Pink and Undecided: glitter nail polish

Me-Nail Exclusive 12 : Crystal Nail in H2 (SPONSORED)

Hey guys!!!

So... errr, i completely blocked it out (you know, like a kid who refuses to do something he/she doesn't want to) but i actually have a few bottles of Crystal Nail that i haven't reviewed yet *sigh* #BADBLOGGER , the last Crystal Nail review i did was on the 1st of March, so it's definitely been quite a while-it's time to get on with it #slapsselfontherear !

It's my second to last bottle gifted by Me-Nail and it's this gorgeous glittery blue one!

Crystal Nail in H2

Again, i totally forgot to snap pic of the finished result holding the nail polish (oh i actually did, using my Ipad so it really doesn't count *LOL*), in my defense i actually painted (and snapped these pictures) during our South Korea trip, i even finished up the last coat in a cafe because i didn't have time!

H2 is a blue based nail polish with both chunky and fine silver glitters

I took the pictures in our Seoul hotel room and was quite surprised at how bright and awesome the results are #proudmoment

1 coat base coat + 1 coat of H2

Honestly, Crystal Nail is not really the most pigmented or opaque nail polish i've ever tried, especially the jelly-based glittery ones-they are all quite sheer in my experience (after 12 bottles i would say i'm definitely quite an expert on Crystal Nail!) but since the bottled color is quite bright, i was quite surprised when i applied it on and it turned to be very very light-almost baby blue!

I also completely forgot to snap pic of the second step (2 coats of H2) zzz, but it looked almost exactly the same as one coat anyway-very soft and sheer with scattering of glitters. Not that i mind, it's very pretty and as a pastel color lover, it's very pleasing on the eyes for me. I find it to be a wee bit uneven though, so i added a third coat.

Yep, that's me. In a cafe in South Korea. Doing my nails *LOL*.

That's how two coats of H2 looks like!

And that's the pic taken with my ipad, see how baby blue and pretty my nails were anyway? It's so different than the bottled color, but pretty regardless! Already so glossy without top coat too!

1 coat of base coat (Revlon Top Speed) + 3 coats of H2 + 1 coat of top coat (still Revlon Top Speed!)

I already accepted (and embraced) the fact that H2 is never going to look like the bottled colors and it's actually baby blue, but after the third coat it's finally looks brighter (it's actually still sky blue instead of brighter like the bottled color, the picture above's slightly brighter than the color in real life due to lighting and other factors), and more importantly-opaque and packed with glitters, just the way i like it!

As usual, Crystal Nail didn't disappoint with drying speed, it dried out super fast even in the super cold weather (minus something degrees) *or did it dry even faster because of the weather? I don't remember if nail polish dries faster when it's cold or hot @___@ * something that i really love about Crystal Nail. I've ran out of Crystal Nail to try (not that i finished any of the colors, mind you! I think finishing up a nail polish would take me forever! I meant running out of new colors!) and finally been experimenting with different brands of nail polishes again-as i suspected... Crystal Nail really spoil them for me! If the other brands dry longer than a few minutes, i am ready to throw the bottle on the wall! (Well, figuratively. I'm not going to waste any nail polishes hahahaha).

And of course, the staying power's also AH-MAY-ZING-AH!!!! Stayed perfect for 11 (!!!) days before it started to chip! Such a perfect nail polish to apply just before a trip!

Crystal Nail's available in Me-Nail exclusively for IDR 60.000 per bottle after 20% off and you can get 10% off on top of that if you quote "Pink and Undecided" upon your purchase (both online and offline)!

Me-Nail Nail Salon Supplies and Training Centre

Ruko Klampis Jaya 33D Surabaya

Phone : 031-5946975

081 864 3166

BB Pin : 54bce22b or 56D9B20C
Line : menail_shop
Website : www.me-nail.com

Facebook Me-Nail

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Btw, any of you (who resides in Surabaya) interested in a free manicure? COMPLETELY FREE! Me-Nail's opening up the chance to get free manicures by their trainees/students for all of you, just contact them for further details!

Wahahahaha my fingers look like sausages!

#Pink

8:16:00 PM
4 Comments

Me-Nail Exclusive 11 : Crystal Nail NG4 (SPONSORED)

crystal nail

Hey guys...

My heart's broken to pieces #dramatic, my beloved Esprique double shine powder that i now use everytime i wear any makeup to highlight my nose bridge's broken *to pieces. Like my heart!* huhuhuhu... I actually dropped it plenty of times in the past and at worse it cracked a bit in the edge-a few days ago it flew out of my bag and landed in a sink's table not too far away, and the powder crumbled away T.T. I think it's getting thin so it can no longer withold strong bumps :(... of course it's still usable but it's not pretty anymoreeeee #whine. Only hardcore beauty junkies with OCDs can understand my anguish...

