Manicure Monday

I'm back lovelies!!!

Of late, I've really been LOVING nail polish and how much fun it's become! For this weeks manicure, I turned to 2 trusted favorites: Color Studio and Essence.


Mint is an ice pastel blue and the essence top coat has sparkling, mother-of-pearl confetti sprinkled through it and together they make a fabulous combination!

Have you tried any new special effects nail bling? Tell me all about it!

Get NAKED! - On The Fly

RRRIINNNGG!

A: "Tano, I'm coming over and I need you to do a smokey eye for me."

Me: "Ok, how long do I have?"

A: "I'll be there in 5.. You have 10 mins..."

*joy* 

I'm supposed to pull of a day time smokey look in 10 mins? Are you kidding me?! 

I mulled it over for a minute or two about what goes into a day time smokey look? It's not black, that's for sure! And I'm kinda liking grey these days... So lets go that route.

And guys, believe me, it took less than 10 mins to do her eye makeup and just a few more to put her face together. I found it sooo simple, I had to recreate it on myself. And then I had to share it as well! So here goes.

The Hardware: The Naked Palette, two fluffy brushes, a grey eye pencil, a black eye pencil and your favorite mascara.

 Start out by applying the grey eye liner to half the lid and smudging out the top line like so...

Remember to prep with your favorite primer for a longer lasting look.

 Next, taking on fluffy brush, start at the top with the highlighter. Go in with VIRGIN all over the brow bone, then NAKED in the crease and finally, pick up GUNMETAL and buff that all over the eyelid and blend upwards to the crease.

All the eyeshadows in place.

 Now, the finishing touches. Use your most favorite, most smudgy black eye pencil and run it along the lashline and blend it out. Apply mascara and clean up the fall out and add concealer.

The completed eye.

At this point, I stopped for A and added bronzer and a light pink lipstick and sent her skipping to her event.

After she left, I got to thinking, how could I amp this up further? So I recreated the look on myself and came up with two options:

Option 1: The conventional route.

 I call it "conventional" because a lot of people like to recreate what is on the top lid, on the lower lash line. So again, same black pencil to the waterline and using GUNMETAL again, smudge the black shadow downwards. I took a touch of SIN and put it in the tearduct to make the look jump out a little. Apply mascara and you're good to go.

Option 2: Whimsy.

What's life without a little fun and whimsy? This time I took a dark teal eye pencil, and ran it through my waterline. Then, taking CREEP on a small smudging brush, I buffed it out and added mascara.

A kiss of blue.

 I've always found blues and teals to be the an amazing contrast to brown eyes, making them pop out that little bit more.... But that's just me.

I would wear this with a light bronzer that can almost double as a contour and highlighter (think Smashbox's Soft Focus Baked Fusion) and then rock it with any lipstick! A went with a baby pink. I would go the fuchsia or red or nude route too!

 Then I proceeded to prance around the house looking like that! :p

Check it out! A makeup artists mixing palette!

 I hope this inspired some of you who are too afraid to rock a smokey eye for fear that it will take too long to put together.

Love love!

Get NAKED! - On The Red Carpet

Benny is my usual test dummy for anything I want to try out, makeup wise. I'd put up some of our more unsuccessful tried, but then she may just unfriend me from facebook... And everyone knows you're not real friends unless you're friends on facebook..

Back to my story.

She came over one sunday saying that she wants a paratha, gossip and a makeup artist to get her ready for the Red Carpet event that she had to attend. I had two of those things for her... Paratha and makeup; gossip, she would have to supply.

Unplucked eyebrows and cellphone camera aside, I was pleased as punch with my result... Maybe not too happy with the under eye conclealer but overall, it turned out pretty good!!

On the eyes we have Sidecar, Dark Horse, Naked, Virgin, Sin and Creep. I used the Urban Decay 24/7 eye pencil in Zero and Benefit's They're Real Mascara.

One the face, Kryolan FS36 and Chinese, MAC Studio Fix Compact powder, Benefit's Erase Paste, Sleek Makeup Contour Kit in medium (for bronzing and highlighting), Benefit's Coralista and MAC Fix+.

On the lips, Bare Essentuals lip liner in Nude, Rimmel lipstick in Birthday Suit, NYX lipgloss in Smokey Look.

Hair was her doing.

And she looked va-va-voom!!!

Manicure Monday Is Back!

You know what I love? Free time. I found some on my hands today - Gotta love bank holidays!! So I decided to update my blog (much needed!) and do my nails!

Last week, I went and got a nail polish from Color Studio Professional's new HAUTE collection.

Red Devil by Color Studio Professional

The color is called Red Devil but more than red, it's pinkish... Which is fine by my because I've developed this love for obnoxiously pink colors for nails and lips! (won't do eyes and can't do cheeks... Or haven't found the guts to wear it on the cheeks yet...) ANYWAY!!!

I enjoyed the solid color for a day or two.. And then thought, how can I amp this up more? And then I came across this... The best thing ever! Sammy over at the Nailasaurus has the easiest technique for gradient nails.

Of course I had to try it.

So I took this and this..

Red Devil and Manhattan by Color Studio Professional

And did this..

GRADIENT!

Voila! Apologies for the lack of clean up and the henna residue, but I was sooooo excited!

Word to the cautious: It is VERY messy and you gotta work super fast!

Please try this, and post back your picture links. I've just tried this combination but I'd love to see what you come up with.. Or different techniques even?

