Sekhmet's Purple Castle giveaway prize arrived!!!

Last late August I announced that I won Sekhmet's Purple Castle's giveaway, we have been corresponding through email since then.

A day ago I received a notice from our local post office which means a package had arrived and I need to pick it up. So yesterday my boyfriend and I went to pick up the package just bringing the notice with me.

When we got there they laid the package in front of me then they asked/conveyed that they would open it. So giddy as I was I said 'Okay!'

If you could see me my eyes they were probably twinkling with happiness because I was seeing and touching the polishes for the first time and saying 'Ah they're so pretty!'

We waited a few minutes for the Customs Manager to check out the package, when she arrived she looked at the items and asked how I got them. I said that I won them from a giveaway, she then asked me for a proof that I did won them from a giveaway because unless that I give them the proof they wouldn't release the package to me. I think they're thinking that I purchased the items online and that I didn't print out the receipt. While this was going on my boyfriend is starting to get tiffed at the manager because of the way she spoke and then suddenly grabbed the package to store it inside again.

So since I didn't want that to dampen my enthusiasm I suggested we search for an internet shop nearby and print out the email conversations I had with Lydia starting with the first email she sent me that I won.

After that I went back (my boyfriend did not want to accompany me again near the Customs area :D) then gave them the email print out, she then started reading the email aloud while asking me questions in between. Since all questions were answered she had no choice but to release the package to me then I just paid the minimal postal fee of P40.

The moral of the story... if you won a giveaway print out the necessary details so they won't have the chance to tax you or worse keep your package as an unclaimed package. ^_^

Let's continue to the goodies.... yes please!

These are all pretties I received from Lydia, the press-on Manicure is a surprise because it wasn't originally included in the giveaway... Thanks Lydia!!!

I couldn't help but notice Lydia's personalized card, it's so pretty and kawaii!!!

Notice her own nail art work at the back, dancing Hello Kitty ^_^

First up is Color Club in Wild at Heart, this is my first time owning a Color Club nail polish so I'm very excited with this one. I've read that this polish might be good for nail stamping, I'll try it out soon. ^_^

This is Vogue Fantastic in Oceano it's a nail art polish, the brush is super nice and thin which is going to be great in making free hand nail art. I hope I can do justice to this one, hahaha!

Vogue Fantastic in Morado is a crackle polish, the shade is a bit intense. Looking forward to trying this one out. Must think of a good base color for this one.

Next are the Wet N' Wild Summer Getaway Set...

First I want to say that the name of  the polishes in this set are based on TV show names which I find really quirky, hahaha!

9.0.2.1.Orange is an almost metallic shimmery polish which is on the sheer side. May be great to use as a topper and since Halloween is coming I'm already thinking of using this in one of my manis. ^_^

Buffy the Violet Slayer is a deep pearl like purple, at least in my opinion. It looks so pretty in the bottle!

How I Met Your Magenta is a very bright pink almost a neon pink with very fine gold shimmers. It would be truly perfect for summer but it's a bit on the sheer side though but none the less a very pretty color!

Sage in the City looks like a dark apple green with a pearl finish. This might be a nice color to use over black.... I take that back this would be a great color to use over black! ^_^

The Wonder Yellows, out of all the polish in this giveaway this is the first one I tried. I only have a handful of yellow polishes on my stash so I was curious how this would look on my nails. This polish looks like a dark lemon yellow, it's quite sheer I think this would be better as a topper because I think you would need at least 3-4 coats for it to be opaque. I'll post the mani I did with this polish on my next post. ^_^

Last but not the least is FuchsiaRama, it's a red violet with a jelly like consistency. I'm not sure if the color will be opaque with just two coats which I'm hoping it will. I'm planning to use this then use Wild at Heart for stamping... do you think that's a good idea?

The last of the goodies...

