[Nail Look of the Day] Lace, florals, and polka dots; who wants a tea party?

I was inspired by a photo I found on Pinterest (if you want to see the original, you can sift through my nail inspo board here) and decided to recreate the look. I think the flowers turned out really well (I used a different blend than usual to make my petals) and I was really pleased with my pinky-peach base color.

Unfortunately, I can't really share what nail polish I used to get the base pink-peach color because I actually used two sheer nail polishes to create it. I started with a coat of a peach nail polish that had too much orange undertones for my liking (it's an Asian brand - The Face Shop - if you're interested but I doubt it's still in production). It's relatively sheer so I let it dry and then did one super thin coat of Revlon Pink Cafe nail polish (I've used this a couple of times in previous nail looks). This nail polish starts off being pretty sheer and "jelly" like (if that makes sense) which allowed me to layer the two colors without having one totally block out the other. I'm definitely pleased with the end color.

Once I let my base color dry, I created half moon shapes with my a pale pinky white nail polish. In retrospect, I would have done this layer first THEN painted on the pink-peach color because it was pretty hard to make the rounded curves this way around especially because my pale pink-white nail polish brush (a Julep polish) was super fat and not made for tight corners. I think a white would have made this layer stand out more (I actually did use a white polish for my pink nail which you can see in the photo above and it made that layer look like BAM so much more obvious. It depends on the look you're going for I suppose. While this layer was drying, I used a dotting tool dipped in that same pink-white lace color to draw half circles to create that "lace" look adn then used aother dotting tool dipped in white nail polish to create polka dots around the half circles or on the pink-peach base area. This part was tricky because I tried making some dots INSIDE the half sphere space but it wasnt very large so not sure if it made the look better or worse.

After that, I just drew on the flowers by having a small puddle of a hot pink (Sally Hansen Hot Magenta) and light pink (Sinful Colors Easy Going) and using a dotting tool to mix the too a little before placing the tip on my nail and creating a circle of swirled color that looks like a rose. Using a toothpick or a thin dotting tool, I used a green color that I created by blending Essie Mojito and Sally Hansen Emerald Express. I wouldn't suggest this and would advise just getting an actual dark green color because Emerald Express is a glitter polish but it was the only dark sort of green color I had and I wanted to tone down Essie Mojitio.

Anyways, I'm not sure if this post was terribly helpful but hopefully the pictures were inspiring or fun to look at if anything. Please excuse the dryness and wrinkliness of my cuticles and palms by the way! :) Feel free to leave a comment below with any questions, suggestions, or requests!

Get the [Nail] Look: Floral Friday

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while and apparently all my photos got removed because I think I accidentally deleted the album of photos connected to my blog. So if you notice any posts with broken photos, please bare with me as I am trying to fix them all! It is taking me quite a while to find all the photos again -sigh-.

Without further ado, here is my rendition of my most recent Pinterest find.

 I started off by painting all my nails with Revlon Minted. I let that dry completely before putting 2 coats of the slightly transparent white-pink polish from Julep. I have 3 Julep polishes I got from a free trial for their Maven Box and have to say, they're really quite good! The brushes are a bit fat but the polishes themselves have a really nice gel-like quality. After getting a good semi-opaque coat of the light pink, I let it dry and started drawing on the roses and leaves. I made the roses by mixing two shades of pink and swirling them in a circular motion to make them look like roses. I then used a somewhat smaller dotting tool to make the leaves. I actually used 2 green nail polishes to create extra depth but only listed one below. I let everything dry enough so that I could apply the gold striping tape without lifting up all my hard work if I needed to reposition it.

The nail polishes I used are as follows (from left to right):

-Revlon in Minted
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Punk Pink
-Sinful Colors in Easy Going
-Essie in Mojito Madness
-Julep in Ava Bombshell
Overall, this nail look is one of my favorites. It definitely looks detailed and complex but it's really not that bad! All the techniques are quite simple and it just takes some time to let each layer dry. I would suggest watching your favorite TV show or movie while doing this to help the drying phase pass by. I took me less than 2 hours to do this and I finished it off with my favorite Seche Vite top coat. I hope you guys all try this out and let me know how it goes in the comment!

