Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day to those who celebrate or does something special on this day. :) I spent my morning at work until 2 and then had lunch with the bf :) walked around and shopped around-ish. Saw this cute bag at Aldo which I'm sooooo going to buy the next time I'm near my workplace, lol. Anyways no Valentine's Day mani. but I do have a nail wheel full of colors. These nail polishes were brought back to me from Bangladesh from my bf. :) I love the colors despite wonky brushes and weird-ish formula. But the colors came out great and I don't even know which ones to use first! :P So hard to choose!!

1-5 were from the same brand and I love the formula

I also looooove 8-13! Definitely awesome metallic streaky finish which came out nice. During the process of swatching, it didn't look as nice until the finish product! 

Hope you all enjoyed your Valentine's Day! & happy polishing!

<3katherine

Sisterhood of the Nail Polish Lovers

I deleted the previous post because I forgot to say that in order to be able to enter in to try and get Manhattan 610K, you must be a GFC follower with a blog. You must comment with your GFC follower name, blog url, email and where you're located. THANKS! 

So if you already entered, I'll notify you via email to enter again, my apologies!! 

Please note that you aren't actually keeping the nail polish forever, but passing it along to another person :P

Today I'm sharing a great experience from the nail polish blogging world. You've probably heard about it before from other blogs, such as Kesha's Nail Polish Obsession, Sammy's The Nailasaurus, Jenny's Polishology and Jessika's Polish Insomniac. No, it's not the sisterhood of the traveling pants! :P Yeah, that's right, it's MANHATTAN 610K; the traveling nail polish! :) It first started with Kesha in Germany which later traveled to Sammy in the UK then it made its way to the US with Jenny and Jessika. It's luckily in my hands now and here's my take on Manhattan 610K. Kesha keeps an update on Manhattan 610K's location so you'll see from both of us, to see where it goes next! :)

Manhattan 610K is a medium deep purple creme. I love the color and I wish it was mine forever! But it will make its way to another nail polish lover's hands :) I used 2 coats of Manhattan 610K in the first few swatch pictures and then I used it as the base of my nail art mani. Cupcake design! Yes you've probably seen it before but here's my cupcake designs. Trust me, this is my first time doing it so it took me a while to get the hang of it. :P But don't worry, I practiced with a different base beforehand (still takes getting used to a new design)! Anyways, I used China Glaze For Audrey, Lemon Fizz and Something Sweet as well as OPI Rumple's Wiggin' for the cupcake toppings. :P I also made sprinkles out of those colors and Manhattan 610K, alternating a color out depending on its cupcake topping color.

If you're interested in receiving Manhattan 610K next, 

Please comment with your GFC follower name, blog url, email & where you are located.

Anyone with that's a follower with a GFC name & blog can enter no matter where you are located!

I'll be taking entries until February 5th, 2011.

Stay tuned and find out who will get Manhattan 610K next. :)

Hope you enjoyed & happy polishing! :)

<3katherine

Something Sweet

Hello there! :) I'm posting my current manicure/nails! I received this nail polish in a swap and ever sine I got it, I've been wanting to try this!

China Glaze Something Sweet

it's a pastel light pink with hints of lavender and a slight hint of gray because it isn't as bright as Wet N Wild's Tickled Pink although it seems very similar (I'll be doing a side by side comparison soon for these two cute pinks). I started off my manicure with base coat, 2 coats of Something Sweet and 1 coat of Seche top coat on my pinkie, middle fingers and my thumb. (*Note: the pictures of the manicure isn't as accurate. The closest to the actual color is the pictures of my manicure+nail art. My camera's wonky on certain colors x___x & notetoself:savemoneyandbuynewcameraandmakelightbox)

To add a little "nail art" to my manicure, I decided to do simple white stripes. I used Kiss Nail Art in White for the stripes, although they aren't perfectly straight, they look amazingly cute! I finally topped it off with Essie's Matte About You on my ring and index fingers. :) How cute is that? It reminds me of those round peppermint mints that are red and mainly white. :P

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Oh Bunny, you're darn adorable♥

Today, I PRESENT TO YOU A NAIL ART POST! YAY! I know you all have been craving for nail art and I finally got inspired to do something after looking over my folder of nail art. I had tons of fun with this too.

