An easy manicure and the konmari method

Ελληνικά/ Greek

After my last post, which I really enjoyed, I went through my file of pictures that I had been meaning to blog about and did a nice sort-through. I think it might be the effect of reading the book of the moment, Mari Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but I deleted a lot of unpublished pictures and now posting feels less daunting. Has anyone else tried the konmari method on anything?

In the two years I haven’t been posting regularly so many things have changed. A lot of the blogs I follow are not even active any more or haven’t posted in over a year. I am also quite frustrated with blogger cause I can’t see my followers which have surprisingly increased (thank you!). I wish I had picked a different blogging platform to be honest cause blogger is always giving me a headache.

Amongst the old pictures I sorted through, I found a few I still want to post so here goes. The base on this is an old Rimmel (850 Hard Edged) from the time when 15ml per bottle was standard. It’s a very pretty duochrome with a black base and shimmer that goes from magenta to copper to golden. So mesmerizing! I tried to take a picture of it displaying as many colours as possible without the photo being completely unflattering or breaking a finger.

I used Ciate - Gold Digga and a bronze mini by Borghese with a dotting tool to create a really simple pattern. You don’t even need a dotting tool, a toothpick and a pen will do for such patterns. Dots are the easiest way to make your manicure more interesting.

Happy Easter to those celebrating it!

XxX
Elysse

Morgan Le Fay takes over Camelot! A Christmas Manicure

Ελληνικά/ Greek

I really felt like doing something freehand this year for Christmas and I wanted it to be sparkly as well. Morgan Le Fay, a beautiful shimmering polish, over black was my starting point and then I added little colourful details here and there.

direct sunlight

artificial light

artificial light

All polishes used for this manicure are from A-England (non affiliated link)
Base: Camelot
Designs: Morgan Le Fay, Perceval, Order of the Garter, Holy Grail (old version)
Top coat: The Shield

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays!
XxX
Elysse

A Christmas Card by Aubrey Beardsley.

So tonight that I might see

Ελληνικά/ Greek

Mazzy Star’s album “So tonight that I might see” is one of my favourites of all time. I became acquainted with Hope Sandoval’s warm and otherworldly voice in the early 90s along with the rest of the world through the song ‘Fade into you’. One song was not enough to quench my thirst for music that spoke to me; I got the album and have been under its spell ever since.

It wasn’t just the music I loved, as I found the album cover equally mesmerizing. The early ‘90s were not a time where arabesques were popular and purple has always been a favourite colour of mine. It was only a matter of time before I attempted to replicate the design in one of my manicures.

I tried many colours and combinations to achieve this design, it was harder than I initially thought it would be. In the end I used 1 layer of a-England’s Camelot and then I used Stargazer’s Chrome Nail Polish in 235 to stamp a design from the Drikk drk-A palette and in the end I dabbed a little bit of Le Chat CM in True Violet.

I couldn't not attach a song to this post now, could I?

What do you think?

Elysse

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*Non-affiliated links

Nails Inc - Covent Garden Ballet and Black Roses

Greek/Ελληνικά

A manicure I did on a friend of mine and liked it so much I did it on myself, too. The sunshine is perfect to show off the pink-bronze shimmer in Nails Inc's Covent Garden Ballet. The black is Le Chat CM nail art - Black and the plate is Dkr-B. 

Rachel Weisz's Evanora Manicure: Wicked Love!

In Greek/ Ελληνικά

The other day I saw this amazing picture of Rachel Weisz as the wicked witch Evanora for the upcoming film Oz the Great and Powerful; she's so beautiful! Of course I also noticed her fabulous manicure and I simply had to replicate it asap. 

The problem was that I had to file my nails short on my left had (the one you usually see) because I broke a nail and the manicure would look really wrong on short nails. The ones on my right hand were a bit longer though so I decided to take the plunge and try it out. Excuse the imperfections, I am not that skilled at doing designs with my left hand!

