Weekly Manicure :) Ami and Sailor Mercury :)

So sorry for being so late in posting the Weekly Manicure but I had a little bit of experimenting to do :)

This manicure is going to serve a lot of tasks:

1.  It is a swatch and review of Etude House Ice Cream Nails in BL601 courtesy of W2Beauty
2.  It is a review and how to of striping tape courtesy of Born Pretty Store
3.  Phase one will be portraying Amy from Sailor Moon
4.  The complete manicure shall be portraying Sailor Mercury :)

Excited?   Let's get started :)

This is the base colour for the complete manicure. It is from Etude House's latest collection Ice Cream Nail in Blue BL601 which was sent to me from Alice of W2beauty as a gift with my previous hair care haul :)

This cute blue reminds me so much of Sailor Mercury's Bows that I decided it is the perfect shade to portray her both in her Senshi and Normal form.

I applied one coat of Nail hardener as a base, using my all time favourite Lioele Nail hardener which is running so low :(  The I painted my nails blue with one slightly thick coat of this cute blue. Here is a shot of the result :)

 

Hehe my nails aren't exactly clean and that's my desktop there :P

Well if you want you can stop here, apply a coat of top coat and clean the cuticles up, and you are ready :) 

I will be moving on to portraying Sailor Mercury!

To finish up the manicure I shall be using the following (the base colour is already finished):

Lioele Nail Hardener

Striping Tape in Metallic Blue and

Scissors (very shape)

Here is a close up of the striping tape.  This is easy to work with. All you have to do is peel the amount you need, place it on your nail and cut off the extras....but... you need a steady hand, a lot of patience and some immagination :)  I am going to show you how to do a simple design, firstly because it's my first time using tape and secondly, I don't want to scare everyone off with difficult stuff.

Basically what I am going to do is add two stripes to the side of each nail...they represent the stripes in Sailor Mercury's fuku or for those that are more of a motor head like me, they can be described as Racing stripes :)

Step 1:

I placed the tape to the far side of the nail and pressed it gently in a straight line. Avoid kinks as they will pull out faster.  Carefully I cut off the end.

Step 2:  Repeat the above placing the second stripe close to this one. Try to keep it straight as the gap in between the stripes will give you out if you slant it.

Step 3:  Apply a generous coat of top coat to keep everything in place.

Here is the result:

I have a dent in that nail there see... it got covered with striping tape :)

My opinion on the Striping Tape:

It is really useful to create crisp lines.  A steady hand is necessary to be able to move along without kinks. I applied the lines twice because the first time something went wrong and the taped turned silver. I am guessing it was because I washed my hands before applying the top coat.  The second time round the tape stayed a perfect metallic and the photo above is in fact showing the second set.  I had to be careful when pulling it off the roll as it can split from the centre.  It is also not useful for nail arts that are meant to last longer than 2 days as it starts pulling off at the tips.

Overall:

This tape deserved 4.5 Pink Diamonds:

I am reducing half a Diamond because it stays nice for a maximum of 3 days. I like to keep my manicures for a full week since I lack free time :)

You may purchase this tape from Born Pretty Store by following this link: Striping Tape  for only 99c of a dollar per roll :)


I hope you enjoyed this post and till next one,
Saranghae :)
Pauline

Etude House Silky Cotton Pad Review

Today I want to share with you a mini review of the Etude House Cotton Squares.  I received a few squares from W2Beauty as a sample and here is my opinion :)

 

The cotton pads are really soft and gentle on the skin. I used them with toner and cleanser and they worked perfectly well.  They do not fall apart into tiny bits and you don't get loose fibres getting in your eyes, something which I really love!The only downside is that they are a little small :)  There isn't a lot to say about these little cuties. I think that they are best suited to use with skin toners rather than with skin cleansers since they are on the tiny side :) 

You can purchase Etude House Cotton pads from W2Beauty here  for $4.77 :)

This was quite a short post, till next one!

Saranghae

Pauline

Etude House Shopping Bag :)

 This is the first review from the latest W2Beauty Haul :) I am starting off with the most basic item that I got as a gift from Alice which is the Etude House Shopping Bag :)

This shot is without flash because that kind of turns it orangey!  It is currently housing all the haul that it came with, that's why it looks so bumpy :)

The bag is made of a king of cottony canvas in hot pink with white straps which are wide enough to allow you to strap the bag on your shoulder. As you can see from the pictures the bag is really big, pretty much like what you would get from a supermarket like Lidl or Smart :)  It has Etude's catch phrase printed in silver on both sides and a lot of cute little items like make up and jewellery printed in silver all over the place which makes it really really cute :) I never thought I would go nuts over a shopping bag but this one won my heart :)

I am not going to try washing but I think it can be hand washed in cold water so that the print doesn't go off? It can be wiped clean with a wet towel for sure but I don't suggest any of you wash it in a machine should the need arise cause that would probably make the pink run and the silver fade!

 That's it there lying against the wall unit. It is half as big as the cupboard! And look at all those cute designs :)

I don't think that there is a way to purchase this bag except for when shopping the in the actual Etude House shops in Seoul. But another option is that of gently asking Alice whether she could send you one with your order?!  Don't get me wrong, I didn't ask for mine, it was a deliberate gift which I so much appreciate! In any case W2Beauty is the best Korean cosmetics shop online that there is, where all the products are hand picked by Alice herself and her customer care and after sales is just amazing! You can check her shop out by using the link on my side bar or clicking here :)

That's it for today, I know it is a pretty short review but there isn't a lot to say about a cute canvas Etude bag that is ginormous and can hold a day's shopping :)

There are still tonnes of cute stuff to review so keep an eye out and thanks for subscribing and following :)

Till next post,
Saranghae
Pauline (I will soon change my signature to just PinkD)

Born Pretty Store Haul :)

Earlier on this week I received a mini haul from Born Pretty Store and I am so excited to share the items with you guys :)  These cuties mean that I will have some cute manicures coming up in the following weeks and some new tutorials as well :)

So here is a picture of what I got:

Lets go through them one by one :)

This little guy is a special nail art polish which I shall be using in conjunction with the items that I am going to show you below, to create cute little manicures in red :)  Seems like I am going through a red-mania lately... it's all due to the village feasts, they all somehow feature red, blue or green in their colours :)


 

These cuties in pink, which is my super favorite colour, are a stamper and a scraper. Essential parts of the stamping kit... all that is missing at this point is the image plate :) I will be showing you how to use these babies to create super gorgeous nail art in seconds :)

 This is how an image plate looks like.  Both plates have french manicure designs which I can't wait to try out :)

Here is a second one with equally cute designs. Photographing these babies was really hard because they were reflecting myself and the camera all the time hehe :)

 

This little guy here is a metallic blue striping tape which I cannot wait to try out ;) It is really minute so I think I will need to super-concentrate on being terribly delicate with it :)

All items here are available only at Born Pretty Store :) Direct links will soon be available in the Favourite Nail Products page which you can access from the tabs above :)

And don't forget to use the following coupon to get all your shopping 10% cheaper :)

I will be trying them out and reviewing everything soon so keep an eye :)

Till next post,
Saranghae
Pauline