RAOK Polishes Are The Best!

Hi guys!

If you're following me on instagram, you've probably seen my nail mail pic posted yesterday.Two of those polishes are random gifts from my nail polish buddy, hence the post title, and I feel it's necessary to post them here together! :) Just in case you're not familiar with the abbreviation, RAOK is short for Random Act Of Kindness. 

I have the best nail polish buddy! One sent me Julep Kai, which also my first Julep polish, and pick a color that I absolutely love. The other one, knowing well about my lve for glitter polish, sent me Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale, which is a dupe for Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe that she knows I don't have. 

Julep Kai is a bright baby blue polish with a textured finish. Julep calls it 'sea salt finish'. The shade alone made me fall in love with it. Although I prefer my textured polish to be sparkly, I still like this one nonetheless. It's not as gritty as other sparkly matte textured polish, so it's a plus. I used 2 easy coat here. Drying time is relatively quick. But I'm still not completely sold on the brand. Their bottle shape is dangerous for someone like me, whose in numerous occasion has tipped over polish bottle while I was using it. And the brush length is just awkward to use. Anyway, let's check out the photos!

Julep Kai

Julep Kai

Julep Kai

Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale is a dark blue jelly polish packed with blue & green hexes and blue micro glitter. Here I layered it over OPI Unfor-greta-bly Blue. You can probably wear it on its own, but it's gonna take 3-4 coats for opacity. At first, I had problem getting the hexes to the nail, they just stuck on the brush. So I pressed the brush on the nail, and that worked out great. After 2-3 nails, I didn't have to do that again, the hexes transferred easily from the brush to the nail. My swatches here are using only one coat of Mermaid's Tale, you can see that I got a decent amount of glitter for each nail.

Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale

Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale

Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale

Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale

Do you own any of these two? And how do you like them? :)

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 20: Water Marble

Hi guys!!

I'm back for day 20 of the challenge! This is probably the only challenge that I'm comfortable with. Not because I'm a water marble genius like Mucking Fusser or Simple Little Pleasure, but at least I know what to expect when marbling. The only problem maybe picking the polishes to use. For today I used the entire Butter London Color Clash collection for my water marble.

I love how bright they look! These Butter London shades are quite ok to use for marbling, they all spread nicely. But for some reason they dried up pretty quick. I'm not sure if it's the polish or because it's a bit cold in here. It's that kind of weather when it'll be too warm to have the heater on, but kinda cold without it.

It's so fun to see so many water marble mani in one day! :)

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 19: Galaxy Nails

Hi guys!!

I'm cutting it close again on today's challenge. And it's one of my most dreaded challenge! I have never done a galaxy nails before, I've tried it on a pendant, but it's a bigger canvas, thus it felt easier. I've chosen and painted my nails with the base color for my galaxy nails (Zoya Storm) before I went out today, and I managed to smudged 4 nails *sigh* 

At first I didn't really like how they turned out, but after I totally finished with them, I think they're not too bad after all. 

Here's the list of colors used for this mani:

Zoya Storm

OPI Morning, Moneypenny

OPI Is That Silva?

Butter London Silly Billy

Butter London Cake-Hole

OPI I Juggle..Men

OPI DS Radiance

XO

Novi

piCture pOlish 9 Week Review: #4 Dorothy

Hi guys!

Can you believe 3 weeks has passed since I first started this review?? I have shared swatches of Citrus, Hot Lips, and Metallic Mush with you all, and this week's pick is Dorothy. Not my typical go to shade, but pretty nonetheless.

Dorothy is a red jelly polish, packed with silver microglitter. The formula is on a thick side, but still really easy to apply. I used 2 coats and top coat for my swatches here. A little warning, during removal the silver glitter could get everywhere around your nails. All the pictures here were taken in a light box.

piCture pOlish Dorothy

piCture pOlish Dorothy

 piCture pOlish Dorothy

I also took some macro shot of this pretty :)

piCture pOlish Dorothy

piCture pOlish Dorothy

piCture pOlish Dorothy

Dorothy and other piCture pOlish & Ozotic shades can be purchased directly from their website, they ship worldwide, you can check their shipping rate here. If you live outside of Australia, (piCture pOlish is based in Australia), check out their network page to see which distributor is closer to you. Lastly, don't forget to follow and subscribe to piCture pOlish social media below :)

Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest ~ Youtube

**product is provided for my honest review

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 18: Half Moons

Hi guys!

Are you tired of seeing my posts yet? I hope not!

Day 18! And for the first time, I'm actually ahead on today's challenge. And as we're getting closer to the 4th week, I'm starting to get really nervous. I have no idea of what I want to do on those 'inspired by' days :s I'm even nervous for tomorrow's challenge, as I've never done galaxy nails before.

Anyway, for today's theme, half moons, I did a reverse half moon mani. I was thinking of doing a real half moon painting, but nah.. I'm saving my creativity for the more difficult challenge :p. When I knew what I wanted to do, I also knew right away which polishes I want to use for it. My base is OPI Incognito in Sausalito, layered with OPI I Juggle..Men. I free-handed the half moon shape on the tips with a small liner brush using OPI Haven't The Foggiest. I forgot how beautiful IJM is over a dark base, and wondered why I haven't used it in so long. Then I found out why... IJM is kinda.. you can say tempramental maybe? It has tendency to shrink the base polish you layered it with. I remembered that I had to use top coat before layering it, this time I didn't and it shrunk 2 of my nails :( 

How do you like this half moon tips mani? Wish me luck on my galaxy mani tomorrow! Haha!

XO

Novi