The off-white base is 3 layers of Color Club - Oh My Versailles!, the black polish is Bourjois - Noir de Chine. I did the iridescent details using a nail foil in the design Opal Swirl topped with Seche Vite. Nail foils are my latest craze, especially this opal one. I find the colour swirls mezmerizing! I wasn't sure if it is a thin stripe of foil or a nail polish that they used on Evanora's nails, but I thought it would look more interesting like this.

I hope you like it!
X

'Sad Eyes' Duelist Mani: Black on Black

How do I begin this post without getting distracted by Kang Dong Won and the Duelist's beautiful soundtrack for another hour? By sharing a song with you my dear reader!

'The Duelist' is a fictional period Korean film with stunning visuals, a beautiful, sad love story and two of my favourite Korean actors, Kang Dong Won and Ha Ji Won. If you like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "House of the Flying Daggers", then definitely watch this; the budget may not be as enormous as it was for those two films, but it is truly wonderfully shot, the script is good and the actors great.

When I first started nail stamping last year, one of the patterns I wanted to recreate was from the protagonist's costume. Sad Eyes wore mostly black textured clothes and this idea of black on black simply stuck with me as I am fascinated by black. I tried many times to create something similar back then, but the results were not good enough.

He's so gorgeous!

Beautiful fabrics and a beautiful man. Ah! My heart! 

Enough with the Kang Dong Won spam, back on topic. A few days ago Nathalie (jellynat) had this post up which reminded me of my quest for the black on black mani I wanted to do. Then this scandalously pretty picture of JaeJoong appeared yesterday from the upcoming 'Time Slip Dr.Jin' Korean drama who reminded me of 'Sad Eyes'.

He is a real person, not a CG character.

The final blow was delivered by my friend Orion who reminded me of all the above, so I did it. This time I picked a pattern that would allow for the different textures to be more apparent, as my previous choice (the multiple squares from the konad m63 plate) was too dense and it ended up looking muddled instead of textured. My only complaint this time is that I should have used a thicker black glossy polish to stamp. The one I usually stamp with was ruined when I decided to 'experiment' with it a few weeks ago. The search for the perfect black on black mani continues, though I think that first I'll have to do a red on black like JaeJoong's costume.

basecoat: SpaRitual - Body

Stamping polish: Bourjois - 39 Noir de Chine

stamping plate: Konad m64

PS- Should I have a 'gorgeous Korean men with swords' tag now? haha...

Eleonora di Toledo Nails

This is Eleonora di Toledo, one of the great ladies of the Renaissance, wearing one of the most important dresses in the history of art made from a fabric that was extremely hard to make (it required six different processes to make it), expensive (real gold thread amongst other fine raw materials) and politically significant; the epitome of a 'statement dress' if ever I knew of one.

Eleonora di Toledo, Bronzino portrait

A dress recreation. Picture via

I have loved that portrait and that dress since I was very young when I used to see it in a book my uncle had given me from the Uffici Gallery in Florence. I saw the portrait again recently and really wanted to recreate part of the design on my nails. The end result is not fantastic, it looks a bit tribal instead of soft and organic, but I am pleased with it since it's only the second time I've used brushes and acrylics and going from cats'whiskers to a renaissance pattern is a giant leap. I've also learned a lot about the sort of brushes I need to get/make. I am really enjoying the learning process and a difficult pattern like this is a pleasant challenge. 

With my non-dominant hand I tried to make a netting with pearls like the one she had on her hair and at the top of the dress. 

I also managed to pleat a 5-strand braid!

The breakdown

Base colour: OPI Skuls and Glossbones

the black colour is acrylic

Golden colour: Ciate - Gold Digga

Pearls: one drop of Jessica - 687 Au Natural and one drop of OPI - Kyoto Pearl on top.

Leap Day Maneki Neko!

Greek/Ελληνικά

The Maneki Neko (招き猫), the Welcoming Cat is a common Japanese sculpture, often made of ceramic, which is believed to bring good luck to the owner. Each cat has a different meaning according to colour.