Okay, dramatics out of the way. Time to get down to business! Eh, i need to apologize first. I have no idea how but lately i seem to forget snapping pictures of my manicures' final result holding the nail polish's bottle, which is unforgivable in my book! I contemplating re-using the nail polishes just to take that pic, but then i realized that i forgot to do that not to one color, but three... The line of untouched nail polishes are just too long to justify re-using three different nail polishes just to take one particular shot for every color while i already have very clear pics of the nail polishes used anyway.... so.... Imma post them anyway T.T.

And today i am going to review yet another one of my Crystal Nail collection, kindly sponsored by Me-Nail of course :

Crystal Nail in shade NG4

It's a gorgeous, heavily glittery purple-silver shade!

Isn't my Little Pony figurine cute #momentarilydistracted

I thought this was a purple nail polish with silver glitters, but it's actually almost equally silver than it is purple... Does that make any sense at all?

Here let me explain what i mean... I was expecting the polish to be mainly purple-so when the first coat looks super pale and silver-ish, i was quite surprised!

1 coat of base coat (Revlon Top Speed) + 1 coat of NG4

First coat is quite thin and quite uneven-which i totally expected. And since the silver is very strong as well, the color looks very pale with one coat. There was once a time where i liked using pale, soft colors on my nails and nothing else-those days are long gone. I like dark, neon or strongly glittery nails better now (the louder the better, i guess :p) so when i saw how pale and soft one coat of this shade was, i honestly felt a bit underwhelmed.

It dries very speedily like most of the Crystal Nail polishes that i have.

1 coat of base coat + 2 coats of NG4

With the second coat NG4's already opaque (so i didn't feel the need to add the third coat) and i was excited when i can see the pretty purple base better! The silver is still very strong making the shade appear very metallic from afar but up close and personal you can see that it's infused with very fine and beautiful glitters (loads of them)! It's very pretty and shimmery, so those feelings of disappointment of one coat disappear very fast into thin air hahaha.

Although it's clearly glittery, unlike the other shades of Crystal Nail glitter nail polishes that i've tried, NG4's glitters are tiny with no big chunks of large and rough ones so the textures of the surface after it dries also differs from the others. It is quite smooth with no bumps and rough edges that might snag into clothing or other things. The second coat also dries very fast so you do not need to spend a lot of time with minimal movements to prevent your nails from smudging, perfect for someone as impatient as me!

With one thin coat of Revlon Top Speed as the top coat, NG4 stays perfect for 10 days without chipping. I am so spoilt with Crystal Nail's staying power that i was actually shocked when i started using other brands again recently and it chipped on the second day! I don't think i can ever go back to nail polishes with very bad staying power now :(....

Crystal Nail is available exclusively in Me-Nail for IDR 60.000 per bottle after 20% off and you can get 10% off on top of that if you quote "Pink and Undecided" upon your purchase (both online and offline)!

Me-Nail Nail Salon Supplies and Training Centre

Ruko Klampis Jaya 33D Surabaya

Phone : 031-2882 333

BB Pin : 22D7C1DF
Website : www.me-nail.com

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000280923456&fref=ts

That's me posing with NG4 and some flash tattoos, also from Me-Nail!

Btw, my All About Pink Giveaway has ended and i will announce the winners soon ^^. I am planning another giveaway in collaboration with Bangkok Beauty, i hope you're excited!

Toodles for now!

#Pink

8:32:00 PM
6 Comments

Nail Diary 11 : How to Modify Your Outgrowing Gel Manicures

DIY

Hi guys... I'm already back in Indonesia (in Jakarta, actually) but i'm still on vacay, so... No fresh posts yet, thankfully i drafted quite a bit of posts when i had the time! Let's start!

This is yet another post that i've drafted for probably almost a year (or even more than a year) but never gotten to write. I don't even know why i do this to some drafts, is it because i find the topic to be less interesting to write about? That's weird because i don't really write about anything that i'm not interested in *sigh*. Anyway, before this post started to sprout or grow a pair of wings and made its escape, it's about time for it to be properly worked on and published, once and for all!

You can judge the length of time i've postponed writing this post by the fact that i'm about to give you (sort of) a tip to modify your outgrowing gel manicures when in fact the last time i had a gel manicure was... wait let me think. August last year??? Wow, that means this draft truly is more than a year old *LOL* #hoarderproblems.

Yeah, i went crazy over gel manicures on 2012-2013, but then i realized how damaging they are to my nails when done continuously so i decided i would only get them once in a while, every few months if i must. But i had been without them for more than a year now so i guess i'm cured of the addiction hahaha.

Anyway... A gel manicure, if done right, can last for up to a month for me. It's super crazy! While some of us cannot stand growing nail beds (like #Undecided) and would rush to the nearest nail salon to get the gel removed, there are others-who are more like me. We just couldn't be bothered to go to a nail salon and try to hold on to the extremely growing gel manicures for as long as we could. I got this idea to layer a sheer colored glitter nail polish over the growing gels to try to conceal them into looking like it was done on purpose :

As usual with older drafts, i apologize for the pictures, #Pink's photography skill last year is much worse than #Pink's photography skill this year!

I don't know how convincing it looks to you? But in real life, it really was quite convincing! Nobody suspected anything weird from it and even the nail expert, L, thought it was a purposefully done modern French manicure *snickered* *as if i can bother to do a French manicure by myself*.

So, this is how it actually looked before :

LOL

Pretty ridiculous looking, right?

Somehow when my nails were still uber long (because i let them grow as much as those nail beds showing) it looked less disgusting than that, but of course... There is a limit on where i could stand uber long nails. And it's VERY limited. I have super hard nails that i keep on accidentally scratching others and myself, so i usually keep them as short as possible *even though i've been accused of having all thumbs as fingers as a result of that*.

Sometimes even the best applications of gel manicures would start to peel off after i cut my nails, but somehow in this case they stayed stubbornly put. So i went on with that plan to apply sheer, glitter nail polish on top of them.

For this modification, i didn't want to use opaque colors. I know you can always apply any opaque colored nail polishes on top of gel manicures to change up the color (just in case you got bored of your current nail polish, i know most of you suffer from that illness of getting bored too fast :p *staring at Lina, hard*) but when your gel mani has grown as much as mine did, i think just applying another nail polish would end up with a weird result-you'd get an obvious rounded lines in the middle of your nails. Now, that wouldn't be pretty!

So, for me, i prefer a sheer colored (not clear/transparent though!) glittery nail polish. It doesn't even have to be an expensive branded polish!

My choice fell on this sheer glittery apple green nail polish. It's unbranded and actually was a free gift from buying Veet Hair Removal Cream :p

Don't you think it's uber cute for a free nail polish, though?

Then simply paint over on your nails like you'd do normal nail polish and viola!

A new nail art (well, sort of)

I think it's quite cute and i like how the sheer green polish change the pink tone as well :D

There are a lot of other (more creative) ways to modify your growing gel manicures, i read one (recently, so i actually came up with this much earlier *smug* *don't you just want to smack me for acting like i invented electricity or something*) that suggests you filling in the nail beds (only) with opaque, glittery polishes. That sounds cute and not too hard, so next time i have a growing gel manicured talons i'd give it a whirl!

Do you have any tricks for modifying your outgrowing gel manicures or you simply go to a nail salon ASAP?

#Pink

9:39:00 AM
5 Comments

Me-Nail Exclusive 03 : Crystal Nail H6 (SPONSORED)

crystal nail

Hellow hellow :D!

Time for Crystal Nail review number 3! And that's this yellowish gold sparkly number :

Crystal Nail H6

And no, i didn't choose this color randomly (because i don't choose my nail colors randomly, doh!)-i chose it because this was my Makassar's wedding (my cousin's) nails! I already prepared a black dress with a complete set of black and gold accessories, which means my nails has to be gold as well... Right? (coz my nails are definitely part of my accessories) Yeah, i had the whole look set up and then just a day before our (extremely early, i must add) flight CL messaged me that the relatives' dress code was blue. Dang T.T... My careful plan down the drain (but imma use the whole set for #Undecided's little *he's obviously not little anymore hahaha* brother's wedding later this month so, yay!)! I still ended up with gold nails since it's the only nail polish i brought with me (and because i still wore all the black and gold accessories anyway).

Again, i wouldn't talk about the packaging because i already said it all in my first Crystal Nail review

It's nice that my third review is for their glittery type after the gel-effect and the glossy shimmery one, you know how much i love variety hahaha

Crsytal Nail in shade H6 is a sheer yellow based polish with combinations of tiny golden and chunky silver glitters. I only used a few other color-based glitter nail polish before (most of my glitter polishes are the top coat variety) and i must say it's pretty convenient, you don't need to use any other colored base and just slap it on for a beautiful, blingy nails!

One coat of H6 on top of my HG Revlon Top Speed (i decided not to bother with my other crappy top coats coz i know i wouldn't have much time to do my nails and i was right!)

One coat was very sheer, almost completely transparent. The glitters were also not very dense and packed, but if you love your glitters like i do-don't worry! You shouldn't stop at one coat anyway and it became a lot more blingy after a few more coats hehe. H6 dries VERY rapidly, it's one of the fastest nail polish that i've ever tried and i really love that even though obviously the glitters wouldn't make you nails feels very smooth (like normal glossy polishes) they also didn't make your nails very gritty/bumpy. That'd ensure that the glitters would stay put (even without top coat) and won't snag on your clothes like cheap glitter nail polishes would.

2 coats of H6

With the second coat, H6's glitters started to look more packed and the base color less transparent. It still dried very rapidly after the second coat. If you want to go for a more subtle nails (but then why would you go for disco glitters in the first place??) then you can stop on the second coat. I really like my nails to be super blingy so i added a third coat.

3 coats of H6

With the third coat, i finally get the opacity that i wanted (you can still see my nail bed slightly though, but it's not a problem for me) and also the right density of the glitters that i coveted (i'd say it makes my nails look quite merry hehe). I didn't have to dab and pack on the glitters myself to make it look like the pictures above, i just painted it on casually like any other nail polish. The brush picks up the right amount of glitters and they're fairly well spread. I usually have problem drying off my nail polish if i use more than two coats, but H6 really dries at the speed of lighting. I took a nap right after my nail was done and usually it'd mean disaster-sheet marks on my nails or thumb prints... But not a single problem arose with H6! The third coat also dried off as speedily as the previous two, awesome!

Final result, after base coat, 3 coats of H6 and a top coat

All of the step by step (or must i say, coat by coat? LOL) pictures above were taken in a very badly lighted hotel room with a table lamp directly above my hands. For a fairer judgement i also took another picture the next morning with the natural sunlight shining brightly from the hotel room's huge windows.

Crystal Nail in H6 is a beautiful yellow-golden glitter nail polish which is awesome for a blinged effect (my favorite party nails are golden, i dunno why! For me golden nails just scream lux and class *LOL*) nails, great for getting pretty party nails in a flash (easy to apply, impossible to mess up and dries at the speed of light. Okay, i'm slightly exaggerating the last part, but still). I personally prefer a less yellow kind of polish and would love it more if it's darker gold, but it's still pretty in its own right! And after three coats of H6, my nails still feel quite damn smooth for a glittery polish i really didn't have to worry about the glitters flaking off!

And oh it also last forever! Okay forever in a nail polish's world means more than a week, it just started to chip off very slightly (around the base) on the 8th day. Glittery nail polish with lighter color means you can get away with slightly chipped nails without anyone noticing *LOL*. I was so lazy i didn't remove the polish for about two weeks and it didn't look so bad! Removing them was a real B of course, but what do you expect from glitter nail polish anyway?

Me camwhoring with my nails on the morning part of Odang's wedding (yep, that's my cousin's nickname, no idea what it means haha)

And one for the evening look (for the reception). Yep, i was wearing my black lace top again to layer on my blue dress (i will do a separate post for the look)

I would highly recommend Crystal Nail in H6 in particular for those who are looking for pretty golden glitter nail polish for a glam look that is very low maintenance, idiot proof and last very long.

Not recommending it for those who wants a more golden tone/hates yellowish gold tone. And those who hates glitters, like obviously. Other than that nobody'd complain about this nail polish!

And what's more awesome is this very high quality nail polish is sold for only IDR 60.000 (original price IDR 75.000 but they have an indefinite 10% off!) at Me-Nail! It lasts longer than other glitter nail polishes twice the price of this one! A total must have for nail polish junkies!

Last selfie for this post :p. I really love how my makeup turned out that night even though i panicked when i applied my falsies and had to redo the eye shadow a few times whenever i smear some falsies glue on my lids! And also even though the inner edge of my right falsies started to gap in the middle of the reception *sigh*. I already used a more "proper" glue than my usual Daiso one, but it still sucks!!! It's confirmed, i suck at applying falsies *cries desperately*

Me-Nail Nail Salon Supplies and Training Centre

Ruko Klampis Jaya 33D Surabaya

Phone : 031-2882 333

BB Pin : 22D7C1DF
Website : www.me-nail.com

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000280923456&fref=ts

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Until my next Crystal Nail review and have a great weekend!

#Pink

1:24:00 AM
4 Comments

Nail Diary 09 : O.P.I Burlesque (The Show Must Go On)

glitter nail polish

Hi, dears!

I'm back with my nail polish review/swatches, the fastest growing beauty review series i have right here in this blog! After going back to back with Etude House's Minnie Mouse Collections (read the last one here), now i'm moving on with another brand : one (if not THE) of the most famous brand when it comes to nail lacquers, O.P.I.

Gonna review one of the polishes from Burlesque series :

Burlesque Little Teasers Mini Nail Lacquers (photo from Google)

Just like O.P.I Mariah Carey Liquid Sands (that i've reviewed here and here), i didn't actually buy the mini set but split it up with other customers (the set was IDR 160.000, so i paid IDR 40.000 for this mini polish). I don't even remember if i chose the color or not, i probably just said "i want one of the red one" and accepted my fate.

In the end i got the shade The Show Must Go On (i totally confused the shade with Ali's Big Break since there's no information whatsoever about the shade's name in the mini bottle! I had to google countless swatches to realize that i got the wrong name and have to re-do half of this review zzz)

I have a few O.P.I nail polishes, but none of the metallic/glitter type before so i didn't know what i was expecting. Here's how it performed on my nails :

One layer of my usual Revlon Top Speed Base/Top Coat followed with one layer of The Show Must Go On

One coat was sheer and kinda uneven. The small brush made me a bit awkward and ended up messing up the application as you can (clearly) see

I think in real life it was not that sheer, but seriously, The Show Must Go On's kinda a B to photograph (and i'm not the only one who says this, i read plenty other reviewers saying the same thing, about the entire line of this mini set actually!). I am used to O.P.I's super opaque, not-thick-but-not-sheer-just-right kind of texture in their normal (non glittery) polishes so i was a bit underwhelmed when i saw how uneven and sheer this nail polish was with one coat. Consistency was quite runny as well.

Two coats of The Show Must Go On

It was opaque with two coats

Forgive me if it didn't look all that opaque in the picture, let's blame it on it's un-photogenic-ness again! According to the box (yes, i have the box because the seller sent my orders of mis-matched mini collection and some other full sized polishes in it) The Show Must Go On is a deep pink shimmer color, but for me it looked more red with a strong tinge of hot pink, maybe my eye sight's getting worse, i dunno. It contains very fine gold glitters that gives the finished look a very metallic shine. It also has a duo-chrome effect, if you move your hands this way it'll appear red, move it that way it'd appear very gold!

Two coats of The Show Must Go On + Revlon Top Speed as top coat. It looked really (metallic) red here right?

But from this pic it appear sheer and the golden sheen more apparent

Here's the final result after i showered and all of the sloppiness had peeled away :p.

1 coat of Base Coat+2 Coats of The Show Must Go On+1 Coat of Top Coat. I have no idea if my application sucks (or my camera), but it looked quite different from other (more professional) reviews so i'm putting up a picture from another review (with link to the owner, of course) for comparison

Photo from : Krex Nail Polish, all credit to her blog

As you can see, it was opaque with two coats, but some reviewers said they added a third layer for depth. Maybe i'd be able to achieve that super deep color with a third coat, i just dislike too many layers of nail polish as it makes my manicure cracks faster. I am happy with the result anyway (even though it doesn't look the same as those professional looking photos of those other bloggers hahaha).

Staying power's good, just like every other O.P.I nail polish (excluding Mariah Carey Liquid Sands which staying power totally sucked), lasted me around 5 days even after traveling (i wore this nail polish to the Collection event, then go to Jakarta with Donna, and they were still intact for another few days) without my hunny, which means i had to handle luggage alone *the horror!*.

I dunno what's wrong with me, but maybe i was not into metallic nail polishes back then (btw, there's no claim that this is a metallic nail polish anywhere actually-maybe it's actually just glittery, but they somehow appear very metallic on my hands!) but i actually thought it was "not that special" color wise, but looking at the pictures now i actually think it's really pretty. Am currently obsessed with metallic colors, for that matter. Actively looking for very metallic, foil looking polishes (especially gold and silver) right now, any recommendations?

The polish and Base/Top Coat used for this manicure

That's how much (or little) i used for one time usage. Still quite a lot of usage-worth left on the bottle

Recommending this color for those who are looking for metallic looking, golden shimmered red/hot pink polish, something more unique than your usual red nail polish. It's quite sexy and daring (a nice twist to a regular red talons)! Not recommended for, well... glitter/metallic haters obviously!

There is no nail polish in this world that makes me feel the need to repurchase the exact shade from the same brand (i recently bought a nostalgic shade of nail polish that i used to have when i was little, but from a very different brand), so i won't be repurchasing it (wonder if it's still available though? With E-bay, i think it might) or a similar shade. I am intrigued to get my hands on more and more O.P.I nail polishes though. I just spotted the other colors from Burlesque series, the ones with big glitters on them? So PWETTY! Need to find something at least similar to them!

What about you, nail polishes with metallic finish-yay or nay?