Photo Quality Comparison

I noticed something weird when I changed to .jpeg format instead of the large sized .png format. The .png format does keep the photo quality well, but it also keeps a huge file size. And that's not something I want when I like to post many many many pictures in a single post sometimes. It loads slowly for others (and myself).

The thing about .jpeg is, according to a site I read, is that every time I save, the photo quality gets lower. Since I only save my photos once after adding a watermark and resizing, I've found almost if not completely no change in quality. I guess if you keep saving and saving and saving, then there'll be an effect.

However, there's something else. After feeling really happy that I solved the slow picture loading problem, I noticed another problem: the photo quality really sucked. For this photo in particular:

OPI Tease-y Does It.

I had to go back to my desktop and check, did I really take a photo like this? But no, I didn't. Did the saving of the photo degrade it that much? No. Once again, Google saved me. Apparently Blogger compresses .jpeg photos even more (can't find the site that I found that out from). Hence, we are left with a crappy unintendedly blurry shot.

I had another option, which was to use a file hosting site and I decided to use Flickr because it's so popular and they don't compress my pictures. See the difference:

OPI Tease-y Does It.

Needless to say, I was (and still am) shocked. The difference is obvious. I haven't seen anyone else's pictures on Blogger that have been compressed to the extent that mine was up there. Or not that I've noticed anyway. Needless to say, I've replaced all the photos on the OPI Tease-y Does It post.

Btw, Flickr's regulations state that I have to link back to Flickr. Just in case you've clicked a photo for zooming purposes and realised that they go to Flickr. You can still zoom by clicking "Actions" above the left side of the photo on the Flickr page and choosing "View all sizes". The largest they'll allow is 1024x768, but you could always use 'Ctrl' + '+' to zoom in.

I'm starting to fall in love with Tease-y Does It again. (:

I received a long awaited package today while I was out, and I can't wait to get started using it. It's going to be awesome :D  Some things that I've been waiting for for over a month are finally in my hands. I'm completely disappointed with the unreliably slow service but what can I do? I needed it before Christmas but unfortunately, that need could not be fulfilled.

I'm no good at ending a post. I hope everyone is doing well. I used my new Mango bag today and it was exhilarating. I like new things (:

OPI Merry Midnight

(picture heavy, kind of)

I know I said I would show you Teenage Dream, but the photos I took were horrible and I didn't want to post them :/  At least you saw it layered on white, here, first, right? Right...? If and when I can, I'll try it again. But I doubt that'll be anytime soon because... Well, you'll find out soon.

Also, I went to the mall and found out that the Katy Perry collection has been released here! I almost died when I saw the little nail thingy with the swatches. I. Must. Have. Not Like The Movies. It is INSANE. I want it more than I want Black Shatter. You know, since China Glaze will be releasing 6 crackle polishes, I assume the black one will be similar to OPI's.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I wanted to post on Christmas but my house is filled to the brim now (I can't even sleep in my own room because my grandmother is sleeping there) and I can almost never get a moment of privacy, since I have to edit and upload pictures on the non-transportable desktop computer.

There was a lot of food involved in my Christmas. Turkey, lamb, pork, mashed potatoes, potato au gratin, coleslaw with apples, salad, turkey stuffing wrapped in prosciutto ham or bacon, and brussel sprouts. All home cooked by my mom/grandma/aunt (except for the pork).

For my presents and as a reward for doing well in my exams, I got a Pandora bracelet (why don't they make a nail polish charm?), some money, and some nail polish. Mmmm.. Money. My dad borrowed some money from me today. It was weird because I usually take money from him (without having to return it ;) ).

I wanted to paint my nails with some China Glaze but I couldn't because.. well you'll find that out later too. So I decided to go with something that I bought months ago but never wanted to use because it was too precious.

OPI does cremes well. And shimmers well. And glitters. And mattes/suedes. Foils, holos, jellies. But how often does OPI do flakies?! The moment I saw Merry Midnight, I was like 'holy crap!'. It is stunning. I think it was released last year, so you've probably seen it a bajillion times, but.. it's just so pretty.