I didn't expect this because it wasn't part of the items in the giveaway. I have no experience with press on nails before, I do have some faux nails that I use for swatching some polish but I never really used them on my nails. So I'm not sure how this would work on me because I wear my nails a little longer and the faux nails for the thumbs are kinda short so I won't be able to use this any time soon. These are really handy though when you want perfect nails in a jiffy, no drying time and no need for clean up as well.

So there it is, my first experience winning a giveaway! I am just so thankful to Lydia for taking the time and effort to host such an awesome giveaway, it has been such a great experience for me and making a friend from half way across the world is such a huge plus.

So do check out Sekhmet's Purple Castle she does free hand nail art, stamping, tutorials and swatches, what else could you ask for?! ^_^

Thanks for hanging out here, I will be posting some manis soon!

Chevron Nails and Nail Polish Haul

Chevron design nails I finished last night ^_^

I used BM201 for the chevron design and MASH 30 for the tribal image. I didn't expect that this would turn out pretty damn well, I got some compliments from the sales ladies I encountered at the mall earlier, haha!

Base polish used is Ever Bilena in Lagoon, then added two coats of Caress in Glitter Gold. On my ring finger is the glitter franken that I made.

Okay enough of that let's proceed with the nail polish haul ^_^

My first stop was Etude House because they always have nice colors of nail polishes and I like the formula. The top coat I use is from one of their regular line of polishes which is kinda cheap, really can't afford Seche Vite :P

These are the ones I picked!

L-R: LUCIDarling Fantastic Nails Glitter in turquoise/teal, this kinda reminds me of mermaid scales, in the picture it looks like a dark blue :( stupid camera phone. Next is Etude House Tint Mint, the color is very close to a Tiffany blue color which is a total lemming for me that's why even if this polish cost P178, which is roughly around a little over $4 I still bought it. I love Etude House polish bottles, they're cute and pretty! ^_^

DGR701 Tint Mint, I believe this is supposed to be more green than blue but I prefer that it is more blue than green. I've bought some mint polishes that when I was in the store they looked bluish but when I get home it turned out be real mint colored. So I am really happy that I found this one ^_^

Next stop the department store ^_^

I like buying polishes in the dept. store because I have a lot of choices and some of them are really quite cheap.

L-R: 24K in Sugar Plum, Sweet Cherry in Glitter Gold (I bought two) and Sweet Cherry in Glitter Silver

Glitter Gold is my favorite gold glitter that I've encountered, it's the same glitter that I used on my chevron nails.

It's more like gold dust to me and there are like two sizes of the dust, the larger of the two sizes is minimal so when applied you can see the slight contrast which I very much like ^_^

You can see how much I like it that I bought back up for my back up because I don't want to run out!

The Caress glitter gold is very much the same with the Sweet Cherry brand because they came from the same manufacturing company, Kateenson Industries.

I prefer Sweet Cherry because it's cheaper but I prefer the brush on the Caress bottle so I figured that I could just pour it on the Caress bottle when it's halfway empty ^_^

So yes, I am planning to use this in most of my manis, hahaha!

Sweet Cherry in Glitter Silver

I do have some silver glitter polishes in my stash but this one has fine glitters. Since I am so in love with the gold I figured I should try this one too.

Here's a pic of both polishes side by side, I hope the silver is just as good as the gold in terms of the size of the glitters. ^_^

24K nail polish in Magic Sugar Plum

All of the 'Magic' line of 24K polishes is either duo chrome or multi chrome. This one is multi chrome because on different angles where the light hit I can see blue, green and gold. I'm just not sure that they would be very obvious once it's on the nails though. I'm really not into this kind of effect on polishes but when I asked my boyfriend if it was pretty he said yes, so why not?

The shimmer like quality of this polish remind me of galaxy nails, I wonder when I could try those...

Another angle, I can't make the other colors show up... aarrgghh...

Here's another, I think I was a little lucky with this one. Do you see the gold and bluish lines? Those are the chrome colors. ^_^

Okay obviously this is not a nail polish, I just wanted to share a pic of my new house slippers.