Lotsa love!!!

Off topic...

Have you guys heard of this band called Boyce Avenue? No? Click on the link and listen to the covers they have done.. I don't think I've voluntarily played any other song other than what they have done in this past week! Personal recommendations:

1. Say - Cover of John Mayer
2. Half of my Heart - Cover of John Mayer
3. Superman - Cover of Five For Fighting
4. Everything You Want - Cover of Vertical Horizon
5. What Makes You Beautiful - Cover of One Direction ( I must add that the original irritated me to death! This is like a whole different song altogether!)

Cheers!

Get NAKED! - At work.

The alarm goes off at 7:45am and its like the bell tolling the arrival of kingdom come - "Its Monday morning Tanya. Rise and shine and get ready for a disastrous day at work!" Be there by 8:45am (read: 8:59am!), plaster a big smile on your face (which generally comes after my second cup of tea) and get ready to meet the day (read: survive!). So what do I do for a living?

I'm a banker.

........

...

........

I can hear the crickets creaking out here in the blogger land.

And it takes a lot out of me to bother with the dressing up process in the morning. I'd much rather take those 10 extra minutes and hit the snooze button. But of late, I've started making an effort. I'm wearing my contacts and doing more than just a customary lipstick. Here's how I got NAKED for work today.

Things I used - and I just can't seem to be able to flip the picture!!!!!

 I decided to put in the effort and make my look worth it. I grabbed my Primer Potion in Sin, the UDNP, 24/7 Eye pencil in Zero and They're Real mascara from Benefit.

 We will ignore all skin issues and morning face and will bring the focus straight to priming the eyelid with the primer.

Next, I laid down SIN from the palette all over the eyelid.

Follow that with applying a fine line of GUNMETAL and blending upwards.

After sharpening up my eye pencil, I drew a fine line right along the lash line, just to add a hint of thickness to the lashes.

... And to set it, I used CREEP with a small angled brush and blended it out a little.

I put on a coat of They're Real and ran out the door.

And yes, I did run out the door. I applied the rest of my face on the drive over. A bronzer to the hollows of the cheek and Luscious liquid lipstick in Celebrity... And proceeded to spend the next 10 hours in pure hell!

10 hours later...

 ... And after a 2 hour butt busting session at the gym. 

FYI, Shakir The Trainer - my hamstrings will hate you tomorrow.

Any out out there got any tips for Adult Onset Acne? I can't seem to get rid of mine!

Get NAKED!

I did it bloggers! I bit the bullet and finally got the Naked Palette... And it's so typical of me to get Naked 1 when Naked 2 just came out.

But I did it! And I got it just yesterday. And when I opened up its velvety case and proceeded to drool all over those colors, I got an idea for a kinda blogger mini-series. I'm gonna call them it the GET NAKED Series. I'm not going to upload pictures of the palette, Lord knows that you can Google a bajillion images of that palette and its swatches. So you do that, and I got some fun things coming.

WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

Marble This!

I came home from work today and found I had this ginormous chunk of time with absolutely nothing to do. I looked around and had this blissful feeling of total freedom that there was no one demanding my attention, nothing to clean up, no social commitments, NOTHING! ** insert happy dance here**

 So, I climbed into my jammies, put oil into my hair, put my phone on silent and went into chill mode - and did my nails.

 

.

So fun!

 

 

  This is a process called "marbling" and it is ridonkulously simple!

Things you'll need:

A paper cup with water, petroleum jelly, nail polish remover, bamboo 'shashlik' sticks and cotton balls.

 

And whatever assortment of nail polishes you want to use. For my nails, I did black and silver.

 Start off by painting your nail white. This gives the marble a base for when the colors get too diluted or sheered out.

Next, build your "bullseye". A point to be noted is that people who have experimented a lot with marbling have recommended that the water used should be filtered water instead of tap. So just use the water you'd normally drink for this. This bullseye has been built by dropping black into the water first, then silver into its center. You'll notice that the polish spreads out into the water, forming a skin of sorts. Just keep adding drops of polish into the center of that skin, till you get to a stage where they stop spreading,

Using the bamboo stick (or orange stick if you prefer), draw patterns by swirling the polish around. Don't swirl too much or you'll lose your pattern! Now the pros have their marble patterns set to the perfect T and get their marble even every time! Me, I like a little playfulness! More on this later.

 At this point, I take an old paint brush, dip it into the petroleum jelly and coat my entire first digit. Get as close up to the nail as possible and even under the nail and the finger tips. Makes for an easier clean up job! Some even use scotch tape around the nail. I find this the easier way.

Pick a spot in the marble and dip your finger nail into it. Now STOP at this point! Don't move your finger at all! Grab your stick, and dip it into the cup and pick up as much polish from the surface as possible. Once the water is as clean as you can get it, then lift your finger out. Grab a paper towel or cotton ball, and just clean up around the edges of the nail - you'll notice the mess slip right off as the petroleum jelly won't let it stick to your nail.

Voila!

Below is a demonstration on the clean up job. 

Dip orange stick into the water.

Swirl it around.

... And lift!

 None of my nail look the same. But ya' know what? I like it this way! My index finger is a result of over swirling. So to avoid that, just do a few swirls.

Click here to see what the pros can really pull off with a water marble!

Me, I just spent my saturday pampering myself and sharing it with you guys.

Give it a shot and share the pictures with me!

Love!!