Flowers from Korea

Στα Ελληνικά

A few months ago a dear friend of mine went to Korea. She’s one of those people that wherever she goes pleasant surprises happen and they are the stuff we talk and laugh about for years. I wonder what stories she’ll have to share when she comes back from her travels later this week. Along with her amusing stories she also brought back a ton of presents, some of which you will be seeing eventually. Not the chocolates, though. Those are already gone.

One of those presents was a colourful cosmetics bag. I love unusual combinations of colours, and this is definitely a winner combination. It’s one of those combinations that when you hear about it, it sounds like it wouldn’t work, but then you see it and it’s beautiful, vibrant, it makes your day just looking at it! I aim to become brave enough to combine colours that way. 

Something that beautiful of course had to be translated to a mani and here is my attempt, along with the colours I used to achieve it. I chose the plum tree pattern from the Konad plate m66 as the fabric has a similar embossed floral pattern, though you can’t see it in the pictures. The colours I used were (thumb to pinky):

Essie – 563 Bachelorette Bash

Butter London – Dosh

Orly – Everything’s Rosy

OPI – Kyoto Pearl 

Bourjois – 39 Jaune Trendy

Nails Inc – 050 Tower Bridge (for stamping)

Nails Inc 4 Piece A Listers Nude Collection

Greek/ Ελληνικά

I was craving this set since I saw swatches of Covent Garden Ballet a few month ago and I got it at the asos sale for £15.50. What a bargain! Getting four great polishes for little over the price of one! 

First, it's Covent Garden Ballet shot through with a delicate grey with pink-bronze shimmer. It's adorable, what more can I say! We need more delicate beauties like this. 

Next is Ledbury Road, a metallic taupe colour that looks like two of my favourite eye shadows.

In the bottle it looked a lot like my Shu Uemura ME 860 (2nd generation) ...

...while on the nail it looks more like Shu Uemura Ir 850 (2nd generation). I love them both of course so I can't help liking the polish that gives me the rather odd opportunity to match my nails to my eyeshadow. 

Lower Sloane Street is a soft caramel nude cream. It's pretty, it's easy to wear and work appropriate. A nice basic colour.

And lastly there's Mayfair, a pearlescent off-white. Even though I'm not a huge fan of white, I like this one because it's not stark. It's a little bit muted to be stark and in spite of the pearlesence, there's not issues with brush strokes. The only problem I had with this was that it's a bit goopy, not goopy enough to complain though!

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

Oh! Look What Jubilee Delights...

... the postman brought in this morning!! The A-England Jubilicious set from the Jubilee Delights! I will be reviewing and swatching them later, but the weather is so nice, I couldn't resist snapping a shot!

In case you are wondering they are (left to right): Perceval, Morgan le Fay and Order of the Garter.

You can get either these or the Jubilove set in the special sale price from their website (free worldwide postage!)

PS- Had I bought the Jubilove set, I would have been compeled to have a title as cheesy as "And they called it Jubilove", post this along with it and then you'd be singing that sappy tune in your head all day! mwahaha!

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

Frosty High

It's been frosty yet sunny these days and the bare tree branches look so nice with frost on them. If only the pavements weren't so slippery and dangerous! I hate having to walk around when there's sleet. I'm not used to it at all and as a result I walk around like an old duck, looking at everyone else who, being more northern than I am, walk normally. How do they do it? Is it a superhuman skill? Ugh...

Btw have you noticed the Google Doodle today? It's for Charles Dickens'200th birthday! Yay! I hope people turn to reading more of his books this year. I was reading earlier in a British newspaper that kids these days lack the attention span for reading his books and if that isn't a sad thing, I don't know what is. 

Anyway, I shouldn's stray off on other topics too much or at least that is the purpose of this blog. Back to the mani! It's a blue skies&branches&snow theme! I used China Glaze - Flyin'High as a base, Le Chat Cm 04 Brown Nail Art Polish for the branches, Etude House - WH702 for the snow and Seche Vite Top Coat.

Opalescence

I have been looking for a polish that would look opalescent, which in my mind means that it should be

• sheer, but buildable
• not too peachy, not too pink, not too yellow
• leaning towards white, but not too stark/contrasting to my skin colour 

and after a lot of disappointments I finally found what I was looking for in Color Club - Oh my Versailles! and how I adore it! I was drawn to it cause of the name since the Palace of Versailles is one of my favourite places to be, and I was so happy it was exactly what I was hoping it would be.

This is four layers of it with the flaky beauty of Nubar - 2010 on top.
Natural light

Fluorescent light

Along came my darling Manglaze - Matte-Astrophe to make everything perfect!!

And here's a couple of pictures from my visit in Versailles. One from behind the Belvedere and the statue of Eros in the garden near the Trianon.

Grecian Inspiration: Etude House WH202 & China Glaze - First Mate

Before I made this blog, I used to take pictures of my nails and make up to show to my friends whenever I did something out of the ordinary or when a friend wanted me to swatch and compare some things I have. Scheming through some old pictures I found these pictures taken right before I went to Greece for my holidays. I never wear white polish as I find it too stark, but with a blue stamp covering most of it I loved it! The inspiration for this combination was taken from the designs of the metallic bars in balconies in Greece. I find them so fascinating. Almost no two are the same. 

I miss the summer! 

I used Etude House as a base and China Glaze - First Mate for stamping.