Nail colour: Christmas 2011 + tutorial

Christmas is just over and I wanted to post some pictures of the nails of how it looks like. Basically during Christmas, you would see festive lights everywhere you go. So the nails ought to SHINY! :P

So here is a few pictures of my nails:

As can be seen, the colours used were purple and gold. I did not paint it red and gold as I thought that it would be too cliche. So yea~ The gold shimmer nail polish just seems to give my nails a bit of a glow making it look like it has a tinge of purple in it!

So without further ado, here's how I created this look! Basically I am just showing you the colours of the nail polish I used to create this look. Feel free to use other colours and experiment with it! :D

Step 1: After applying your base coat, proceed on to apply your base colour. In my case, the base colour would be purple. The purple nail polish that I used is from Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri collection in Pronto Purple.

I bought it at Watsons during some sale where it was buy 1 get 1 free. Since Sally Hansen's nail polishes are known to be slightly on the pricier side, I decided to get 2 colours during that sale. One of which is this!

Step 2: After the base colour have dried up, proceed to apply whatever shimmery nail polish colour that you have colour the initial base colour. The shimmery gold nail polish that I applied is from The Face Shop in GL111. I guess GL stands for glitter?

The Face Shop sells quite a wide range of nail colours at affordable prices, hence you might want to check the range out if you do not like to spend much on nail polishes. Do feel free to test out the nail polish before buying it in case the colour does not come out like what you would expect it to be. They allow testing to be done and there are even nail polish removers by the side for you to remove the nail polish after trying it on your own nails. But please don't be a cheapo and paint your nails there k? haha~

Step 3: This step is optional, but to portray more of the 'festive lights', I added another layer of glitter on top of it. The glitter I used was bought from Korea, with glitter stars and dots in it. The stars signify the beauty of the festive lights at night!

Step 4: Apply the top coat and you would have the final product! Its a relatively easy nail tutorial but still manages to give off the feeling that you have went for a manicure! haha~ Oh yea, not forgetting to mention, both the base coat and top coat that I used was from OPI - Start to finish.

Remembering to apply base coat is important so as to prevent your nails from being stained by the nail polish. Top coat on the other hand can be skipped. At the expense of lesser shine and nails being chipped more easily. But it is not as important as applying the base coat if you are in a hurry.

Oh yea~ Most stores now have post-Christmas sales ongoing to get rid of their Christmas stock? So you guys might like to check them out before the offer is over? That's all for now~ Till the next time!

Christmas Hauls (Part 2): Sasa, Daiso, etc

Here is the second installment of my hauls during the Christmas season! Its a little late due to me procrastinating. However, I believe that everyone managed to get suitable Christmas prezzies for all their loved ones!

Without further ado, let me start of with my buys from Sasa! First and foremost are 2 bath sets. During this period, many stores would sell bath products at 'sale prices', therefore this is using a good time to get some products for both your friends and yourself.

I prefer the second set more as it has a wider range of stuff and is more presentable as a whole. However, since I'm taking them out of their boxes and splitting them up equally, it does not really matter to me whether or not they are presentable or not.

Seeing that I have already decided to buy the 2 packages, the salesperson was nice enough to help me wrap them up (Yup, they have gift wrapping services!) while I look at other products in the store to see what else they have to offer. She also gave me a brochure with all the offers they have currently which was very sweet of her. So these are the other products that I got! A smokey eyeshadow make-up quad for $9.90! A steal! Plus 2 sets of fake eyelashes that I can't rmb how much they cost.

Zooming in to the smokey eyeshadow make-up quad, the thing that caught my eye the most was that it showed you how to apply the various different eye colours at the back of the quad. This makes it a suitable quad for those who have just begin learning to apply eye shadows! This quad comes in 4 different combos. Can't wait to try it. Will review this after trying it out!

Moving on, I also went to Daiso to purchase some Christmasy looking bags that I can place the bath products in. My friends and I had a Secret Santa Christmas exchange picnic where we bought a present for the person that we picked. However, we could still buy prezzies for the rest if we liked. So the bath products are what I bought for the rest of my friends. I placed them in cute looking Christmas bags from Daiso!

The good thing about it is that they are all 2 dollars! A steal considering how cute the bags are! As can be seen, I also bought an eyelash curler as my old 1 is like I said, pretty old! hehe~

After which, I proceeded on to NTUC to look around. And this was what I got for my other Christmas exchange party! The cap was $20. Since I had no idea who was going to pick my gift, I played safe by choosing a universal gift that everyone loves unless you are a chocolate hater that is! Cadbury assorted chocolates for only $15 ++ and 2 candy canes! **yums yums**

Last but not least, one of my friends introduced me to this site where I could get branded cosmetic products at a cheaper price due to them having imported them directly from the producers or sth. And this is what I got for my "secret santa" recipient!

An 'autumn-y' necklace that suits her to the T and an Estee Lauder flora pouch! Absolutely love it! Delivery only took 2 working days and you are able to choose what period you want it to be delivered. Will definitely buy again from that site!

Here is the link for the site: http://sg.bestbuy-world.com

My next post would most likely be my L'oreal warehouse sale hauls. Till the next time~

Christmas Hauls (Part 1): Lush, The Face Shop, Forever 21

Been blogging lesser lately due to me trying to lead a healthy lifestyle. Been going to the gym in the morning after which, I would go about doing my everyday routine (eg. meeting friends, slacking at home etc.) and after which, sleeping early due to being tired from gym-ing and what not. So have not been sparing much time for blogging. After all, this blog is just a place for me to relieve my stress while doing what interests me! :)

As said, I have been going out quite often with friends to shop; mainly to get Christmas prezzies and also, giving myself the excuse of splurging during this festive month! :P

First and foremost, I went to the newly opened Lush outlet at Wisma Atria! Was close to hyperventilating when I first heard it was going to open an outlet in Singapore. It was to the point that I would stalk its Facebook page to get details on the actual day it was opening. However, I only went there on the third day as I HATE squeezing with dozens of people on the first day. In addition to that, they had a cocktail party theme! More reasons as to why I refused to go on the first day! haha~

On the the third day I was there, most fresh face mask and some other products were out of stock. Lucky I was not that interested in the face masks (YET) as I have a TON of others at home. Will try to finish some of them first before buying those from Lush.