Red Cat (Mavala - 156 Rococo Red) Good health

Gold Cat (Ciate - Gold Digger) Financial matters, wealth.

White Cat (Etude House - WH702) Good Fortune / Bib: More fortune

Black Cat (Etude House - WH70) Favoured in Kyoto, for good health, good matches and warding off stalkers [how precise!]  

via

The details were drawn by hand using acrylic paints. 

And some more good fortune

If chaos looks lovely...

...surely it can't be bad! After wearing Mavala - Platinum Marble for a couple of days I had had enough of the pearl shine; shimmer tires me quickly I'm afraid. I filed my nails and since the polish was still in a good shape I decided to give it another chance. Out come my two trustees, Manglaze  - Matte is Murder (matte black) and Fuggen Ugly (matte gorgeousness), and taraaa! Beautifully chaotic mani! I loved the feel of it, especially on the second day when it became smoother, but was still matte. It looked amazing! Excuse the dry hands. The weather is so cold at the minute, it's almost impossible to keep them hydrated no matter what I use. 

 (natural light)

  (natural light)

(artificial light)

My Perfect Eye Liner: Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black

Happy New Lunar Year everybody!! It's the year of the black dragon, the dragon of water! How exciting does that sound? I thought that the perfect product to feature on such a day is my beloved gel eye liner, Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black/ M Noir (for the French speaking population). 

There are not enough words of praise for this little miracle. I've had the same jar for 2 years and 2 months, I use it at least 3 times a week and only now has it started to not glide on as easily as when I had first bought it, but even so it's still great! Here's a picture of my jar and yes, I am that OCD with my gel liners.

It's not a glossy black like liquid liners tend to be, but that is to be expected since it's a gel liner. It is easy to blend if you wish to do so, but it won't move around much once it's set. I've had no problems with transfer on the upper lid, which was a major problem for me with other eye liners. It is very smooth to put on as it literally glides on on its own. It has served me right on many long days without smudging, flaking or melting or otherwise making me look like a disaster at the end of a long day.

That said, I have a complaint with Shu Uemura in general these days. Their products all seem to be marked as "Designed in Japan, Made in Korea"(open the picture in a new tab and you should see it clearly, instead of "Made in Japan" like they used to. I have nothing against Korea or Korean cosmetics, but when I buy luxury Japanese cosmetics I expect them to be Japanese. The eye liners were one of the first products they started manufacturing in Korea and nowadays it seems like everything is made there. People at Shu Uemura you are a luxury brand, why treat us this way? You were the ones that got me into Japanese cosmetics and insisted on how their quality is superior to products from all other countries, so why did you become a Korean brand? I do feel cheated somehow and will always wonder what the eye liners were before they moved their manufacturing centres to Korea.

Now that that is out of the way, one small precaution to people living in countries were it gets extremely hot. In temperatures over 38°C it becomes very melty so I don't suggest using it. You can get away with a little bit, but not a proper feline eye. By the end of the day you'll look like you put it on with your fists, kind of like  Taylor Momsen and that's never a good look.

Just to show you how much you can do with this liner, I loaded my brush up (an artist's kolinsky brush size 0) with as much quantity as I could and drew this black dragon without dipping in for more! And bare in mind that my liner is very very old in liner years!

 I did various other lines with a different brush, a no-brand synthetic angled brush. 

Happy New Black Dragon Year Everyone!! 

November blues

I couldn't decide which winter colour to wear when I was looking at my pretty bottles and I was drawn by something that doesn't scream 'winter' i.e.dark and warm. If you think about the beautiful Christmas decorations that are almost everywhere right now, it sort of is. Icy blue fairy lights look so magical! I don't like multicoloured lights, but clear and icy blue are so beautiful!

As I don't like colours with too much white or too light on my skin I chose Periwinkle blue; it is cool enough to be icy and not sky blue. Here it is then, China Glaze - Peri-wink-le stamped with a design from bundle monster plate BM07 using Nubar - Dark Castle (the near black) and Barry M - Navy (the dark blue).