Isn't cute? haha! ^_^

Thanks for hanging out here!

Nail Polish Haul ^_^

First I want to say that I didn't buy all this in one day

I did get them in a span of four days though ^_^

I wasn't really looking for a particular color of polish, I just wanted to check what new nail polish shades the local beauty supplies shop have at the moment.
I was so surprised to see these Guppy polishes, this is said to be a Korean brand of polish though I'm not 100% sure that it is.
The Guppy polishes are the those that have gold with tiger print bottle lid on them.
I'll do a separate post for the Guppy polishes since there's seven of them.


Now onto the others....

Ever Bilena Lagoon

It's been a long time since I've seen an Ever Bilena nail polish anywhere. This brand is a local brand here in the Philippines, though they did start out as a company that makes nail polishes nowadays their main product line consist of cosmetics, colognes and body lotions.
I think they may have decided to get back in the nail polish game since there are so many new things going on in the nail world today.
I mean you have your crackle, shatter, matte, glitter, holographic, magnetic, spotted etc. and even stamping polishes ^_^
Okay let's talk packaging, Ever Bilena likes to mimic other brands when it comes to their product packaging and this nail polish bottle is no different. When I first saw it, 'hhhmmm looks like my L.A. Colors bottle and Color Craze sounds very familiar...'
When I got home I looked at them both and I was right, EB did try to channel L.A.'s packaging and even the writing of the ingredients at the back are almost identical.The most obvious difference is the lid bottle which I'm pretty sure they got from Orly.
Now the polish color, Lagoon is a teal color very much the same with Caronia's On The Go which I own as well but I only use it as a stamping polish because it's so pigmented. Lagoon is just slightly darker than On The Go but I prefer Lagoon because the formula is much easy to work with and dries faster.
This cost Php25 ($0.59) cheaper than On The Go but you cannot use it as a stamping polish because the formula is thin.
I would repurchase, hopefully it would still be readily available when I do decide to get one again.

OMG Bikini

I only decided to get this when I tried OMG in Sunset for stamping and it turned out well so I wanted to see if this will work too ^_^
OMG nail polishes only cost from Php18 - Php20 ($0.47) depending where you're going to get them. As you can see they're really quite cheap but most of their nail polish have very good color pay off and the formula are pretty easy to work with, thin coats is the key.
Bikini is a hot pink shade, I tested it on my nail and it looked so bright I took it off :p
I'll probably use it mainly for nail art and stamping but if you like bright colors you'll love this one!

Caronia Golden Sun

 Okay I picked this up from our local grocery because it's a gold color that has less yellow tone to it than all of my gold polishes. There are times that you just want to wear gold on your nails that isn't going to look tacky, I prefer cool toned golds than warm toned ones.

Here's a comparison with an EPSA gold nail polish (only bought this because I thought it might be good for stamping, it isn't though). Do you see how more yellow the EPSA polish is?
Golden Sun is a sheer shimmer polish, it would only be good as a topper. I mean you could still use it as a base color but I think it would take 3 or 4 coats or maybe more for it to be really opaque.
This cost about Php33 ($0.78) ^_^

Bichun #3

I really like this polish, its a cool toned silver with small hex glitters that are holographic. It's quite sheer though but perfect as a topper if you don't like how your base color looks like *_^ and it could be good for layering too.

On the brush you'll see the silver glitters and how small they are, on the bottle you'll see the holo effect of glitter. I wish I took a picture of it with the flash on. :/
This was Php25 (($0.59) and it was the last bottle they had, lucky me ^_^




 To sum it all up I guess it was a pretty good haul ^_^
Good thing I decided to drop by that store and it's awesome my boyfriend was supportive enough to get me the other Guppy polishes.
By the way I'm planning to do a franken glitter polish, I don't have a suspension base so I'll be relying on my glitter polishes for that. I hope it works out though.

Thanks for hanging out here!!! ^_^