French Manicure Ruby Deer and Where's the Soiree

Hello dear readers, welcome!

My last post was on how much I love ruby deer from China Glaze, a lovely sexy striking red creme, but the sad fact that it chips faster than, well, you can say chip.

So I did a french manicure with it because I wasn't ready to take it off, nope! Lovely red makes me feel happy! Here's how I improvised it with Color Club's Where's the Soiree, a black creme opaque in just 1 coat! Awesome!

Where's the soiree from Color Club

A red and black french manicure! Sexy and mysterious, no? Somehow it's just pull in all the right directions. I love how the starkness of the color compliment each other. Both are colors, a red and a black, and it just goes so well together, it just spells out confident, no? A I-know-what-I'm-doing look.

Modern Red and Black French Manicure: China Glaze Ruby Deer  and Color Club Where's The Soiree

Sorry for the little hiccups in the tips, I'm kinda clumsy, but I guessed you've already known it by now.

Modern Red and Black French Manicure: China Glaze Ruby Deer  and Color Club Where's The Soiree

I hope you dear readers love it, and would like to try out this look some time. Till then, cheers!

China Glaze Ruby Deer

I should think every nail polish hoarder-holic would have a basic striking red creme in her collection. I was looking for the perfect, classy, hot, seductive red creme nail polish a while back, and I was indecisive between China Glaze's Ruby Deer and Phat Santa. I didn't want a red creme with orange base, nor do I want it to be a blue base. I just want a red, period.

So many nail bloggers photographed Ruby Deer quite orange, and I was favoring Phat Santa, until I saw in someone's blog that Ruby Deer is the santa claus red, and Phat Santa is more deep blue red. So I took a plunge and chose Ruby Deer.

It was a decision I never regretted.

China Glaze Ruby Deer

It has the different silver cap of limited edition?? I'm not sure of that, but it is a bright seductive classy true red that is just plain red.

Yes, compared to Phat Santa it seems a little more orange, but Phat Santa leans towards the dark cherry/mulberry kind of red, while ruby deer is plain red, like coca-cola red.

China Glaze Ruby Deer

n the next picture, I adjusted the color setting to a little less red/more blue, because I realised that the red in Ruby Deer tends to show up much more orange than it really is. That is why I hesitated to buy  it because I thought it was orangey-red.

China Glaze Ruby Deer

Application wise is very smooth and opaque in 2 coats. Color true to bottle in 2 coats too. One of the downside is this is one nail polish that chips easily. I've never had a smooth good nail polish that chips so fast!

It chips in about 1 or 2 days, and awful tipwear. :(

Usually I encounter chips easily in pastel color or thick goopy nail polish, but this has quite a good formula...

China Glaze Ruby Deer

 Below shows the picture of my chip in the 2nd day, some bigger chips on my thumb and awful tipwear on the right nails, but I did a french mani to cover it up. Will show it to my dear readers in the next post. Till then readers, have a nice day~ :D

Stamping with CHG Something Sweet over IN2IT Jackpot

I don't know how to do water marble nails, but I really love those designs. I don't even think I want to try because I'm just plain clumsy and bad with things like that.

So I did the next best thing, stamping with a pattern which looks like a water marble design. hahahaha~ I'm smart.

Konad M78 with China Glaze Something Sweet over IN2IT Jackpot

I know I know, it's not great, but I think it's awesome for me because I just plain sucks at things like these. Besides, it looks really like water marbling to me, especially with my smudges and smears, purfect. hahaha...



So this was the plate that I used, M78, the pattern is circled in pink.

Konad Plate M78

So that's how you get some fake water marbling nails by not water marbling. Hope you enjoyed it. Till next time.

China Glaze Refresh Mint French Manicure

I've been pretty rough with my fingers these few days, so arghhhh.... I got some tip wear and small chips on my forefinger especially, and on my left hand too! But I like this color too much to take it off, so I made some changes to extend the life of my mani.

China Glaze Refresh Mint, Tips OPI Alpine Snow

Haha... yeaps~ french tips. I saw it somewhere on the web, can't remember where exactly though, but it was so so sweet with the milky green and pure white tips, that I copied it too. It's so nice! I don't have to change my manicure for the chips on my tips anymore~

I used the little french tips stickers to do this. 

