NOTD: Purple Layers

Hey dears!

How was your long weekend? I pretty much spent it with my family while stuck in traffic. Haha! My bro and I went to our province last Saturday and our travel time was four (effing) hours when normally it should only be around an hour and a half. Ugh. Oh well. At least on our way back to Manila, we got there in less than the usual time because we decided to travel at midnight when there are less cars on the road. :P

Anyway, let me share with you my current nail art... :P

It's not very clean because I fell asleep too soon and the platinum polish wasn't dry enough. Oh well. But it looks nice when viewed afar. LOL

These are the polishes I used for this NOTD:

Orly Top2Bottom Basecoat + Topcoat

Revlon Nail Art Shiny Matte in 510 Pinstripe

Sei Bella Nail Color in Peach Frost

Code Professional in V503

Besides the bold colors, I like that I played with the different polish textures. The base coat was the usual shiny polish, the dark blue-violet shade is matte, and the one on the top layer is a platinum frosted polish.

I'll try to recreate this NOTD with a better application next time. Hopefully I can make it better. But what do you think of this look?

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD: Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolates-Inspired

Hey dearies!

It was time to change my nail polish again! I wanted to use some of my new Skin Food nail polishes I bought from Jeju. So while I was looking at my nail polish collection, I saw a chocolate brown polish and a pastel pink one and thought that this combination would be a nice cupcake-inspired nail art. So yeah, my initial design was a cupcake look for my nails.

 I applied my nail art at work (hopefully my boss won't see this LOL). During the middle of the application, I noticed that the design was familiar and it doesn't remind me of a cupcake but of a different sweet food...

With the help of my officemate, we realized that it looked like a Japanese chocolate candy!

Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate Candy

Seeee!!! Almost the same color! Haha! I would go and try to make my nails more rectangular... but I won't. :P

Anyway, here are the products I used for the nail polish.

The design is pretty easy to do. I tried to document how I did this NOTD...

After I added my Palladio Moisture Surge Nail Repair, I applied one coat of the chocolate brown shade.

Then I added the pastel pink shade. I made sure I did three curves. As you can see, with one coat, you can still see the brown underneath so I applied more coats.

And voila! Here are my Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate nails!

Excuse the messy application. I took the photos right after I finished applying them. :P

And that's my NOTD! What do you think of this?

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD: Choco with Vanilla Chips

Hey gals!

I was in the mood to do some simple nail art with the "dotters" I bought a week ago.

And this is what happened...

It was a super easy look. Just apply 2 coats of the base polish and then use 2 different sizes of dotters for the embellishments.

These are the items I used. I don't know what brand of nail polish I used as base but I bought this from Beauty Bar. I already asked some of the SA's there but they don't know the brand too. Haha!

I chose this color because it is the closest one I have to Marsala Red, the pantone color of the year. It's just darker I guess.

Since the color is earth toned and too serious, I wanted to add some fun to it with the dots.

So what do you think of this look?

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD : Black and Silver Flowers on Sparkling Maroon

Hey everyone!

Sharing a quick NOTD.

I was browsing a Tony Moly store a couple of weeks ago and saw their nail stickers for only Php 25.00. I found the silver rose really pretty so I bought it.

I used Girlstuff forever's Sparkling Maroon as base. I guess I think that the combination would look nice since it is the fall season in the other parts of the world. LOL No fall in the Philippines—just sunny or rainy! :P

The stickers are very simple but the rose really stands out! Check it out below:

The stickers get removed easily though so I suggest you do at least two coats of clear polish or top coats.

And that's my super quick NOTD! :D

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD: Vintage Newspaper

Hi guys!

Sharing my NOTD!

This is super easy to do... I only did this for a few minutes and you don't need too much concentration to achieve the design. :P

You only need some nail polishes, rubbing alcohol, and a newspaper.

These are the polishes I used.

I used Holika Holika's Magic Pop Nail Natural in 04 as my base.

When it dries, I get my strip of newspaper, put alcohol on it, then press it on your nails. The letters will easily transfer to your nails.

I then added some brown polishes at the edges to create a vintage look. 

Super easy right? You can also pick a word you like from the newspaper article. It makes things more fun especially when people try to read what's on your nails. :P

And that's all for today's post! :P

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD : First Time to Try Gel Nail Art

Hey loves!

Only a week left in my US vacation! During my stay in Los Angeles last week, my best friend, Rica, treated me to a nail pampering session at Nail Gardens!