I did 3 coats with top coat. It's a dark purple (jelly?) base with silver and blue microglitter, and flakies. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same type of flakies as you would find in Nubar 2010.

Natural light, in the shade.

For more pictures, click 'Read more'.

China Glaze White On White

It's Christmas Eve (where I am, anyway) already, can you believe it? I still remember the time before I was even in college, earlier this year. Time flies by so fast. Before I know it, I'll have graduated from university with a degree and be going out to work. Ugh. Work.

My grandparents came for Christmas today (or yesterday, since it's past 12am). My grandmother was all worked up because she realised she forgot to bring the apple filling she'd made for the apple pie. She ended up just making an entire new batch. So we had apple pie with vanilla custard for dessert. Yum :D

You may remember this post about how bad the formula of this was. Well, it thickened up a bit but it's still streaky. And I still needed 5 coats. However, I do still love white polish and I wore this for a whole week (including the time when I layered other polishes over it).

It dried glossy but I still put top coat over it to even it out. There were no chips, just tip wear. I don't know if good wear makes up for terrible formula. The only reason I bought a white from China Glaze was because I thought it would be great, but no. I am still looking for a good white creme that is opaque in 2-3 coats. Not five.

5 coats is a lot for any polish. Especially a creme. If it was a jelly or some sheer based polish, it wouldn't be so bad, but FIVE? I hate doing anything more than 3. I went to bed hours after putting top coat on and I still had sheet marks when I woke up (which you'll see later).

All swatches are in artificial lighting. The weather has not been kind to me :/

2 coats. Excuse the terrible lighting. It did not occur to me then to adjust the settings on my camera. Can you see how streaky this is? No polish I know which is as streaky as this at 2 coats doesn't even out on the third coat.

Under my desk lamp. Something is wrong with me :/

This must've been when I knocked some sense into myself.

Sheet marks!

Apart from polish, there is this one other thing I would love for Christmas. A Coach bag. Not just any Coach bag, but this one right here.

Image from http://www.coach-outlet-stores.net/

How gorgeous is this? I first saw it in the window display at the Coach store at a mall weeks ago. I also saw this at the Coach store at the mall today/yesterday. Must. Own. This. Bag.

For now, I'll just settle for my Mango bag (Christmas present from my aunt). I'll have more posts in the next couple of days, hopefully. ;)

OPI Teenage Dream on white

For once, I wanted to be one of the first to put this up. I'm always lagging behind when it comes to swatches and stuff, so while this is still fresh, I wanted to at least give you a peek.

My mom got this as an early Christmas gift and she loves it. I haven't worn it on its own yet, but she has. She said that the polish on one of her nails just came off. The whole thing. I've never had that happen to me before, not on the whole nail. Maybe just part of it coming off in chunks, like OPI Mad As A Hatter did.

Anyway, OPI Teenage Dream is from the Katy Perry collection, which I didn't even know was out yet. I wonder where my mom's friend bought this from. It has medium-sized hexagonal silver holo glitter and small rectangular silver glitter. I only know the shapes because I zoomed in on my computer, but you would see it as round and tiny (micro?) glitter in real life.

The base is a very sheer, light pink which reminds me a bit of Barbie dolls. This is one slightly thick coat of OPI Teenage Dream over China Glaze White on White. You know what to expect when OPI does glitters because they're always awesome. I hate seeing glitters that aren't sparkly. It just defeats the purpose.

I only did one nail because I was doing some layering experiments. I went on a layering craze today, and I don't feel like stopping anytime soon ;)

It's very sparkly and I would say it's work safe, although I don't go to work and I don't know about your work area, but my mom has worn it to work so I guess it's alright. On its own, I think it would take at least 3 coats for opacity, probably even more. It doesn't look that good over white. It probably looks better on its own.

My mom's friend wanted to buy the black crackle, but they were sold out. Damn ):

It feels kinda cool being an early bird for once. I'll definitely try this on its own in the next couple of days and I'll let you know how it goes. (:  While you're waiting, you might as well enjoy this music video of Teenage Dream by Katy Perry (I think this polish's base color is the color of Katy's lips).