But I tried to konad with M19, the french manicure plate on my right hand. It didn't turn out too well. Ah well, maybe next time. 

Using the french tips will make the tips feel much thicker, whereas if you stamp it, it's actually pretty smooth and natural, so I would really love to master stamping french tips with konad plates.

I used seche vite to smoothen my nails, but I used the Konad Top Coat on the forefinger in the photo, and look what it did! It bubbles like craaaaazy! Argh.... my smooth manicure bubbles and now it looks like the surface of the moon. NOT cool. I'm gonna avoid using the Konad Top Coat even though I've still about 90% left. Such a waste!

China Glaze Refresh Mint

One of the colors that I absolutely adore - China Glaze Refresh Mint

China Glaze Refresh Mint

It's a milky mint green, like a breath of fresh air on my nails. It's absolutely new to see such delightful light mint milky green on my nails. Reminds me of mint ice-cream.

China Glaze Refresh Mint

Application wise, this is a PITA. It's gloopy and really difficult to manage. And it dries quite fast, so it's pretty hard if you want to repair that little streak of bald spot on the same coat. You'll have to wait till it dries completely to repair that bald streak. It became a little patchy, thick and uneven if I tried to repair it on the same coat. Geezz...

China Glaze Refresh Mint

Lucky for me I had some Seche Vite thinner in hand, so after 3 drops, it evens out to the consistency I want.

It is a two coater for its original formula, very opaque, but after thinning it out with the thinner, it's still a two coater, though you might require three coats if you aren't careful. No biggie for me.

China Glaze Refresh Mint

All in all, a lovely pastel milky mint green polish. It makes me look a little more tan than I really am, but it's a really great polish, love the colour, it's like a high end doll dress colour. Lovely! Hope you will like it too!

PS: Just realised there's a little unknown particle on my little finger, must be some unidentified glitter in my seche vite, but it's not on my fingernails now.. weird... enjoy~

Skittle Pastel Manicure

I have quite a lot of untrieds in my stash, so after going back and forth among the bottles for nearly half an hour, I finally decided on a skittle manicure so I can wear every color. Yay!!

I wanted something fun and colorful, some cheerful nails, so this is what I came out with:

On my right hand:

Skittle pastel manicure: (L to R) OPI Alpine Snow, Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, China Glaze Refresh Mint, China Glaze Something Sweet, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender

This is my first skittle manicure, and I jazzed it up with some stamping on it.

I wanted something creative, so I stamped each finger with a different design. It looks sort of like a kindergarten wallpaper, doesn't it?

Thumb: OPI Alpine Snow stamped with China Glaze Someting Sweet; m79

Fore: Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau stamped with Konad White Special Polish, M79

Middle: China Glaze Refresh Mint stamped with OPI Alpine Snow; m79

Ring: China Glaze Someting sweet stamped with OPI Alpine Snow; m64

Little: OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender stamped with Konad White Polish; m35

I did it with my right hand too, but in different order. I didn't want a matchy matchy manicure which looks boring.

Skittle Pastel Manicure

I alternate between Alpine Snow OPI and the Konad Special white polish, I don't prefer one over the another for stamping, it all gets the same look anyway.

I know I know... my stamping is off and the alignment is bad and all that, but you get the look I was sporting, right? Right??

I get a lot of compliments on this manicure, so I'm happy! :D

Hope you like them!

Comparison Between China Glaze 2030 vs China Glaze Passion

It's the gold comparison I've wanted to do for awhile.

China Glaze 2030 is from the Khrome collection in Fall/Winter 2009; whereas China Glaze Passion is from the Romantique collection in Spring 2009.

Initially, I wanted to get 2030 for stamping but it was out of stock in many e-tailers. Googling told me that Passion is also a gold from China Glaze which can be used for konading as well, so I had to settle for that. A few weeks later, 2030 was available again, but I was reluctant to get similar colors. I searched on the internet for a comparison of both colors but it wasn't really helpful, so I hope this post can help some girls out there to make up their minds.

China Glaze Passion (left) vs China Glaze 2030 (right)

As seen in the pictures, Passion is a more yellow toned gold than 2030.
2030 seems to have a little bronze tone added to it.