Manicure Monday x Get the [Nail] Look: It's Gold, Baby!

Hey everyone! I decided to do another "Get the [Nail] Look" because Pinterest just has so many amazing inspiration nail looks so I might as well show all of you wondering how to get similar nail looks! This week's is pretty simple because I was feeling a little lazy but I love how elegant it still looks. I didn't have the right shade of coral with me (ugh there are just too many shades of pink and coral and red that I don't have!) but what I used seemed to work fine enough.

The taupe I ended up using was a lot more cool toned and next time I think I'll use another one of my taupe polishes that comes off more brown and warmer like in the photo. However, since I didn't have a coral and used a pink color, I think the cool toned taupe looked just as nice.

Nail Polishes used:
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Milani Jewel FX Nail Lacquer in Gold 531
-L'Oreal Paris Colour Riche Nail Color Nude Privee Collection in It's Now or Never
-OPI Spotlight on Glitter Nail Lacquer in I Reached My Gold

I actually used another gold glitter polish which is much finer than the Milani nail polish (which you can tell in the photos) and layered the OPI glitter top coat over it to create a more dimensional effect. However, the finer gold glitter polish I used is by Covergirl and it's super old because it was before they game out with the square shaped nail polishes that they have now and I can't seem to find it online so yea :( But most brands carry a gold glitter polish so it shouldn't be too hard to find a replacement if you don't want to use the Milani one (which is a much larger glitter particle size but definitely still awesome).

I am seriously in need of a coral nail polish so if you guys have any suggestions on an amazing coral color (like the one in that picture), please let me know! :) Or send me pictures of looks you want me to recreate!

Get the [Nail] Look: Flower Tips

So lately I've taken to Pintrest for nail look ideas and I came across this one that I was absolutely in love with this one nail look (shown below) that I kept seeing on literally everyone's board!

I loved this look so much that I decided to try and recreate it. I couldn't find the right pink, and I still can't! So if you know what polish looks similar to the pink in that picture, PLEASE let me know down in the comments below because I literally spent an hour searching up very pastel pink nail polish and swatch trying to find the perfect color. I ended up giving up because I couldn't find any color close enough and just stuck to a very light pastel pink that I had. It's a bit too light for my liking but I'm pretty happy with the end result!

I used the following nail polishes (shown in order from left to right):
-Sinful Colors Nail Polish in Easy Going
-Essie Nail Color in Mojito Madness
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Orly White French Tips Nail Polish
-Essie Nail Color in Camera (discontinued)

Although the bright red nail polish by Essie is discontinued, you can use any sort of red-pink nail polish that would blend well with the pink. Or you can totally make this look your own and choose a different flower color like yellow roses or even blue roses if you're feeling creative ;D

Steps:
1. Paint base coat with Easy Going by Sinful Colors. This polish can be pretty streaky so you need at least two if not three coats. Wait for it to completely dry. Be patient!
2. On a scratch piece of paper, put a drop of the white (Orly French Tips), pink (Revlon Cafe Pink), and red-pink nail polish (Essie Camera) so that they're all touching. Using a rounded tip (ie. a dotting tool or the knob of a bobby pin), swirl right in the middle where all the colors meet so that your rounded tip has a bit of all colors.
3. In a C or circular shaped motion, start drawing the first petal of your rose. Continue on going towards the center. Paint about three roses per nail. (Try not to crowd them as much as I did so leave some extra space in between). Let dry.
4. Add the leaves! Using a green polish (Essie Mojito Madness) and a tooth pick, create leaf like structures.
5. Let it all sit a bit before adding a top coat. I used Seche Vite as usual which works for not completely dried polish but it depends on what top coat you are using. Be careful that your design isn't so wet that it smears when you add the top coat.
6. Finished~! Make sure to take a picture for instagram and tag me (@creamydinner) ^__^

