of cuter cows...sorry I'm a bit ADD at the moment). I used NYC Glossies 227 as the red base and OPI Thrills in Beverly Hills for the tips:


Yeah...Thrills in Beverly Hills is a glitter topcoat so I had to use multiple layers and then smudged it. Since it was a busy week...I actually forced myself to have flawed nails for like three days. Oh, the horror =).

Good night/good morning!

Fickle, Fickle Avon

It's weird. I've been disappointed with Avon before, but their other products aren't that bad and they have fantastic sales. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, as I posted yesterday, I decided to finally try these dry polish strips. Avon first came out with them about two years ago I believe, and it's been popularized by Incoco (you can find them at Walgreens) and Sephora.

So, I've been carrying around these strips for a good half a year because I was a little hesitant to try them. Even though they were on sale ($3.99!), the Asian in me hates one-time use products. I want to get the most of my money! But I was optimistic about these.

(Sidebar: I'll keep these picture small. Firstly, my camera kind of sucks as you guys are well aware. Secondly, my nails are stained and horrendous up close)

It started out with so much promise......
Yes, that's Novak Djokovic as my laptop background. My favorite tennis player, as he's practically the same age as me but far more accomplished. Also, ignore my missing bracket key.

Here it is out of the package against the instructions (which btw were so confusing!)

Basically for the french ones, you peel off the polish sticker to the perforated edge and apply the white tip first. I did not understand that until my second nail. But, applying it carefully can be a pain so you get a LOT of bumps. Also, it's hard applying the french tip close to the edge so I ended up with the super-tacky THICK WHITE TIP

My patience was running out by this point, and I also discovered that the "topcoat" was really hard to apply quickly and there were lots of bumps. Color me unpleased. Can you see the bad application on my middle finger? It didn't even adhere to my nail!

My ring and pinky finger ended up looking ok, but I gave up on the "topcoat" at this point and just stuck to sticking the white tips on. I was determined to see this project through

Sooooo unattractive. Can you imagine if I had gone to the interview like this? Eek!

I love taking pictures at this angle. It's deceiving, because it's universally flattering. Kind of like the "myspace angle" of nail pictures

But close-up reality is ugly:

The only good finger to come out of this hot mess is my pinky, which ironically I screwed up wrong because I didn't know how to apply it because the directions were CONFUSING

Maybe, if you squint really hard....nope still looks pretty bad. Even the miracles of Orly tinted polish couldn't save this

And this is everything I threw away....so wasteful

Ok, well I did kind of like the tip part of the stick-on polish. I think it's incredibly handy for someone like me who seriously can't freehand french tips if their life depended on it. Not to mention super handy for those that want to do a dark base/white tips funky french. But, I don't think I would ever pay full-price (they retail for like $7-8!) for ANY stick-on polish. I have a feeling the full-color ones are a lot easier to apply so I might try these again when they're on sale and I have more patience. There were times where I ripped the excess stick-on part off too agressively and it would tear a part of the tip off and it would just agitate me more. I now know that it's not like regular polish and I can be done and out the door in 20 minutes....lesson learned.

Biggest Waste of $3.99 + 7.75% Tax Ever

Tomorrow (ok, in like 7.5 hrs) I have an interview for this internship program I really want to get into for interning in DC this summer! I'm so nervous and I thought, well, I'm going to look my best so why not try Avon's Dry Nail Enamel strips?

Well, that was a hot mess. And entirely not in the good sense. Detailed pictures in real-time up tomorrow, promise!

PS: I'm wearing NYC Glossies 221 tomorrow, a mauvey color that will hopefully kind-of match my purple sweater vest (yeah, sweater-vest. Oy, business casual.)

Madness, Sheer Madness!

Hey guys! Well, I still have a backup of pictures on my camera, unfortunately. Next week is going to be super hectic for me so I'll try to get them uploaded and edited ASAP. I've been feeling guilty about not posting though so I decided to dig around in my very unorganized Photobucket account and see what pretties I had to share. Luckily, I have a LOT of older pictures.

I think you guys know my love of drugstore polishes- especially NYC and Wet n Wild. It doesn't get much better than polishes for under $3! I received this color from a friend towards the end of my freshman year of college, right when I was getting into nail polish. I really love it, and it has such a nice memory for me too.

At first I thought the color would be too orange-y on me, but it's a perfect coral shade (more hinting towards orange in this picture though). Wet n Wild Crystallic retails for $1.99 at most drugstores, although I think this color has been discontinued. At any rate, it was kind of sheer (three coats here) but wore really well. I do love my sparkles

Everybody Loves Free Shipping

So this has been a terrible week. On Monday I went to see an asthma & allergy specialist (I have both, lucky me!) where I found out that I'm allergic to ash trees (random), cockroaches & dust mites (these only affect my asthma) and shellfish. The last one was surprising because dude, I'm 20 and I've definitely had shellfish before. I mean it's not my favorite food but I love shrimp, lobster...and crab...ESPECIALLY crab, omg. I never overate though, which is why I guess I just didn't notice it before. Anyway the doctor advised me to limit my consumption otherwise I'll break out into hives. Lovely.

Wow, major digression sorry. Anyway it takes a lot of effort to write this because I've been super sick the last few days to the point where I cant eat, sleep or type. Or do anything except watch tv shows on my laptop. But when I saw this email, I knew I had to share.

Today is the LAST DAY to get free shipping from the Chanel website with any Fragrance and Beauty order. This includes nail polish, specifically their latest Les Noirs de Chanel (which my best friend would love because she lives for vampy colors).

Link to the advertisement

Now you rare hear the words Chanel and free in the same sentence so if you've just been too busy to pick up some Chanel stuff or if you're too far away from a Chanel counter, this is perfect. Or if you're on your deathbed (slight exaggeration) like me and you can't really move. Unfortunately for Hawaiian and Alaskan residents, Chanel hates states that aren't a part of the continental US so this offer doesn't apply to you guys but I still love you!

It's time for more water, more pills, and more sleep. This took way too much effort.