Bottle comparison. Passion left; 2030 right.

On the nails, these are two very different nail polish, different texture, different finish, and slightly different color.
Passion is the more yellow gold, the antique gold, the tone is warmer; whereas 2030 is a cooler gold, the modern gold, more like sci-fi gold.
If Passion is a grandmother, then 2030 is the grandchild.
For me, 2030 is a young gold; whereas Passion seems to be a more seasoned gold.

Passion looks more yellow than 2030

Passion has more yellow pigment than 2030 as can seen from the picture above.

Apart from that, the finish of the polish sets them apart as well.
2030 dries very quickly to a very smooth thin finish. When you touch 2030, it feels smooth and metallic.
Passion takes a longer time to dry, and it has the tacky feel of nail polish. It is thicker and feels as though you make a visible dent with your nails.

2030 vs passion

2030 has a thinner formula, easy and quick to apply. It doesn't drag and is opaque in 1 coat.
Passion has a thicker formula, a little draggy and some brush stroke problem, but it is also a 1 coater.

L to R: Passion, 2030, Passion

The picture above shows very obvious brush strokes markings from Passion, whereas 2030 has a smoother and more mirror like finish. Some brush strokes shown on 2030 is entirely user error.


If you want to do a full gold manicure, I recommend 2030. 2030 dries quicker, and it does not have that much brush strokes problem. The finish is wonderfully mirror-like and smooth, and it feels very thin as though there aren't any polish on your fingers.

However, if you want to do stamping, it's much better to use China Glaze Passion. Passion dries slower, so it gives you more time to transfer you design onto your nails.

Aside from that, both colors are very very similar when used for stamping, so I would definitely suggest Passion for stamping.
2030 dries a little too quick for my liking, making it particularly difficult to pick up small designs.

China Glaze 2030 vs China Glaze Passion

All in all, I've had fun doing this gold comparison and I do hope it will help others who are indecisive between the both.
In short, think of 2030 as a pink skintone, and Passion as a yellow skintone.

Till then girls, bye!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

When I wanted to get China Glaze, I didn't know which color to get. Where do I start?
So I googled China Glaze Must have colors, and this came out on many list many times. Without much thinking, I added them to my order, since one can never have too much reds anyway.

And I'm glad I did.

Introducing awesomeness in a bottle (drumrollssssssss): Tahhhdahhhh.... China Glaze Ruby Pumps!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

When I first saw the bottle, I literally drooled. It was gorgeousness in a bottle. It was sparkly red and red and sparkly and red. Ok... that was a bad description.

Ruby Pumps was a lovely red with red sparkles, in a red based jelly. It might look a little dark red, but it was sparkly when you look at it in another angle. It's not cheap red, but makes you think of high classed, magical unforgettable red sparkles. Not angry red, but simply magical red. Do you get me?

And yes, it was nearly impossible to photograph it's true colors, until I adjust my camera setting.

The true color can never show up if it were to show my real skintone, so I adjusted the lighting to 'incandescent". 

It makes me look blue... a little, like avatar, but it shows the true awesomeness of Ruby Pumps.

It's just a normal red, nothing special, I'll pass red in normal camera setting. See the normal skintone? You can't capture the beauty of Ruby Pumps here.

Ruby Pumps in shade

In direct sunlight, you see the flecks of the sparkles, but no shining shining sparkles there. Again, it's just a normal red.

Ruby Pumps in direct sunlight

But look at these in incandescent lighting! Weird avatar skintone, I know, but the shining little sparkles are peeking out of the deeper based red jelly!!! Awesome Rubio Pumpo!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

It actually is silver sparkles in deep red jelly, but I believe the jelly dye them red, because when I remove them, I see silver sparkles on my nails. Amazing eh?

Can I drool 1 more time? Ahhhhhhhhhh! The pretties on mah fingers!

I decided to konad them with golden stars! These konading are done with Konad Plates M3, with China Glaze Passion from the Romantique collection. Will do a comparison between China Glaze Passion and 2030 soon.

Konad Ruby Pumps and CG passion in normal lighting

Awesomenesssssssssssss!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps konad with M3 plate using China Glaze Passion (gold)

Go get a bottle of China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I doubt you'll regret. It's so so pretty!