Nails on Nails: The Signs of Freedom

As many of you know, I recently was in Hong Kong for bout 2.5 months doing research in a lab as well as visiting my relatives and of course, seeing the sights of the country. I also got to spend time with a lot of my aunt's friends, one who was quite skilled in the art of doing nails ;D So we got together and today, I wanted to share one of the designs she created on me. We chose to use the combination of a pink and nude beige nail polish (from the brand 3CE which is a popular Korean high-ish end brand - I'm planning on doing a review of their nail polish as I picked up a good amount of them!). I've listed pictures of them both down below for your reference if you want to pick them up (the numbers/names are #BE02 and #PK08) ^__^

Anyways all of the birds are hand drawn and I love how the white birds contrast the beige background and the extra bling at the bottom of my nails also added the glamor of the nails. Please excuse my terribly dry cuticles in the photo, we had just removed a previous set of gel nails so my nails needed some TLC. What do you feel about this design? I hope it gives you some inspiration if you were looking for some sort of bird or feather designed nail art. Let me know if you have any other designs you want me to recreate and I might do a tutorial on it! Till next time xx.

Spring Nail Colors - A splash of Spring in Winter

As the last winter month draws to a close, I decided to start early on the pastel trend and get going. I painted my nails last night with some of my favorite Spring colors and decided to share them with you in case any of you are looking for the perfect spring nail colors this year!

From left to right:
-Revlon Colorstay in Cafe Pink 060
-Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant in Peaches & Cream  125
-Zoya in Piaf
-Revlon in Minted 85 (old bottle, they repackaged it so it looks a bit different now)
-Nicole by OPI in "Baby" Blue

Except for the Zoya nai lpolish, all of the colors I used are cream finishes making them perfect for the spring! The pink nail polish (Cafe Pink) took 2 coats to be opaque (first coat is like a transparent pink but not streaky) and 3 to be a nice smooth color. I like the brush tip of the Revlon Colorstay nail polishes because they're a bit wider than a normal brush but have a rounded tip so it gets perfectly into the bottom curve of your nails! The Zoya nail polish (Piaf, yellow color) is a shimmer color with very fine microglitters and was very opaque on the first coat already but I used 2 to even it out. The Covergirl nail polish is a nice peach/coral color though I would prefer it to be a little less orange and more pink and is super opaque so you can get away with one coat but I usually stick to 2 to get rid of any mistakes. The brush handle is a bit tricky since it's a square top instead of your typical rounded one but it's not too hard to use. The blue Nicole by OPI nail polish is also very opaque but it can get a little streaky due to the brush I think so even though the color intensity is there on the first coat, you kind of need the second coat to smooth it out. And lastly, my beloved Revlon Minted.. oh I love this color soo much, it's pretty old (as you can tell since the packaging is the old one!) and I've used up a good amount, but I love it so much! It's the perfect mint green color and though it can be a bit watery/sheer and needs 2-3 coats (I can usually get by with two coats), it really gives the perfect cream finish making it one of my favorite go-to colors.

I topped all of my nails off with the Seche Viet top coat because I love the way it gives your nails a sort of "gel" like finish and it really makes them glossy and last soo much longer! Anyways, I hope I didn't ramble on too much and if you guys are interested, definitely try and find these colors at your local drugstore or Ulta because they're definitely going to be perfect for when spring comes around! I got all of them for around $4-5 each because of sales/clearances (the Zoya was only $4.50 and I got the Covergirl one, buy one get one free so it was 50% off basically!) so always keep a look out for good nail polish deals! I might post up more mini nailpolish reviews if you guys want - just leave a comment down below~! Hope you all have a wonderful day ~<3

Spring 2013 Favorites

Here's a collection of my spring favorites for 2013! Loving pastel colors and pinky-coraly lips! Should I post a video talking about these? And what are your spring favorites?

Items shown:
-Revlon nailpolishes in Minted and Dreamer
-Maybelline 24-hour ColorStay Eye Tattoo in Cool Crush
-Revlon Lipbutter in Juicy Papaya and Pink Lemonade
-Dollywink liquid eyeliner in black and brown
-Maybelline Eyestudio Color Explosion Luminizing Eyeshadow Quad in Forest Fury
-Revlon Lipgloss in Coral Reef
-Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in 270 Lacey Lilac
-Neece Eyeshadow Palette
-Milani Infinite Liquid Liner in Black