BNC #175 Silver Sparkle

(Silver Sparkle is not the polish's actual name, which was nowhere to be found on the bottle.)

I was walking around Trinoma when I chanced upon a stall selling Korean BNC polishes for PhP80.00 (USD1.78) each. The salesperson was quite annoying - she kept using hard sell tactics to get me to buy more products, so I didn't stick around very long to look at other shades.

Silver Sparkle is a hexagonal glitter polish much like TFS Nail Pleasure YL702. It can be made opaque in three coats, although it helps to have some sort of polish underneath to fill in the gaps. Here, I used Skin Food PK203 as the base.

I've been looking for a polish to blind people with, and this fits the bill perfectly. :P

Elianto Cutie Pink

This polish's name slightly annoys me, but I like the color nonetheless. It's a light pink similar to Etude House Dear Darling 05, only this has more pink in it (EHDD has a bit more purple).

Three coats.

I'm sorry I haven't been taking bottle shots against a black background lately. No time to set up.

Orly Tennis, Anyone?

I'm currently interning for my professor and I noticed he was a bit distracted with my nails last week, so I decided to tone it down this week. This is an old polish from Orly's Spring 2009 Prepster collection.

For a sheer polish, this isn't much trouble to apply. I used three coats below.

Can you see the nail stickers? I put them on to make the mani a bit more interesting (so I won't get tempted to switch to a louder color LOL).

The Face Shop OR205

This is last week's mani. Have I ever mentioned that orange is my favorite color?

OR205 is a bright neon creme that reaches full opacity in three coats.

Etude House Dear Darling Nails #05 (Pink)

I'm alive! I haven't forgotten about this blog or Stockpiled!, it's just that I've been very busy with school and real life for the past few months. (And I still am. T_T)

I have a huge backlog of polishes to upload now, and that doesn't even include the new ones Caronia Philippines so very kindly sent me last week. (Thanks again, Caronia! I'll be sure to swatch them as soon as I can!)

This pretty pale pink is currently what I have on my hands. I'd swatch more but... TIME T_T

05 is a two-coater, but I put on three coats because I am nitpicky that way. :P

Polishes from Etude House's Dear Darling line cost (correct me if I'm wrong, I can't remember if it was 198 or 148) PhP198.00, which is roughly $3.00.

The Smiley Mani

Happy new year! Manigong bagong taon!

I've wanted to do one of these ever since I saw one of the blogs on my blogroll do this ages ago. (I'm sorry, I was pretty sure I saw it on The Princess of Polish but when I got there, I couldn't find it anymore. Please do let me know if you were the one who did the smiley mani!)

Instead of just happy yellow smileys, I did sad blue smileys (Saddies? Haha what do you call them?) on my middle fingers. Why are they inverted? This is a wholesome family blog, you figure it out. >:D

Aside from old faithful Wet n' Wild black creme, the polishes responsible for this were Etude House GR601 and YL802. I haven't been able to make proper swatch posts for them yet because I'm running low on my favorite nail polish remover. Must conserve!

This mani seems to bring up the most amusing coincidences:

• When I looked at today's paper, the astrology section said 2010's lucky colors were yellow and light blue. My mani is yellow and blue green. Haha close enough!
•  One of my favorite nail blogs, The Daily Nail, did a smiley mani too! (Hers is infinitely better, though. :D)

Elianto Sparkling Diva: Racing Green

This pretty green comes from Elianto's new Sparkling Diva line. As its name suggests, the polishes in the new line have sparkly finishes.

This Christmas-y color turns opaque in two coats,

and looks stunning in bright light!

Sparkling Diva polishes cost PHP199.00 (around USD4.00) - pretty close to the price range of The Face Shop's Nail Pleasure line.

Skin Food Nail Vita BL511 (Secret Blue)

I found this polish's name through Jellynat's super helpful blog. It's a great resource for the names of Skin Food polishes!

I don't get why this shimmery bright blue is called Secret Blue, though.

This two-coater certainly isn't as blue as the deodorant...

although it is quite close to another Skin Food polish.

L: Secret Blue; R: Blue Sapphire

Secret Blue is shimmery, Blue Sapphire is solid creme

The Face Shop YL702

(The nail swatches in this post are much older than last Friday's Glitter Shine Red. So no, my nails did not magically lengthen over the weekend.)

Yellow there, everybody!

Get it? Yellow... hello? Yeah, I'll stick to being a college student. :P

Anyhow, YL702 is a bright, sunny yellow three-coater.