Sea-ing Red

See what I did there?

That would be an awesome name for a duochrome polish that's blue and red. If Astor #66 and red were the colors in the duochrome, we'd have something pretty epic on our hands (pun intended).

Anyway.. It's been an interesting weekend for me. It's been a long time since I've been out the whole night, right until the morning. I think I slept at 9am. My friend slept over and she tried to take a photo of me sleeping with her laptop, but I woke up. I swear I'm psychic.

She also saw all my nail polish (not even that many) and said I should be a manicurist. Haha. Having any color to choose from and having many hands to paint different colors of polish on (even if I'm not the one who gets to choose all the time) sounds like fun. It's just the feet part I don't like. I don't think I want to scrub people's feet every day. Some people don't take care of their feet AT ALL. 

I was itching to paint my nails one night while I still had Astor #66 on, so I did. I'm starting to get that urge more often.. That urge to paint my nails. Not very great because I always get this urge after midnight. And I do need to sleep, so painting my nails that close to bedtime without having a quick-dry top coat on hand isn't a good idea.

I couldn't resist this one time. I decided to use Scotch tape again. I took out a polish that my friend gave me for my birthday, Callas Blood Spy. It's a red shimmer. I love the contrast.

Under my Ikea lamp. 

What's a post without a macro shot? 

Next to the lights in the wall at Starbucks.

Natural light.

Incandescent light.

I quite enjoyed my weekend, it was entertaining to say the least. And a little bit gross. But at least it was a change from the regular boring old stuff.

I can't keep this in any longer; why do some people want to put on a show and speak differently on their blogs compared to how they speak in real life? Of course, I don't blabber on about nail polish and the brush and formula and number of coats I used to my friends but to speak in a way that is completely not you just makes you seem, I'm sorry to say, like a douche. There are some things I don't understand about some people, and this is one of them. It's pretentious and doesn't improve your image at all. In fact it's degrading. Why would you make yourself look like an idiot?

I REALLY feel like eating. Too bad there's nothing to eat in the house :/  I hate it when this happens. Now I want to paint my nails again. I hope your weekend was as good as mine! (:

Astor #66

(Most of this post was typed on the 15th of December, so 'today' = 15th Dec and 'yesterday' = 14th Dec)

I don't know why, but a lot of things seem to be happening nowadays. First the Mango incident, and today.. something else. But I just realised I typed a really long story for you and maybe you don't wanna read that, so I put a jump. The polish comes first (:

I had a dilemma of which polish to use because as much as I wanted to stick to the Christmas theme that I'd planned for the entire December (which obviously didn't happen) and started with the Narnia nails, I didn't want to use OPI's Merry Midnight yet or Party Hearty so I decided to just pick one of the German ones my mom got me.

I ended up with this, Astor #66. It's VERY pretty, like something you would find at the bottom of the ocean while scuba diving.

Image source: http://www.cybtex.de/gallery.html

The polish has this kind of color.

I took the longest time ever trying to decide what color this polish was, and settled for a blue that flashes green. It was hard to tell for me because blues and greens can sometimes come very close together. Unfortunately, my camera also found it hard to distinguish, so all the pictures came up pretty color-inaccurate. It's supposed to glow a nice ocean-y green, but in the pictures it's just blue.

But seriously. In the right kind of light, this is beautiful. The green shimmer in the blue base really makes it pop. For this brand that I've never seen/heard of before, it's doing really well to impress me (:

I did 4 coats with top coat because it was quite sheer, and after 4 I refused to do any more. That rhymed. The brush strokes are slightly visible, which isn't really a good thing for me because I don't always paint in straight vertical lines, especially when I'm painting with my non-dominant hand.

On the top of my pinky finger you can see a glow, in real life it's close to that but greener. 

I like this picture (:

Under my lamp light.

Artificial light. I'm loving the macro shots. Can you tell?

This was so pretty, I almost didn't want to take it off. The wear was good too, but I can't remember how long I was wearing it for :/  No chips, just tip wear. I would name this.. Ocean Deep (Sephora by OPI already has one named Ocean Love Potion, so I don't want to name it Ocean Potion).