I had a gel nail art manicure and a regular pedi. It's my first time to try gel polish even though it's been popular in the Philippines for months now. I am used to changing my nail polish color weekly so I thought that it wasn't practical to use gel polish. But since I will be in the US for 3 weeks, gel-polished nails are perfect—I won't be worried with my nail polish chipping off.

So this is what my nails currently look like right now.

I got my inspiration from this website. 

I was a bit worried that the art design would be a bit complicated since the design is lace-like. But I think they did an excellent job with my nails. I can't remember the name of the person who did my nails though (I'm so sorry). But I'm very thankful that he was so nice and he even gave me a $5 off after. 

It's been a week and half now since I got my nails done and they still look perfect! 

For my pedi, I got the color Eiffel In Love With This Color from OPI. Super cute name right? And yeah, I got chubby toes and little toe nails. Lol

And here's a BFF photo after we got our nails done!

Rica got a pink and orange combo gel nail art. It's perfect for the summer in Cali! :D

So that's all for now. I'm excited to share with you my makeup hauls from this trip. I think I bought TOO MUCH makeup. LOL

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD : First Time with Black Nails

Hey lovelies!

It's been a while since I posted an NOTD of my own. I usually just used nail polishes that I have blogged before and I've been very lazy to do any nail art.

But just recently, as I was browsing at Watsons, I realized that I haven't worn any black polishes before... well, I did use some black ones on some nail arts before to create some of the details but... I think those weren't even nail polishes but acrylic paints. Lol

So I bought this pretty little thing from Essence...

Essence Nail Colour 3 in Ticket to the Show

I also used a nail art polish in white on some of my nails.

I was trying to create some roses on the ones with white polish but obviously I failed. I didn't use any reference and the brush was hard for me to control. Oh well. I just say their abstract when people ask me what the prints are. :P

I used the dark shade on all the nails and applied the other shade (those with gold glitters) on selected nails.

I took this photo after 4 days of wearing the polishes so some are already starting to chip off. 

I can't say that what I did is really pretty but it's quite wearable. It still looks feminine. The reason I'm not attracted to black polish is that it looks so... sad. I mean I like black... most of my clothes are black because it is so classy and it makes me look 5 pounds lighter. Haha! But plain black nails are just not so attractive for me. They make my nails look smaller and it reminds me too much of themes like heavy rock, emos and the like (I'm not saying I'm against those or anything, it's just that I am not into any of those), so I tried to mix things up a bit so that my NOTD would sync with what I like. :)

And I guess that's all for this NOTD post. I'll just share with you this watercolor painting I did just because I was bored one night.

I did use some colored pencils in some areas like the guy's coat because I got lazy to get my watercolor again. Haha! 

And by the way, any of you watched the series finale of How I Met Your Mother? Thoughts? Would definitely want to hear them because Liz and I are fans of the show. :D

Cheers,

DAWN

NOTD : Revlon Nail Art Expressionist in Monet, Monet

Hey loves!

I got this Revlon Nail Art product from my January-February BDJ box. To be honest, I wasn't jumping up and down when I saw this. I guess nail stuff is the least of my favorite when it comes to beauty products... I think it's because I like to paint (acrylic and oil) so getting my nail polish or nail art ruined happens quite often. And I'm not also a fan of the color. Green and yellow? I hardly have any stuff in those colors. :P

Revlon Nail Art Expressionist in Monet, Monet 

But when I read the labels on the packaging, I had the sort of "kilig" moment just because it is named after one of my favorite painters, Claude Monet.

Here are the rest of the labels:

I'm kinda confused with the name though. It says Expressionist but I think Monet is an Impressionist. The two movements actually oppose each other so I don't understand the confusion. But if I were wrong, please do tell me so I can correct this. ;)

So back to the beauty product part. This is Php 375.00 in stores.

The green one is the base and it's like a pastel green in color.

The yellow one is more for the nair art part because of its thin brush. It's a light, bright yellow but not in a neon kind of way. It has very fine shimmers too.

So swatches on my nail (with nude polish as base):

And here's the green shade on my nails:

I then added the artsy doodles using the yellow shade. My inspiration is my office coaster. LOL

My coaster is actually has a print of Monet's painting, Bridge Over a Pool of Water Lilies.

And here's a closeup:

Yeah, it looks nothing like the masterpiece of Monet but my idea was the very thick and heavy strokes of the painting. 

Plus, the color of the polishes and the painting are near each other. :P

And that is that. What do you think of the Revlon Nail Art Expressionist in Monet, Monet? Would you wear this combination of colors on your nails? 

Cheers,

DAWN