Anyway, back to the main topic. Out of those that were out of stock were the extremely large bottles (500g) of SNOW FAIRY: a shower gel for both the body and hair. So basically you can use it either on your body or your hair; whichever way you like. I suppose the 500g bottles were sold out as this is only a seasonal product (only during Christmas period) which is why everybody is stocking up on it.

I myself decided to buy a 250g bottle after much researching. (It was highly raved about by LOADS of people) It was also more economical to buy the bigger bottle for $20. sth dollars instead of the 100g ones for $10. sth dollars. [If you calculate by proportions]

Here is a picture of SNOW FAIRY that I bought:

All I can say is... I HATE THIS PRODUCT FOR NUTS! I totally can't stand the smell! Its too strong. When smelling the product in the shop, it didn't smell THAT strong. It could be due to the overwhelming smell of all the products in the shop. (Will talk about that in a while) But basically, I do not like this product. The description says its supposed to smell of bubblegum. It smells a little like bubblegum but more like really sweet barley? (Not that I hate barley) But you know the smell of very sweet candy? The kind you can smell from a distance when your friend open its wrappers? That is exactly how it smells like. Its smell is too overpowering that I get a headache.

So this is a MISS for me. I would either give it to my sister if she likes it or give it to my friends!

I bought another 2 products from the shop; Ickle Baby Bot Bath Bomb & Space Girl Bath Bomb.

Here is how Ickle Baby Bot Bath Bomb looks like:

I've already used it so I just grabbed the picture from the Lush website. Basically, it just 1 blue robot which makes your bath water blue in colour. (Put it in your bath tub and it fizzles when in contact with water) It has lavender in it which makes it very good for those in need of relaxing after a long day at work. Mine broke into half when I took it out of the bag. But it works just fine broken.

Price: ~$5.70 (?)

Here is how Space Girl Bath Bomb looks like:

This on the other hand makes the water in your tub purple in colour with slight shimmers. The shimmers are really small so there is no problem cleaning your bathtub after that as it just washes down with the water.

Price: ~$6.95 (?)

So that's basically all I got from Lush but I will definitely be going there to buy more products as the price is not SUPER expensive. Its reasonably priced. However, the smell of the shop itself is very overpowering. Even though I love Lush, I feel that the overpowering smell is due to the fact that the shop is quite small, however, the products were close to overflowing in the shop making there very little space left to walk. (It isn't the case for Lush outlets in the US as they are usually very large and airy, allowing there to be ventilation)

One thing the staff at Lush could do is to put coffee beans on standby for those who have their nose blocked by the overpowering smell. This prevents people from making "wrong" purchases (like yours truly here).

On to stuff that I bought from The Face Shop. I just bought 'ONE' package from that shop. Which consists of: Raspberry Roots Sleeping Mask, Aqua Water Drop Pack & 2 face masks. (random)

I went there with the original intention to buy a nose pack that was highly raved about but kinda got 'derailed' from my original intentions. It all comes in a pack together, with both sleeping mask being 50mL each. (It will last a very long time! Trust me!) I've only tried the Raspberry sleeping mask twice, but so far.... IT WORKS WONDERS! The day after waking up, your skin will feel as smooth as silk!

It makes a good Christmas prezzie for your close "girlfriends" as it is not only good, but affordable.

Price: $15.90 (plus they gave me a mini candy cane! :P)

Last but not least, I went to Forever 21! (All on the same day!) And I bought an UMBRELLA! haha~ Not just any umbrella but one that has the FOREVER 21 logo on it! EXCITED!

When closed, it looks like this:

Gotta love the handle! Its so cute! the handle can be extended to a comfortable length. So don't worry about it being to short!

It also has a cute yellow cover where you can keep your umbrella in after which!

The thing I like about the cover is that its not like many other umbrella covers that only fit the umbrella just right only after wrapping it really tightly and nicely. This is slightly looser. Which means that even if you do not fold it properly, you would not have a problem trying to squeeze the umbrella into the cover. And best is that the cover will not slid off too! YAY!

I love the signature colour of yellow and black for this umbrella! Just gives a very sunny feeling even though its raining. It same when folded but when opened, is quite large! Able to cover 1 person perfectly!

Price: $5

That's all for today~! Will continue writing part 2 of my hauls tomorrow after I go check out the L'oreal sale at *scape tomorrow! :P Excited much! To know more details about the L'oreal sale happening, check out the following link below:
http://livinginsingaporetoday.com/19404/loreal-christmas-beauty-sale-2011/

Beauty tip for December

Try not to shampoo your hair regularly, maybe like once every 2 days. (or once every day if you are not able to adhere to this) Washing your hair too many times actually strip your hair of essential oils which would result in your hair being dry.

When shampoo-ing your hair, try to concentrate more on your scalp as compared to your roots. On the other hand, in the case of the conditioner, try not to apply it to your scalp and concentrate on your roots instead. By applying conditioner to your scalp, you are actually weighing down your hair.

(Think about it this way, imagine using shampoo to get rid of the oil in your scalp. However, putting conditioner to your scalp is actually like re-applying that "oil" to your scalp which defeats the whole purpose of shampoo-ing your hair!)