I am so sleepy. Finally I'm done with this post and I can go to bed. I slept at 7am and woke up at 4pm after checking my results online. I am ready to melt into my bed.

I hope your week's as good as mine has been so far (:  Read after the jump break if you're bored and want to know what might happen to you if you go to a mall alone and almost pass out.

Sun in the Sky, You Know How I Feel

It's 6a.m. on Thursday. Already half an hour has passed since 5.30a.m. and you know what that means. Yup. I couldn't wait. To tell you.

I think this is appropriate. I have no idea what this song is about apart from the fact that it's in an extremely jovial tone.

That's my favourite song from Glee. Lea Michele (the singer) gave me chills the first time I watched it.

If that isn't as fitting as you think it should be, then maybe this one? I love Muse (:

I love love LOVE this song.

I'm sure you can guess what this is about by now.

Can I bring out the happy-toned expletives now?

How about now?

Now?

I am so tired but I am keeping awake because... Because I can! Without a worry in the world. For now. But yes. Yes. YES!

I'm acting weird, aren't I? :/

Don't rain on my fucking parade, bitches.

PS: I am a vulgar person, I just refrain from anything of that sort here. Just.. once in a while...

PPS: That right there is my favourite font.

PPPS: I'm getting hungry. What bad timing, stomach.

What should I do to celebrate? :D

On the Edge.

Sorry, no polish today. But if you're bored I guess you could keep reading.

Hi. A quick update letting you know that I feel like this day has gone on forever because I woke up at 9am this morning instead of my usual 2pm. I keep wondering why everyone else is still awake because I think it must be past midnight already, but it's not. :/

So according to this world clock, my exam results will be available online at 5.30am local time. I doubt if I'll stay up late until that time, because it's only 11 something now and I'm already feeling sleepy and I still have to get up early tomorrow so I wonder how sleepy I'll be when Thursday comes.

This will be me:

Image from http://ajboll.livejournal.com/tag/to-do.

I am currently feeling relaxed about it, because I have high hopes, as usual. I just hope I don't get disappointed. And I have a couple of really big decisions to make as quickly as possible. :/

I hope the site doesn't crash or something. That would be the most unfortunate thing. I think I would die of nerves if that happened. And I don't know if I'll be able to sleep after getting my results, whether it's good or bad.

OH there was an interesting story about today. My friend and I went to the mall today (Ha!) and wanted to go into Mango (it's called MNG here), but there was a VIP preview sale where only people who had spent a certain rather high amount of money in a single receipt this year would be able to enter.

I was very much taken aback as we were about to leave the store entrance dejectedly, when a lady who had the card that granted you entry asked us if we wanted to go in (I think each person with the card gets to bring 2 friends). I think someone had to pick my jaw up off the floor. We had to fill in a couple of details on the card and we were in!

To the kind random lady who brought a pair of shopaholic teenagers in with her to the sale, THANK YOU SO MUCH. You completely made my day and I can't thank you enough. I wanna paint your nails for you as a symbol of my gratitude.

I am just really shocked because usually, people here are more of the 'every man for himself' (or in this case, woman) type. I really wanted to hug her in that moment.

At least we got to a couple of stuff before the general public did. I really wanted this bag, but I found it was slightly damaged so I'm going to go look for another one in a different branch tomorrow. I did buy a black cardigan.

Image from http://aka.mangoshop.com/

I guess that's about it. Wish me luck :/

Narnail

I've been putting off posting this until I managed to get my Christmas blog decorations up. Less than 2 weeks to Christmas now! It might take awhile to load, but I think it looks good.

The weather is REALLY hot today. This really makes me wish I was having winter now. I could really use some snow right now.

My friend won two tickets to the premiere of 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' and she brought me with her. For those who are still in the dark, this is the third movie (after 'The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe' and 'Prince Caspian') in the series based on the books by C.S. Lewis. We get to see Prince King Caspian again :D  I love Caspian!

Image from http://www.moviestation.org/

Second movie.

