Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas Nails

So, I'm getting pretty obsessed with nail polishes, again. I think this blog is going to turn into a nail blog pretty soon~

For Christmas this year, I decided to do something special for my nails to embrace the Christmas spirit, hence, Christmas nails!



It's a mixture of several types of nail art, the most common one, French mani (though not the typical white and nude), Ruffian (some call it reverse French mani, basically you do the edge at the top instead of the tips of the nails, and I'm loving it more than french!!),and plain old cello tape (for the Christmas tree).

I did not design the tree myself, Kai Ru showed me a pic of it and I just duplicated it, but for the overall mixture of nail arts, yeaps, it's by me! Though there's nothing to shout about, they're pretty simple. I just have a thing for simple nail arts, as they are less messy and thus would result in a more professional and classy look.

Polishes used are Skin Food Nail Vita Gold Polish #BR612 (I just love this gold! it's a dirty gold chrome colour so it doesn't look goddy, Sasatinnie Red Polish #SPN104 and topping it off with my trustee Seche Vite (See the gloss!)

I'm so reluctant to take them off my nails now, they're so pretty~ But at the same time, I'm dying to try other nail combinations, especially since I got 2 new colours from my secret santa <3 a="a" br="br" complicated="complicated" i="i" in="in" m="m" now....="now...." right="right" situation="situation">

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Big Bad Wolf Sale


My haul from Big Bad Wolf Sale Wave 1 + 2!!!! Went there twice and snagged all these back, a total of 70 books. Just in this sale, I have bought more books than I've had throughout the year, awesome eh? Spend about RM600++ (yes, i spent close to a thousand in just 2 visits).

But guess what, I just realised the sale added in new titles!! They have Roald Dahl and Tales of Beedle the Bard, and I spent hours during my 2 visits looking for them, and now they add it in when I'm not going anymore, WTH?!?! _)(*&^%$# seriously, I really want to scold bad words... Some of us actually purposely went early to try to snag the good titles, and they add it in later to try to coax you to go again and spend more =.= and well, people who goes later, are able to snag these titles without having to endure the agonizing first day sale. It's a little unfair don't you think? I've also read some people commenting that they came from out of the state to attend the book fair and you can't exactly expect them to come again isn't it? I'm pretty annoyed with them now. What's the point of the effort of rushing there early then? Late comers could actually get better titles than us. For me, it's a really cheap trick and despite being one of the largest book fairs and having cheap prices, I don't have much respect for them using such sales tactics. I was actually pretty psyche for the book fair and fully supported their effort, but not anymore.

Sasatinnie Nail Polish

I found a brand of polish that is pretty cheap and decent, at RM3 per bottle (after discount, np:RM4), there's nothing much you can complain about!

Sasatinnie Nail Polishes from Sasa. It's their own brand and as stated on the bottle, the polish is made in France. They come in cute little mini heart shaped bottles with 5.5ml. Come to think of it, it's actually not that cheap, as a full sized bottle which is around 12ml from Korean cosmetic shops like Face Shop and Elianto is only going for RM6. But I have to say, the quality of this polishes is actually superb!

 The Little Minatures


This is one that I would like to highlight from the batch, Super Dolly Fantasy Colour Q34 (this is the larger bottle, price RM8 after discount, np: RM9) They don't have names for their polishes, just codes.

The first one, Q34, is a black polish with very fine shimmer in in, giving it a chrome finish. I bought this because I saw a similar China Glaze colour (can't remember the name) that I really liked. So I went rummaging the pile of Sasatinnie polish and to my luck, I stumbled upon this! However, comparing to the China Glaze, this has less silver shimmer, but it's the closest match I could find.

And what can I say, move aside all you quick drying polishes, we have a new winner!! This polish dries in literally seconds! I haven finish smoothing it out on my nail and it begins to dry, imagine. But that ain't good news, it makes the polish really hard to apply as it appears all streaky and uneven. It also has a really thin formula and only appears opaque after about 4-5 coats! But thank goodness it's quick drying, if not I wouldn't be ablt to stand waiting for 5 coats to dry.

See at the end of the first line, "Quick Dry"

It gives a matte appearance after it dries, which isn't my preference, I prefer gloss. So, I applied a layer of my Seche Vite

Ta-da!! *enlarge to see glossiness*

Overall, despite the many layers and the a litlle too fast drying, I still really like the colour, so it's well worth taking the effort layering it. After all, like I've said, it's quick drying, so it's pretty easy to layer.


Another one that I really love out of the batch is SPN104. It's a chilli red polish that is superb in quality and glides on super smooth! There aren't many cream polishes out there that are smooth but this is definitely one of them. Totally no streaks and even first layer is smooth.