First my mani was OPI Dating a Royal. I used 2 coats of DAR. You can see my nail broke on the side of my ring finger <:( boo. The formula was a bit water-y in my opinion for a creme, which surprised me but I totally dig the color! (excuse my lingo :P)

Next, for my other fingers (excluding ring) I used China Glaze Dorothy Who (1 coat) over it and then 1 coat of Seche top coat. For my ring finger I made a BUNNY! :) Isn't it adorable? This was my first attempt at a bunny and trust me, it came out the best the FIRST time and not the second or third time, odd.. But anyways I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white bunny, Wet N Wild Tickled Pink for the bunny's ears and nose and LA Colors Black Nail Art for the eyes. Then you wait a while for it to try because trust me you don't want to put top a few seconds later or else you'll smear your nail art. This happened to me a lot so wait a "considerable" amount of time before you apply so it doesn't smear and you have pretty darn cute nail art! =)

Tomorrow is the last day to enter my giveaway, which ends at 11:59 EST (NYC). So hurry and enter in! :)

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

PS: I've got it on slow picture tutorial (I'm not good with speaking on video) for those who want to try this! :)

Pastel

Hello :) Today's a swatch day from the vault since I didn't want to change my nails after my pink leopard nails. For these swatches, I used plastic Nailene tips because my nails were nubs. They do look a little funny on me haha. But I hope you enjoy the swatches.

American Apparel Butter

pastel yellow. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. I love American Apparel nail polishes, the formula is nice and it applies nicely with awesome color. Butter is one of my favorite pastel yellows that actually works with my skintone.

American Apparel Coney Island

a pastel pink. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. It's suck a cute girly pink. :) The formula and application was awesome, typical American Apparel.

Essie Looking For Love

a pastel periwinkle jelly creme. The swatch 3 coats and 1 coat of top coat. It took another extra coat because the formula was kind of thin so it came out sheer. It applied nicely though. :)

6 more days until my giveaway closes ~ hurry and enter in

you can also click on my right hand column.

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

PINK POW

New nails today :) It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do for my nails and I thought of different ideas. I will post in the future manicures that didn't work out for me though because not all my nails always come out perfect.

Bringing leopard/cheetah print back~

nail polishes used:

OPI Pink-A-Doodle

Nabi Pink M. Star

Sally Hansen Twisted Pink

LA Colors Nail Art Black

Here's OPI's Pink-A-Doodle by iteself, it's a shimmery sheer pink. It's soo adorable! The swatch is 3 coats and 1 coat of top coat.

Don't forget to enter in my giveaway ends October 6th~

Hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

[review|img heavy] Viva La Nails

So I received my sample pack from Viva La Nails a little while ago, and haven't been able to fully review them until now.

On the left is my review for the star glitters. I call this Reaching for the Stars. It reminds me about my goals and dreams that I have for my future (:x Corny I know). Anyways so the base for this is Borghese Tutti Gelati topped with open flakes of stars in light pearl pink and yellow from Viva La Nails.

To apply the stars, I used on a wooden cuticle stick with a dab of top coat to be able to pick up the stars individually and I created diagonal tips with the stars as well as a whole nail full of stars. :)

The name for this one is a lyric from a Ricky Martin song, and you could probably guess it, Float like a Butterfly and Sting like a Bee. :) The base is 2 coats of Quirius Cotton Candy.

The black butterflies are nail stickers had little rhinestones on it, which I thought they were really cute. It's really easy to take off and apply onto your nails and it isn't complicated and it does not bubble up or anything like that!

The other butterflies were a surprise to me. Does anyone remember when they were young and they would have those fake tattoos that you apply by just putting water and holding it onto your arm? That's what these butterfly nail arts are! At first I was trying to peel it off like a regular nail art sticker and then it hit me. These were adorable and they are sooo easy to apply! Just dab on some water with your fingertip and hold it there for a few seconds and voila~ you got yourself a butterfly on your nails! :)

This one I call it Home Improvement. Because from the sample back I used, it reminded me of the stones that people use to create a path on their lawn or backyard. :) The base is 2 coats of Sephora by OPI Never Enough Shoes.

To apply this, I simply took one of my fingers from my free hand to stamp some onto my fingertip and then sprinkled it on the nail. I did this carefully to create tips as well.

I really like this and I think I'm going to try to create a path with this in the future. :) Very easy to do it yourself

hope you enjoyed and there will be a further review on more products from the sample pack!