Image from http://enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com/

Caspian grew some facial hair, but he still looks like he aged less than Lucy & Edmund (time in Narnia passes faster than time in our world).

Everything was alright in the movie, but it wasn't great. I love the series, and this didn't really live up to my expectations. To me, as a movie series goes on, the level of awesomeness of the movie must increase. Take Harry Potter for instance (minus the 5th movie). The first part of the 7th movie blew me away. And this can only mean one thing: the LAST Harry Potter movie will be the best one EVER.

While I was trying out the polishes from Germany, I decided to go with a gold but it was way too sheer and I hate not having opaque coverage for colours like that so I chose the red instead. Then I thought, hey.. Why not use the gold too?

I tried out the scotch tape mani from Chloe's Nails. I happened to have some of that matte white tape I like to call 'magic tape' (must've seen it on Art Attack or something) because you can stick it on paper and rip it off without ripping part of the paper. Unlike regular cellophane tape. I guess this takes some practice, 'cause I didn't really manage to do it very well.

For this I used Astor #25 (red) and BeYu #391 (gold). When I was deciding what to use, I picked up the red, looked at it and thought it looked a lot like the Narnia logo. And once I was done with the mani, I realised it was quite Christmassy.

The red reminds me of China Glaze Ruby Pumps (which I'm saving for Christmas!), but since I haven't tried it yet, I can't tell you how close they are, if they are close at all. The beautiful golden shimmer that shows up in the bottle doesn't translate on the nail ):

I took this picture while I was driving my aunt's car (a bazillion points to whoever can guess what car it was!). I stopped at a traffic light, because it was red. And then it turned green while I was still fiddling with my camera :/

This was taken in the sun. Excuse the chips/wear. This was after a few days and my nails were kinda thin from peeling.

I thought it was kinda cool to wear Narnia themed nails to the premiere :D  And sorry for the lame title. I couldn't resist ;)  I really wanna watch Tangled (or Rapunzel, as it's known in some places). Mmm Zachary Levi. Just his voice anyway.

The tree you see in the background (I hope you see a tree) is the Christmas tree in my house. My dad decorated it. The lights around it are lights from the tree too. And the awkward lonely bottle of polish in the blog header is China Glaze's Party Hearty.

Have you watched any good movies lately?
I forgot to ask: Is the background making it hard for you to read the posts? :/

Astor #70

(If you see a 'Peace' sign in the title, that was supposed to be this: #. Apparently the font I'm using uses different symbols)

I finally got some nail wheels! Not complete essentials but they look fun. And they were pretty cheap too. Like USD3.20. For 5 wheels! I still need a couple of brushes so I'll go get them tomorrow. My only concern is that when I tried to put top coat on the nail wheel swatches, they turned kind of matte in some sections, which is really weird. I guess this type of plastic doesn't go too well with it. Or with nail polish remover. I think some of the plastic of the wheel is actually reacting with the chemicals and becoming.. toxic gas. I hate Chemistry ):

This post was supposed to go up way earlier but every time I tried to type it out, my Internet would die and I'd have to wait, playing with my nail wheels. Also in the same mall that I got my nail wheels from, I found some maybe hard to find polishes, like China Glaze LOL (which cost USD16.50!). I also saw Nubar Wildlife, anyone looking for that? They had some Orly, China Glaze and Nubar which I have never seen elsewhere (except ChG, I've seen that around).

I'm thinking, if I open a store selling all the less locally popular brands for a cheaper price than OPI is going for, maybe I could make some money. But then again I'm not sure how crazy the nail polish lovers are here (besides me ;) ) and I don't know if it'll sell because nobody has ever heard about these brands (besides me ;) ).

Anyway, I hate nameless polishes. Names are so much easier to remember compared to numbers. And besides, all the things brands try to do with the naming of their polishes give us much entertainment. Either we cringe at the awfulness of the name, or we are left with a name that never leaves our heads for it is pure brilliance.

This brand Astor is made in Spain. And as far as I know, everything that's made in Spain is awesome. Spanish football, 'nuff said. This one lasted from Wednesday or Thursday (can't remember) all the way 'til Monday, when I wanted a color change, with no major chips and only tipwear. The bottle only has 6mL, which is 1/3 the amount in an Orly bottle.

I did 3 coats with topcoat. The first coat scared me a bit because it was quite sheer, but then after 3 coats it was alright. It looks uneven in the picture because it is, because you know I'm not really good at painting. If I'm not mistaken, the color is actually darker in real life. My camera hates blues. And greens. And purples.

The morning my friend woke me up early to have breakfast, this abominable thing happened. I BROKE A NAIL. I realize how bimbotic this sounds, especially since despite having weak nails, I've never had to complain about actually breaking a piece of my nail off. And this was before we even got to sit down for breakfast ):

Since it left such a sharp edge, I filed the corner away and have decided to live with a oddly shaped nail until it grows out. I don't want to file everything down to a short length.

I'm starting to get quite mood swing-y lately, but I guess that's part and parcel of being female. (Almost) Everyone and everything is annoying me and I'm still quite annoyed at my dad. I'm always getting hungry at around 2.30am, and not even for something good like an apple. I always want some fries or junk food. I actually really want to eat ALL THE TIME. Argh.

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying yourself more than I am. (:

German Haul

My high speed internet is finally here, and it's not as fast as I expected but it's better than before.

First of all, congratulations to both Real Madrid and Barcelona for winning their La Liga matches. Everything goes back to normal. Until next year's match. You know the one. Also, I read that Iniesta, Xavi and Messi, all from FC Barcelona are the 3 finalists for the FIFA Balón d'Or. Whoever gets it deserves it (:

Secondly, I finally got round to doing this! So a long time ago, my mom went to Germany for work, and I gave her a list of brands of polishes that I thought would be easy to find, like P2, Essence and Catrice. Strangely enough, she couldn't find a single one of those. Instead, she bought me a couple of other brands.

As well as a bunch of polish, my mom also brought back a LOT of chocolate. My favourite so far is Ritter Sport Knusper-Karamell. I'm a sucker for milk chocolate and I do love it when there's some sort of twist like cornflakes (Ritter Sport makes good chocolate with cornflakes), mint, caramel, etc. as long as it's not nuts. And of course it has to be quite "normal". One of the chocolates my mom bought had some weird cinnamon-y cake-like thing inside and it wasn't that good :/

Image from http://candyholic.com/ritter-sport-knusper-karamell/

This one has crunchy bits of caramel (something like the Swedish Daim but with the caramel in little pieces rather than a chunk) and tastes amazing. If you let the chocolate melt away leaving only the caramel bits in your mouth, you can taste the buttery sweetness of it.

All the polish bottles are really tiny. Like 6-9mL (no, I did not put 6 next to 9 on purpose). I am afraid of using these in case they run out. Are all the bottles from Europe this tiny? Do the manufacturers think all Europeans (and people who buy European polish) have dwarf hands? I mean, seriously. Even Tinkerbell and Thumbelina would find these small. So unlike Orly polishes which are much huger than I expected.

Also, none of these have names. Just numbers. If I go to work in Europe, can I be the name-thinker-upper? I promise not to give anything an overly dirty name ;)

Anyway, my mom has pretty alright taste, I would say, although she accidentally bought two rather similar (but not identical) colors. Both are really pretty, so I don't mind! (:

L-R: ArtDeco 280, Astor 66, Astor 25, Astor 70.

The ArtDeco one is really pretty, but more on that later. 25 has some golden shimmer showing up on the bottle but it's not visible in the picture.

L-R: (all BeYu brand) 377, 384, 387, 216, 391

377 is similar to Astor 66. 387 is actually pinkish, not so white.

Well, bottle pictures usually don't tell much. I've tried a couple of these and I'm quite impressed. Also, I got a new top coat. It's from a brand called Douglas and it's called "Diamonds Are Forever Sparkling Top Coat" (also more on this later). The price tag is still here, it costs €10.95 for only 9mL. Told you the bottles are small!

I'm not sure which shop she bought these from and whether they're available in other parts of Europe or not. I wish the bottles were bigger.

Have you seen these brands before? Have you tried any?

OPI The Show Must Go On!

Of course it must!

My friend woke me up at 8am this morning (!) to have breakfast with her. And she sounded like she really really wanted to eat, so I got up after only 4 hours of sleep to go get something to eat. I used to get about 4 hours of sleep when I went to college so I guess this isn't new to me. Although, being awake before noon was quite alien.

I took a nap in the evening for almost 2 hours, but I was awoken by a phone call again. Nobody wants to let me sleep in peace today. Everybody's waking me up by calling my phone and the subject on both occasions was food.

I think this weekend will be super boring because.. Tomorrow some people will come to the house to fix some high speed internet (hopefully) and on Sunday, I'm stuck with my dad again. Argh. It's a little too complicated to get into, plus I'm not in the mood to be in a bad mood.

I was watching Napoleon Dynamite on tv. It's the craziest, silliest and one of the most awkward movies ever. There's almost no background music/soundtrack playing throughout the movie, so whenever people are sitting together in silence (this happens often), it's very awkward. And everyone in the movie is so nerdy and well.. awkward.

I also watched Mulan today! It was one of my favourite movies as a kid. I had the soundtrack and I knew every line of every song on it. I've always looked up to Mulan. The heroine that saved China and all.

I'm seeing all this snow in pictures (on blogs, Facebook) and I'm so jealous ):  I've never seen snow in my life except on tv, and that doesn't count. I know it's cold and all but... I've always wanted to experience snow. I want to go to some super snowy place right now. And wear winter clothes. I want to wear a trench coat! I love trench coats.

Image from http://www.uchoice.us/

Something like this would be awesome.

If I wore a trench coat here, people will think I'm insane. There are so many things I don't get to wear in this country without looking like a nut. And I kind of love winter clothes.

Anyway The Show Must Go On! Ha. It's from the OPI Burlesque collection. I'm sure you've seen this before but there's absolutely no reason not to look at it again. It's stunning. Pink/copper duochrome, I'm not sure of the finish, maybe you could tell me that. It's super sparkly (as is the rest of the collection).

I don't know what it was; maybe this didn't go too well with my skin tone at first but the more I looked at it, the more I loved it. Before we went out to buy this, I told my mom, there's a colour I think you'll like. She decided on buying it the moment she saw it, before even trying it on. Thank goodness she liked it too, because it would be a waste not to get this beauty.

I did 3 coats with top coat. If you're careful (and better at painting your nails than I am), you'll probably be able to get away with 2 coats.

In the sun.

In the shade.

My hands look so pale here!

In case you can't see it, the duochrome is quite obvious on my middle finger. The left side of my nail is orangey and the right side is reddish pink.

The duochrome isn't obvious when in the sun, but in the shade, it's really visible. If you get this, you won't be disappointed at all (:

I just realised I haven't even shown you the stuff my mom got me from Germany! And it's already December! Which is AIDS Awareness month (I think), which is red! Good thing my blog is kind of red already, right?

I can't believe Christmas is coming in 3 weeks. And my exam results will be out in probably.. less than 2 weeks. The year is almost over already ):  On the bright side, I now get to do some Christmas manis. I love Christmas! I love going to the mall and hearing all the Christmas songs. Actually I love going to the mall. Full stop. ;)

You know what would be cool? If OPI made a Christmas duochrome, like TSMGO! except.. maybe using green, red and/or gold. Completely Christmassy. It'll be called.. "The Snow Must Go On!". Haha.

How are the pictures loading today? What do you love about the year's end?

The Clown?

Okay okay, this will be my last completely football post for awhile. I hope. I just couldn't resist mentioning something!

Anyway, I was on tumblr again and I found this. I don't speak or read Spanish, so I don't know what exactly is being said here, but according to Google Translate, the words in yellow at the bottom of the screen are "you know you're doing the clown". Which I think meant something like "you're making a fool of yourself"? I don't know. If any of you speak/read Spanish, could you please provide a proper translation for me?

Image from here.

I don't know to what extent this is true, whether or not David Villa actually said this to Cristiano Ronaldo, but.. I wouldn't know what to say if it were true. Who knows what players say to each other when they're on the field? I wish I knew. And I wish I spoke Spanish.

I'll leave you with some statistics from FIFA.com. The next post will have polish, I promise!

5 unanswered goals on Monday evening gave Barcelona their fifth consecutive Clásico victory, the first time either side has managed this feat since Real Madrid won five in a row in 1965 during the club’s heyday. It was the first time in almost 17 years that the Catalans had beaten their old rivals in such resounding fashion, and the first time in Jose Mourinho’s entire coaching career that he had lost by a margin greater than three goals. The defeat continued Mourinho’s record of never having won at the Camp Nou in six attempts, while also ending an unbeaten streak in all competitions for Real that stretched back 26 matches to 10 April, when Barça were again their conquerors. Although the match halted the remarkable scoring streaks of Lionel Messi, who has still never scored against a team coached by Mourinho, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who has yet to open his account against Barcelona, the little Argentinian did manage nine successful dribbles – the most by any player in a single La Liga match this season. Xavi also excelled, completing a season-high 110 passes despite being substituted in the game’s closing stages. It was a night to forget, meanwhile, for Real captain Iker Casillas, who conceded his 36th Clásico goal to set a new record, surpassing Barcelona legend Juan Velasco.

Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid

Barcelona won!!

Image from http://barcafan.tumblr.com

I've probably said before that I wish for both of them to draw, but the truth is.. I'm much happier when Barça wins. I'm probably like a 70-30 Barça-RM supporter. Or 60-40. I was thinking to myself before the match, if Barça loses, I will feel disappointed. 

And Barça did win! Real Madrid's performance was appalling. I expected a tighter competition, a closer match. But I don't know whether it was Barça's amazing form or Madrid's lack thereof, or a combination of both. I wanted something a little more along the lines of 3-2. 

Playing at home might have been an advantage for Barça, but 5-0 is still an impressive win. I was hoping that Messi would score, but all he did was get knocked down and a yellow card. This match was quite reminiscent of Germany's 4-0 thrashing of Argentina in the World Cup.. Except that this time, the team I was supporting did all the thrashing.

LONG post after the jump!

Image from here.

OPI Tease-y Does It

It's been awhile, no? The wedding was great, my cousin gave me a sore arm from carrying her around, but it was worth it (:

Anyway my weekend was quite boring. Tonight will not be boring! Because the El Clasico match will be on! It'll be 4am where I am but that's one perk of being on holiday - you get to stay up as late as you want. Needless to say, I will be either staying up or waking up to watch this match. Who would miss a match between Barca & Real Madrid?

Tease-y Does It is from the Burlesque collection. It's sheer on the first coat, but at 2-3 coats, it'll be good to go. It's a dark brown purple-y base (my friend thought it was purple) with pink/golden shimmer. I can't decide what color the shimmer is, but according to Scrangie, it's a duochrome-y shimmer, and I can't disagree. I absolutely love this one. It's very shimmery, these pictures don't do it justice at all.

Edit: I completely forgot to tell you that I did 3 coats, with top coat. Also, these wore very well. I put this on on Monday and it lasted all the way to Friday with minimal tip wear. It would probably have lasted a week, maybe more. I just decided I wanted a different colour on.

I rarely ask my mom to get an OPI unless I really really love it. My first was Russian Navy, then Merry Midnight and Mad As A Hatter and now these from the Burlesque collection. It's worth every overpriced dollar we paid.

The weather has been terrible. I was fortunate enough to get a good sun shot. The rest are all taken under my Ikea lamp. Also, I changed the photos' file type from .png to .jpg and the file size is a LOT smaller, whereas the quality of the photo is practically unchanged. Why didn't I do this earlier?

Sun!

Under my lamp.

I couldn't resist taking a blurry shot. (:

I deleted a few of the pictures because they didn't come out so well on my computer. The next post will have more pictures ;)  More OPI coming your way! Let me know how the pictures are loading!

How was your weekend?