This is after layer 1, yes, you did not read wrong, LAYER 1! Smooth ain't it? Pretty opaque too, but I still feel a 2nd coat is needed to give it the perfect finish.


That is the finished mani. In the above picture I applied a coat of Seche Vite, but even without a top coat it finishes really shiny too, and there's actually not much difference even without the top coat. However, I heard from friends that the gloss goes off really quick, expose your nails to a few wash and it's gone. But nothing a top coat can't save, and for RM3, it's well worth it's price!

Overall very impressed with the Sasatinnie range! Looking forwad to try other colours!


P.S. do pardon my poor manicure job, am a little lazy to clean it up. And also, the lighting in my room isn't very good, so it might not do justice to the pictures.

Secret to a Salon Finish Manicure

It's been awhile my friend, and now I am back!! This post will be about nail polished, as I've recently found a fondness towards them again, was a little lazy to apply them for quite sometime due to projects, all the effort of applying a perfect coat to get it ruined by models and uhu glue. But now, I am back applying them ;)

I've recently found out the secret to a beautiful manicure, and the answer is: a good top coat. I used to neglect the top and base coats previously as I don't like having to pile up my nails and wait for it to dry (believe me, it takes forever), and nail polish tends to get really goopy and streaky as you pile it up, which is really annoying as it end up turning your manicure to a mess.

But now, I found that a good top coat is the answer to a salon finish manicure. It gives a nice gloss, smooth finish and it makes even the crappiest of polished appear good!

What are the difference between a top coat & a clear polish?

A lot of people out there wonder what are the differences, even I used to wonder the same, aren't they both the same? Well, they look the same, smell the same, but aren't the same.

Clear polish are basically just nail polishes without the colour. They aren't made to last or shine like how a top coat would.

A top coat, on the other hand, is used to seal the your manicure and make it last, not to mention shine for a longer period of time too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

So there you have it, the differences between both, that should clear the mystery of why a top coat cost so much more.

So, in my search for the perfect top coat, I have done hours of research for a reasonably priced top coat. I did come across a few but unfortunately, is unavailable in Malaysia. So, instead of wasting more time and effort, not to mention petrol of having to drive around to look for it, I have decided to just splurge on one bottle of the holy grail of top coats, Seche Vite.


 Yes, I splurged RM45 on a top coat, I know it's wasting money, but I shall look at it as a form of investment~



I bought this from Isetan. They have a whole bunch of China Glaze too that are free for trying, so you can always head over if you're curious towards high ended polishes ;)

Seche Vite (pronunciation: Sesh Veet) is said by many, to be the holy grail of top coats. But, from what I know, you either love it, or hate it. It's really pricey no doubt, and it gets thick after sometime and that would be the last thing to expect from a high ended polish. Not to mention it causes shrinkage to your nicely applied nail polish. But why did I still purchase it you ask? Because it leaves a great lasting shine to your nails that almost no other top coat can achieve!

I've tried applying the sample one in Isetan which has turned all goopy and thick, and it still works pretty well, you just have to bear the thickness that's all. As for shrinkage, so far, I have not experienced it yet. I think the technique to apply it is to wait for you bottom polish to dry off a little first instead of applying straight.

This is a quick drying top coat that takes under a minute to dry! Just finish off all your fingers and you will find your very first finger already dried. But however, although the surface has dried, bear in mind that the coat underneath still requires some time to dry, but you're basically good to go to do some light activities.

As for lasting power, it makes my many last for a day more that's all. But I did not apply base coat I can't really say much.

For me, I am in love with this top coat. I was unable to take pictures that does it justice so I shall not post any for now. If you're interested just google it out and you'll find many other bloggers have also blogged about it. ;)

Saturday, June 30, 2012

My New Toy

I'm so happy I'm gonna squeal!!!!!!!! *squeals*


Finally changed my phone! My old phone was giving me some problems, calls not coming in and neither can I call out, hang, restart on it's own. Though it doesn't happen frequently but it does get annoying at times, especially when my calls don't come in, as I won't notice it until I call out and it might take a whole day before I do.

I was initially thinking of getting the Lumia 900, as I've been a very loyal nokia customer over the years, only changing to an LG once because my mom didn't want the phone, but looking at the price, it's only about RM400 different, so I might as well pay the extra and get a top of the range smart phone.

Why not iphone you may ask? I did consider it, but S3 won eventually because of all the limitations provided by apple!!! It's the little details that really matters to me, though most people don't mind them, but I'm quite particular. The S3 comes with an external memory slot, battery can be removed, you can use the bluetooth freely without the crappy 'copyright' thingy that apple has that doesn't allow you to do so. I know it doesn't seem like much, but these are the things that actually drove me away from the iphone. But reviews on the S3 are better than the 4S anyway.

And guess what really made my day? No, it's not getting a new phone (yes, I was really happy, but that wasn't the top factor). What really made my day was discovering that the S3's messaging has a newmeric keypad!!!!! You're given 2 selections, either the qwerty, or your traditional numeric keypad. Just this factor alone has kept me reluctant to get a smart phone as I REALLY hate the qwerty keypad, but eventually I felt that I'll have to learn it sooner or later, so I just push the thought aside and got the S3. But after playing around with it, I found out it has a numeric keypad!!!! oh gosh, you do not know how happy I am when I discovered it! I can't even put it to words (yes, I'm being dramatic, but I really am happy just because of that ^^).

I was hoping they had black, but it only comes with blue or white *sigh* I don't usually like white things as I'm worried it might eventually turn yellow, but so many people has been using it so I guess it should be fine? So I went for the white instead. Blue, it was nice, but I tend to prefer neutral colours ;)

I'll miss my Nokia N97, muax, you served me well :)

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Book Obsession


My mini little library :) And the top row has 2 layers of books! Talk about obsession. Been really obsessed with books lately that I buy a book almost every week. Just this year alone I've bought more than 50 books, and the year's not even half through! How I wish I have a library in the house.

Let me introduce some book that I've read recently :)


The Infernal Devices series. This is a must must read! It's the prequel to the Mortal Instrument series, but I have yet to read those yet. The story is trully gripping and keeps you eager to find out what happens next. Set in the victorian era with steampunk features, having mechanical beings, supernatural creatures and the main focus, shadowhunters, whom are humans with extraordinary abilities. The female lead is quite lovable and not to mention the 2 male leads! <3 I have found my replacement for Edward Cullen (infernal devices fans are gonna kill me for comparing it to twilight, don't get me wrong, this book is nothing like twilight, I just thought that the male lead here is sweeter and better than Edward Cullen :P) haha, ok, I'm getting on top of myself.

The plot is pretty unexpected and there are still much unanswered questions by the end of book 2. There are a total of 3 books in the series, Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess. The last one is scheduled to be released March 2012, can't wait for it to be released. In the meantime, I shall read Mortal Instruments, and there's a movie coming out for it if you guys didn't know :)


Another series that I've read is The Wolves of Mercy Falls Series. For Twilight Fans, especially Jacob fans, I think you're going to love this. Instead of vampire romance, we now have werewolf romance! However, this series didn't quite work for me. I find it rather disturbing at the beginning as it started off with the female lead being attracted to a wolf she always saw in the woods, and not just any normal attraction, she was romantically attracted O.O I mean, if she knew it was a guy, fine, but she knew nothing of it, but she just somehow fell in love with it, romantically.

The storyline was quite slow paced and nothing much actually happens. I didn't really see much growth in the plot as most parts are just how the couple spends their time. Even now sitting here thinking of it, I can't exactly recall much that happened, I guess because there aren't much to begin with. I'm done with the first two but have yet to start with the final one, I will eventually, but I guess I'll finish up some other books first before I do.


The next series is what I'm reading currently:


Fifty Shades of Grey. If you've heard of the book, don't judge me just yet. If you havent, well, don't judge me after you've found out what the books about :) I actually came across this book while going through the new york times best seller list, and the title caught my attention as it sounded mysterious. I googled more on it I saw that it's on several other best sellers list as well such as amazon, goodreads, etc. And after doing my research, I found out that it's actually some erotic BDSM novel, which made me go "wert...". Not long later, I started spotting them in bookstores and they're becoming best sellers even here! And apparently, the author started writting this story as a fan fiction for twilight! Yes, you didn't read wrongly, it's a twilight fan fiction that somehow got converted into a book and became viral and made it to the top of the best seller list. So, curiosity kicks in and I just had to read it.

Now the verdict: I have no idea how did it manage to climb its way to the top of the best seller list. The plot was fine, I loved the love story in it, both of them really cared for each other, the guy's sweet and funny and cute (at times) and the girl, well, she's ok, I like it that she stands her ground at times despite having an over controlling husband, kind of a typical love story. But other than the little love story in the book, the rest of it is just plain 'blegh'. Some parts of it didn't make sense and if you were to take the erotic / love making scenes out, the book would only be half the size. Yes, that's how much scenes they have. You might think that love making scenes would make the book interesting, but too many of it makes it bland and tiresome to read especially when each and every scene are pretty similar, despite the variety of methods the author tries to put it, it's still the same old sequencing. And don't get me started on the writting. Gosh! I have no idea how did the writting even pass through the editor, must be a real terrible one if you ask me. Not only are there many, many mistakes around, the book seems as if she writes using a template. I have no idea how many times have I have read the phrases holy crap, inner goddess, rolling eyes, bitting lips, subconcious, etc etc. It seriously annoys me to the max that I skim through them when I see them, especially when she talks about her inner goddess and subconcious.

If you look carefully at the plot and characters, it does indeed resemble twilight a lot, but i won't really notice if I hadn't known that it came from a twilight fan fiction, so kudos on that. But I guess if you're a real observant person you just might spot the similarities even without knowing that it started as a fan fiction :)

Well, I wouldn't exactly recomend this book to conservative peeple, but if you're open minded to erotic BDSM scenes then go for it, the story aint that bad, just the writing and adundant love making scenes that ticks you of, put those aside and the plot is actually pretty interesting.

P.S. I just realised that I've compared many books to twilight, haha!! I don't know why but it's a very nice example to use. Maybe because most people are familiar to it? oh well...

Friday, March 23, 2012

The Hunger Games: A Book and Movie Review

After the long waiting period, I've finally watched the drama, and I was so eager I just had to go on the first day~

So my verdict: though it's cliche, but I'm still going to say it, it's NOT AS GOOD AS THE BOOK!! But, it's already kind of expected, so far I think the only movie that does justice to it's book is Lord of the Rings? Though I didn't read the books, but, well, no one could deny that the movie was splendid.


Book




Anyway back to Hunger Games, the books were awesome, for a slow reader like me who takes an entire month for a book, finished all 3 in less than 2 weeks, with assignments!! *bangga* (I know a lot of you out there would have done it in 1 day, but I'm a slow reader!! give me credits...)

The first one was the best, but it sort of slowly went downhill in the other 2, and the 3rd was a little...... how should I put it, different. It's sort of like the twilight series with the last book seeming like another author wrote it as the plot is just so different from the others (just an example, not comparing the 2 stories) and Katniss, the female lead, got pretty annoying as she suddenly became so useless as opposed to her strong character in the first 2, and it seemed like she and her sister, Prim, switched personalities as Prim became so strong and matured, kind of a waste she died at the end :(

Story is fast paced and plot is continuous, allowing you no time to even think of putting the book down. Many said that it's copying the Japanese novel/movie "Battle Royale", but I didn't watch the movie or read the book so I can't comment much. I guess I could try watching the movie to see how similar it is.

It's somewhat predictable at times, and I think the contestants died too quickly in the arena, was kinda expecting the games to last longer, and I would actually love to see what happens if the last survivors in the arena were people Katniss was attached too, how was she going to face them? But somehow they got conveniently killed off by some other contestants or some disasters. The love triangle developement was pretty weak as well, even after I finished the book it still felt like Katniss was just playing with Peeta's feelings, and I had no idea who she actually liked more, it's like she's just using both of them. Would love to see the 3 of them settle the triangle (I just love drama), but the author also conveniently posted Gale to some other district so in a way she only had Peeta left =.=

The ending's quite dark, everyone got killed off *sigh* but despite the dark ending I still think it's fine as it's realistic, I mean, I don't think there's ever going to be a happy ending when it comes to war does it? Of course, I would love to read an ending where everyone lived happily ever after, but that's not how things work.

Overall, still love the book, and it just made it's way into my list of all time favourite books ;)


Movie



As for the movie, other than not doing the book justice, I still think that it's not properly done. There were many loose ends around and I think people that did not read the book might not fully understand what they're trying to do, or why certain things are happening. The scenes were scattered and messy, and definitely hated the shaky camera effect. I know they're trying to add to the war effect, but it gets annoying at times. A little too much close ups too.

The movie was flat in a way, many parts that should make an impact on you certainly did nothing. I would have expected more drama at certain point, e.g. when Katniss volunteered for her sister. It was really REALLY flat and seemed like just another scene. And I certainly would not understand why the crowd did the 3 finger salute if I hadn't read the book. The plot just sort of happen, and passes, leaving you with no feeling at all.

Kind of disappointed. I've already expected the movie to miss out parts of the book as I know they can't cram an entire 400+ page book into a 2.5 hour movie, so I could pardon them on that part, but they should have at least made an effort in making the movie a little more impactful and dramatic. It is cinematics afterall, it should be dramatic.

However, it's still worth the watch, and if you've read the book I think no matter how bad the comments are for the movie you'll still watch it, that's what I would do anyway :P