It applies reasonably well for a yellow polish - the streakiness disappears quite easily once the first coat has dried and the second and third layers are applied. More experienced users will probably even get bottle color in two coats.

Strangely enough, this polish has the exact same color code as another polish from TFS' Nail Pleasure line.

Elianto Glitter Shine Red

Sorry today's post is a little late, been pretty busy lately. O_O

Glitter Shine Red is a dead ringer for China Glaze Ruby Pumps and is also very similar to Essie Ruby Slippers.

I've always loved the look of bright red polish on short nails, and this smooth three-coater is no exception.

I happened to chance upon some really good sunlight when I was swatching this. Lucky!

I usually paint my nails at night since I have to get ready for class in the morning. The text you see under my hand is from my Statistics book. (Blech! XD)

Elianto Brown

I swear this looked like a creme in the bottle! It's actually a brown jelly, how weird is that?

It's a four-coater, but it dries to an impossibly glossy shine that reminds me of chocolate glazed donuts.

Elianto Bisque + Rainbow Stripes

After wearing this psychedelic number all throughout last week (to a good amount of graciously-received compliments, might I add ;D)...

This has got to be the best picture I've ever taken in NPN history so far. I think the lighting is just perfect!

...for this week, I decided to take things down a little with this creamy neutral!

Whoops, forgot to watermark before turning the pic right-side-up!

Neutral colors have usually been difficult to apply in my experience. Not so with two-coater Bisque!

Please excuse the drying skin at the sides of my nails. X_X The weather is getting colder and drier by tropical standards here, and being a sun-loving Southeast Asian unused to lower temperatures, I probably need to hydrate and/or moisturize more!

The formula glides veeeery smoothly - almost like a Skin Food polish - and dries to a highly professional-looking, glossy shine.

Skin Food Milk Creamy Prism Nail: Black Prism

Yes, Skin Food has holos! They come in bottles similar to the Milk Creamy line, except with metallic silver caps.

The polish looks quite similar to OPI My Private Jet, although MPJ seems to have bigger particles.

Black Prism appears asphalt gray under fluorescent light,

but under sunlight is where it really shines!

Skin Food Juice Tox #7

I've been singing praises to Skin Food's polishes ever since I started posting about them. Until NOW, that is.

Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT ever buy anything from their Juice Tox line.

#7 looks adorable enough in the bottle,

and sets in with a silky smooth satiny finish that looks more purple under bright light,

BUT IT NEVER COMPLETELY DRIES.

I first tested the infernal polish two weeks ago, Sunday morning. Take note, MORNING. I went about my day, then settled off to sleep. (At night, obviously. :P) I didn't have to go out in public anyway, so I didn't clean up the mani in the shower. The next day, I awake to this mess:

bed sheet marks EVERYWHERE. Ugh.

Yesterday I tried salvaging what I could from this difficult product. Top coats didn't work on it either, so I painted it over a layer of last week's similarly-colored French Kiss. Doing that seems to have fixed the not-drying problem. Here's what it looks like today:

Eh, I guess that's alright. I won't be buying any more Juice Toxes in the future, though.

Skin Food Nail Vita BL509 (Hami Melon Milk)

Thank you to Nathalie for tracking down this polish's name! Hami melons are a type of melon indigenous to China.

Three-coater BL509 looks like it could be Essie Mint Candy Apple's frosted cousin!

However, it does have more yellow in it than the Essie polish. Check out gildedangel's swatch to see the difference.

Skin Food Pedicure Vita: Mai Tai

This one-coater is named after the red version of the cocktail drink. I think it captures the color nicely.

I don't think it photographs very well on me, though. It's a cute fruity red in person but it looks absolutely lurid in these shots. :|

Skin Food Pedicure Vita: French Kiss

I fail to see why this blurple is called French Kiss, but it's a pretty color anyway.

One-coater!

Skin Food Pedicure Vita: Midori Shower

Yes, this Skin Food polish has a name! (I finally found a website listing most of SF's polish names! It does a much better job than the official site LOL)

Midori is Japanese for green, so I guess that would make this polish a "green shower"? Take note that Skin Food is a Korean brand and not a Japanese one, however.

As with most polishes from this brand, Midori Shower applies veeery smoothly in two coats - not at all like the lumpy disaster that was Elianto Lemon Green.

The polish also has some shimmers in it, but they're hardly noticeable. Can you see them below?