Nail art tutorial : Pink gradient nails

My nails last week. They’re so sparkly :D And so easy to do.

I used a sponge (not pictured) and these four polishes to make this nail art

The procedure’s pretty self-explanatory, but here are the pictures anyway. (Sorry if they’re a bit blurry, these were taken at night…)

First I used one coat of the pink Caronia polish

My nail polish collection and nail art materials

In this post I will show you guys the stuff I currently use to make my nail art.

First, let’s talk about my nail polish collection. Contrary to what most people believe, I don’t actually own a lot. I usually just stick to wearing black, silver, purple, red or pink and decorate them using stickers and other stuff. Also, I normally throw out old bottles the minute they start drying up because I hate streaky nails. So even though I’m always buying new ones, my entire collection can fit in these three small baskets I got at the Dollar Tree last January.

Here’s a closeup of the bottles grouped according to brand:

Etude House Petit Darling Nails (P48 each). I use these a lot because I love pastel shades.

Etude House Petit Darling HD Beam Nails (P98 each). I love the purple and silver one. The rest I normally just use when I do nail art.

Wet and Wild (I think I got these for 99 cents each at Walgreens). The pink glittery polish on the far left is one of my absolute faves! It’s so saturated with glitter than you can use it by itself (just layer on a few coats) and end up with sparkly pink nails :D

Review : Sassy nail art pens

I know I promised to review these nail art pens months ago, but I keep forgetting about them. I apologize.

Anyway, I found these during one of my visits to Watsons and I couldn’t help but get every color. (I think they have more available, but these were the only ones Watsons had at the time.) I couldn’t help myself, they were only P36!

Although they are packaged differently, these pen function just like my old Etude House nail art pens. You squeeze them and a drop of nail polish comes out at the tip. You can control the size of the dot depending on how hard you squeeze.

One thing I love about these pens is that they come with this pin-like stopper thing that prevents the nail polish from drying up inside the tips:

The red cap is attached to a tiny needle that goes inside the pen’s tip. My Etude House pens don’t have these and their tips keep getting blocked, which is annoying. I always end up having to soak them in nail polish remover just so I can get the nail polish out.

My flat iron died today. May it rest in peace…

I’m not really sure what happened. It was working fine when I used it last night, but when I turned it on to style my hair this morning, it refused to cooperate. I plugged it in and gave it time to warm up as I applied my makeup, but when I grabbed it to straighten my bangs, the plates were not hot at all. In fact, they were barely warm. I’m not even sure if the little heat on them was due to the iron trying to warm itself up, or because it absorbed some of hot air from this heat wave we’ve been having lately. Anyway, it definitely wasn’t enough to straighten anyone’s hair. (Not that I didn’t try. But I might as well have taken two books and used that to style my bangs for all it did, tch.) Anyway, I did a quick search online and the most reasonable explanation I found was that the heating filament inside has finally burned out.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all I’ve been using this flat iron almost everyday for the past 6 years. (It was one of my first purchases after I got a job.) I suppose it’s about time I get a new one.

I texted my sister to tell her about the untimely demise of my poor flat iron and she replied “Haha, say hello to poofy bangs!” How terribly sensitive of her. Hmph. Sorry to disappoint her, but there’s no way I’m letting that happen. Thank goodness I have this little guy:

Nail art : Easter Eggs

Today’s nail art :D Happy Easter everyone!

Aren't they cute? The colors make me so happy~ It took forever to do though. And this was actually my second attempt because I made the mistake of lying down on my hand while my nail polish was still wet the first time, so I had to redo everything from scratch T__T Even this second attempt isn’t that perfect because the electricity went out while I was doing my right hand and in my search for a flashlight, my middle finger hit the corner of the table so the nail polish design on that nail smudged a bit, grrrr. But I’m too lazy to redo it again so now I’m stuck with one ugly nail. But at least my left hand is pretty :)

Nail Art tutorial : Tuxedo Nails

Nail art last week :) Saw this design on tumblr a few weeks ago and and decided to give it a try.

First I painted my nails using white nail polish:

Then added little bows using black nail polish and a nail striper:

A bit messy, but it’s the best I can do with my shaky hands. You can paint the bows by making a small “x” then filling them in.

Nail Art : Black and silver

It’s been a while since I last used nail art stickers. I thought I ran out, but I found some the other week and decided to play around with them again. For the dots and stripes, I used my new nail art pens from Sassy, which I absolutely love (review here).

Valentine’s day nail art tutorial : Hearts and Dots

This was my nail art for Valentine’s Day. All it took was two nail polish shades (red and light pink) and a bobby pin.

First I painted my nails with the light pink shade:

Then I drew some hearts using the tip of a bobby pin:

Christmas loot (AKA California haul)

(This isn't really a "beauty" post, but it does contain some beauty related items, so I figured I'd share this on this blog as well.)

I know this is extremely late, seeing as it’s already February, but I promised my friend Tring that I would make an entry about the stuff I got for Christmas, so here it is :D I also decided to include some of my vacation haul in this entry because I’m too lazy to make a separate post about it.

I’ll start off with my Christmas haul, which consists of stuff that I didn’t pay for. These are some of the things I managed to take a picture of. (Some of the items were still in balikbayan boxes when I took most these, and by the time we finished unpacking I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures anymore.)

A new laptop from my parents :D I’ve already talked about this in a previous entry, so I won’t go into much detail about it here.

A Bath and Body Works gift set

A clutch bag and a wallet

Victoria’s Secret gift set (in Sheer Love)

My cousin got my sister and me a $20 Victoria’s Secret gift card each, which I used to buy these:

More Victoria’s secret stuff! (I was in a hurry when I bought this so I accidentally picked up a bottle of Sheer Love by mistake, forgetting that I already got the gift set. There wasn’t time for me to go back to the store and exchange it so it’s a good thing I love the scent.)

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf 2012 planner from my boyfriend, which he gave me as soon as I got back home, along with these super adorable candles:

New year, new hair

I got a haircut about two weeks ago. I know I've always said that I missed my super long hair from 2009/2010 and that I’m trying to grow it out, but the dead and frizzy ends were such a pain to deal with. I spent about 2 weeks debating whether or not to cut it and in the end I decided that shorter and healthier hair sounds better than longer and dead ends.

I’m quite happy with how my hair turned out. I actually wanted it a bit shorter, but this is fine for now. Besides, I can always go back to the parlor and get another haircut if I’m still up for it in the future.

Some pictures of my damaged hair before I got it cut: