Nail Art: Triangular Matte Shiny Nails

Can you tell that my nails are fake? Heh. I’m actually not a fan of fake nails because thankfully, I am blessed with strong nails. Hence, if I wanted to, I could grow my nails to that length. So anyway, this nail art was actually done for the shoot that I had with Joe and Pearl. Read about it here! For this nail art, I was inspired by the lines and the cutting of the dress that I wore for the shoot. You’ll know why when the pictures for the shoot are out.

What I actually did for this nail art was a matte white polish and paint a shiny black polish over it. I’m pretty in love with matte polishes, btw. I won’t be blogging much about this nail art because it is a fairly simple one; I just used stickers to help me to create the triangular lines. But I must say that I didn’t apply the black polishes really well because I actually ran out of it. So, in the next few pictures, the flaws and the streaks are pretty obvious.

Photo : What I am, who am I.

Remember my last post about the shoot with Joe Low and Pearl Tan? If you haven’t read it yet, read it here! Anyway, Joe decided to post-process a few photos in advance for me, so that I could publish it on my blog. (Heh, thanks Joe!) So, this is one of the pictures from the set. I’ll be posting the images one by one on my blog, so will Joe and Pearl in their FB pages. Do hit them a like to be the first to see the pictures. :)

Look at me now. Do you remember who am I, what I am (once to you) or what we used to be?

Photographed by: Joe Low

Make up + Hair by: Pearl Tan extraODDinary

Nails: Cosmic Inspired by Carmen Hong (Me!)

By the way, the design of the nails is similar to the Cosmic Inspired nail art I did late last month. ;) If you want to see more pictures of the nail design or read my blog entry, you can just click on the link.

Swatch: Essence’s Where Is The Party

Hello, babes! I know it’s been a while since I posted some swatches. Well, I really don’t have the time anymore to even shop for nail polishes. But one day, I was at Guardian and I realised that they started carrying Essence’s products. Previously, it was only available in Mid Valley or rather the Mad Valley which is a place I would avoid at all cost. Always packed and jam around the mall. And oh, just a note, my nails did grow quite a bit before I actually shot my nails.

So, anyway, I was actually looking for Essence’s Where is The Party because I fell in love after reading one of the nail blogs around. It is a gorgeous duo-chrome colour with shades of mainly purple, green and sometime grey. This post is quite photo heavy because I love the shots I took and decided to put them all in.

Review: Surprisingly, for the price of RM 6.90, the formula of the polish is pretty good. It applies easy because it comes with a big brush and sticks true to the fact that it is a quick dry nail polish. I don’t have much to complain about this except that the polish is slightly metallic and hence you have to careful with the streak lines. It is actually not that obvious, but yes, you can still see it. Other than that, it can get a bit tricky to remove the polish. But I still fell in love with this polish despite all that. :)

Close up one the nail. Gorgeous colours, right?

My favourite shot! It’s a bit blur, but it somehow gives the matte, out of focus effect.

And the infamous, lip shot. Heh. Here, the nails look metallic.

Photo Shooting with Joe and Pearl.

Just yesterday, I managed to do something from my Bucket List (It is a list of things that I want to do before I die.) It’s no surprise about what I did since my title says it all. I did a shoot, but it is not the usual grab-a-camera-smile-and-shoot type. It was a creative shoot with make-up, lighting, posing and it is almost similar to a real real shoot. Except we had more time to change outfits and make up, also to set up the places.

 

It is amazing to be able to work with Joe Low; Photographer and Pearl Tan extraODDinary; Make-up Artist because they are both very talented, awesome and totally fun to work with! This photoshoot was actually a collaboration with between the three of us; I did my nails for this shoot.

“ To be honest, I was so afraid I’ll screw this shoot because I’ve got to admit that I’m awkward in front of the cameras. Trust me, the pictures from my first shoot was kind of embarrassing because at that time, I really didn’t know how to smile or even which was my better angle. Then, I went on for another shoot, and I must have screwed my face so horribly that the photographer cropped my face out completely from the set of pictures. :( Or maybe, it was the idea. Nevertheless, my confidence completely dropped after that and I scrapped any dreams of future shoots.”

But I really loved the portraiture shots that Joe took (you can check them out in his Facebook page) and hence, when I had the opportunity to shoot with Joe and Pearl, I decided to give it another shot. And as it turns out, it was definitely a great experience for a newbie like me. It was a different ball game all together because we’re doing stuff that I haven’t tried before; knowing my angles, holding my pose, maintaining the expression and getting into the mood. It feels very professional but at the same time, we had tonnes of fun along the way.

 

I’m pretty excited to see the outcome of the shoot and how the pictures turn out to be. We did three different themes (I don’t know if they are called themes, but yea.) and I love the energy/expression/mood that I had for the first two. But I felt for the third one (full body shots type), I kinda lost my focus and concentration. (Or it could be the dress, because, I cannot pose in that dress. It makes me too self conscious, according to my friend, Alex.) So yea, we’ll see how that turns out to be. 

 

Anyway, Joe will be post-processing them first and the pictures would be uploaded to his FB as well as Pearl’s and my blog too. Well, we did go through some of the pictures in Joe’s camera and they look fantabulous…. so, do look out for it!

 

Smokey eyes + BW triangular nails for the last look. The eye make-up is too awesome, right? It looks way better on Joe’s camera, btw. :)

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UPDATE: I have posted the pictures from the shoot up and they can be found on these pages; What I am, Who I am and Just Because I Can.

Fashion: 20120308’s look

If you have seen me around enough, you’ll realise that I'm mostly in a red black outfit combination. It’s becoming a staple for me to wear that colour combination when I’m feeling lazy. Or when I simply cannot decide what to wear. It is so easy, because I either wear a black top with red jeans or the other way around. Or I could put on a black dress and pair it with a red bag. (Currently, I’m loving my red envelope clutch. I would say it is currently my basic grab-to-go bag when I’m in a rush.)

Fashion: 20120320’s look.

Meet my latest satin asymmetrical dress, that I am absolutely in love with now. It’s a mullet dipped hemline at the back and a tulip hemline for the front. It sounds gorgeous, I know but it is a bit hard to imagine. One day, I’ll try to get a full shot of the dress. (I actually wanted to try to get shots of the dress today, but my favourite ‘photographer’ said he couldn’t capture the flow of the dress that I wanted because he only brought his portrait lens. Heh. And he is a close friend of mine actually, not actually my photographer.)

When I first received this dress, I had a love-hate thing for it. Love because it had an asymmetrical design. Hate because it was loose on me and the dress didn’t flow in the way I wanted it to be. It’s loose because the top part of the dress is similar to a tank top but it isn’t fitted. I’m petite enough, hence I need a belt to pull off the dress. Also, when you walk, the dress do flow but it also balloons up. That looked kind of ridiculous. I wish I could snap of picture of that. Haha.

Biolyn Hair Spa, for only RM10.

Did you read my last post about my hair blues, where I was absolutely clueless about what to do with it? You haven’t? Well, read it here. After I posted that, you wouldn’t believe happened. Okay, I may be a little dramatic. I didn’t get a hair makeover or something. But I did get the opportunity to try this new hair spa by Biolyn.

Haven’t heard of Biolyn? Well, to be honest, me neither. But from their website, I found out that they were a company which specialized on the health conscious market group. Of which I certainly don’t fall under those group. Ah, that figures. Heh.

Anyway, they have recently introduced a few new hair care products using only natural ingredients and also hair treatments, using those products as well. Right now, I have some good news for you, my readers because Biolyn has decided to give me 40 invitations for my readers to experience the Biolyn Hair Spa for only RM 10 with free hair products as well.

For RM10, you’ll be getting the four treatments as per the poster and a choice these products as well.

I’m not kidding you. The hair spa include scalp care, shampooing, hair cut and hair care treatment, for only RM10 since you read my blog. :) So, this is what I need you to do if you’re interested to get this treatments;

1. Send in your details to itscarmenhong@hotmail.com by 21st March 2012, Wednesday ; Name, Age, IC, Address, Phone Number
2. Invitation (with the address of the salon) will be send to you!
3. Head over to the salon with my invitation to get your hair done for RM10!

I cannot wait to try out these hair treatments! (RM 10 is so cheap! It only cost like a fraction compared to where I usually go to. Plus, there are free products too. Hehe.) Anyway, I will be going there soon and blogging about it after. :)

Photo: Hair Blues.

Frankly, honestly, seriously, I don’t know what to do with my hair. It’s not straight (those are rebonded, btw). It’s not wavy either. It’s frizzy and curly. So, can someone just tell me what to do with my hair? Sighs.

Project: Walk in The Park [2]

This is a project inspired by my walks to the park, because I find that if we really looked, there are many amazing pictures waiting to be captured. :)

For more pictures from the Walk in the Park series, click here.

Photo: Tomorrow.

Will be sitting for my mock exam tomorrow. Failed the last paper terribly, I’m going to need all the luck to pass tomorrow’s test. Finals in 10 days more.

Rant: State of mind.

Imagine if I could take a picture of my brain… I think it would look like this picture. Out of focus, cluttered.

For more pictures from the Walk in the Park series, click here.