<3katherine

[* these were sent to me to review]

Random Swatches Part 3 - OPI

This is my last post for my random swatches because I think almost everything's been swatched in my collection and onto my blog. Except for my recent purchases which I haven't swatched since I'm stuck with short nails for a while until they grow out. After having my nails kind of longish for a while, I don't like having short nails. Reason being that, I can't pick a color that would really look nice with short nails & there's not much room as a canvas. :\

But if there's anyone that has any nail art for short nails, please email me pictures & links to your blog and I'll have a feature post! :) I'm very interested to see what people would do with their short nails! and it might inspire meee ;) (email: findkatherinewu@gmail.com)

OPI Holiday Glow

brown with gold glitters. The swatch is 3 coats and no top coat. The formula was a little on the shin side so I had to use a third coat. I bought this a while back but I haven't touch it. I don't know why I haven't picked you out earlier! :( I'm sorry♥

OPI I Only Drink Champagne

gold champagne frost. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat and a small sign of VNL but it still looks amazing. I use to have OPI Kyoto Pearl and it's just the light champagne version of it. A bit streaky though.

OPI Italian Love Affair

light pink shimmer creme. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. This is a favorite of mine. I love this and I'm so glad I picked it up. I got it for half the price too! 50% off from Duane Reade a long time ago. I did my cousin's toes with this and Hidden Treasure on top and it looked amazing.

OPI You're A Kabuki Queen

hot medium pink creme. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. I also picked this up on clearance and I'm glad I did. This color is so good!

Sephora by OPI Mermaid to Order

medium blue-green. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. My first Sephora by OPI polish and one of my long time favorites.

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Random Swatches Part 2 - Essie & Misa

More random swatches from my collection:

Essie Barbados Blue

light blue frost. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. This was one of my first Essie bottles that I own. Back then, this was my favorite and now I've grown out of it a bit. But I still have some love in my heart for it. :)

Essie Chinchilly

light/medium gray creme. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. The formula and application was great. I love this polish!

Misa No Shrinking Violetta

light pink with gold shimmers. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat.

Misa Runway Diva

dusty rose / muted mauve color. The nail polish is darker and dustier in real life. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. It was taken with the sunlight. I'm going to have to take another picture of this to show you the true color. But amazing formula and application.♥

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Franken #4

My last franken for now~ I wanted to avoid dark colors since I've made 2 black frankens. You're probably tired of seeing frankens right? :P Well rest assured, I won't be frankening for a bit. :)

Fraken #4

• 1/2 a bottle of OPI Natural Nail Strengthener (clear)
• 1/3 a bottle of Wet N Wild Tickled Pink
• some amount of Meerkat fyrinnae
• some amount of Gilded Wings fyrinnae

a dusty grayed out pink with purple and subtle gold shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. As I was mixing tickled pink with meerkat, it came out to resembled OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender except there was a slight silver shimmer in it. So then I wanted it to be different compared to Lucky Lucky Lavender (no shimmer in the polish) so I decided to add gilded wings which gave it a gold bronze shimmer also. :) the whole franken was hard to take a picture of because my camera couldn't pick it up as good. but I love it!! Please excuse the dry hands in the swatch picture, I've been doing a lot of catching up with my nail stuff! The last picture is a close up shot of the gold bronze shimmer.

another unnamed franken, and suggestions for a name are welcomed!

I hope you enjoyed and aren't tired of frankens! :P

<3katherine

Quick Mini Haul: Walgreens

I went to Walgreens to check if there were any sales or discounts on any nail polishes and found none. But I did pick up 5 bottles of Wet N Wild and 3 of them I've been eyeing and debating about for a while. I finally had the guts to pick them up, buy them so I could try them.

There are no swatches for the clear and the black since I used them only to franken with and everyone knows how it comes out.

Wet N Wild Tickled Pink

a very light baby pink. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. I'm not a BIG fan of Wet N Wild but this one made me have more faith in them. I really love the color as well as the formula. It wasn't too thick or too thin, and it was easy to apply. Not as easy as Essie, OPI and China Glaze but close to it. :)

Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up

a yellow orange creme. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. Easy to apply and it wasn't thick either. This is the first orange bottle of nail polish I have. And I don't think it's that bad and that oranges aren't that bad with my skintone.

Wet N Wild Blazed

a strawberry coral. The swatch is 3 coats and no top coat because the formula was a little thin. But it applied well and easy and it comes out really nice. :)

I hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine