Ireland and Korean Royalty

I arrived home Monday night from Seoul via Heathrow. Despite being exhausted I still stayed up for hours chatting to my parents. They are the BEST help a future bride could ask for!

Mom has been cooking all my fav dishes including Irish breakfast and her yum Chicken casserole (secret recipe)

Now that I’m home I have a little setting up to do. I’m gonna head to the shopping centre tomorrow with mom and pick up some things I need, essentials such as a GHD, desk for my room, boots (they are on sale!) and some other things to make my room more me.

Of course the downside of being home is that I’m apart from Greg, Mika and Pickle. I’m trying really hard to focus on my goals and not wallow about too much about being apart from my little family. It’s temporary, and I should use the time on things that will improve me so when I do see Greg again I can impress him! 🙂

One more downside, it’s 5.30am I’ve been awake for an hour now! So naturally I’m typing this with a facemask on and I may go paint my toenails in a little bit!

Sunday was my last day in Seoul. Greg and I decided to go to a photo studio and dress up as Korean Kings and Queens and wear Hanbok. That’s the traditional Korean  clothing. Isn’t it beautiful? Of course I asked for purple!

I’m trying to think like a queen!

Doesn’t he look handsome?

Together, having fun.  🙂 It’s easy with your best friend.

Day 10 Pre-Spring Challenge Contest Ice-Cream

For this mani I used OPI Fly, OPI Strawberry Margarita, Essie Blanc, Sally Hansen Lightening, and the purple is a no name polish. The base coat is OPI Barefoot in Barcelona.

Gold Glitter Gradient

Yay for EASY nail art!Because let’s face it there are some evenings when I don’t want a manicure to take over an hour 🙂 I already posted about this great gradient kit from Etude house, that post covered the silver kit. Since Christmas seems to be the season for glitter polishes I thought a glitter gradient would give a simple manicure a nice twist and still be really fast to do. (are you getting I’m really pressed for time these days?! lol!)

What do you do when you want a pretty manicure but don’t have the time? Lemme know! I want your ideas haha!!

Modi Glam Nails Swatches and Reviews

This is my second about this range of glitter polishes. The Modi range was so fun I had to go buy more and show you! My previous post covered a red, black and white,  multicoloured glitter. You can read it here.

This time I bought a creamy glitter with multicoloured pieces. This polish has square, circle, and hexagon shaped glitter throughout. The thing I love about these polishes is that they don’t hold back on the glitter. I don’t normally like creamy polishes but I did enjoy wearing this one. It’s cheerful and peppy.  This was two coats. I think you can see little bubbles underneath the polish because I used a peel off base coat. It was worth that not to deal with removing the polish the standard way! 

I paired this glitter with OPI’s Fly from the Nicki Minaj range. I think they compliment each other quite well. As with all glitter polishes from this range they are so packed with glitter you have to be careful that too much doesn’t come out.

Modi Peel Off Base Coat

I was shopping in Aritaum last week for some more of those great Modi glitters, when I saw this product. Modi have a peel off base coat. My mind instantly ran through the implications! My first thought was that it’d be really helpful in removing glitter polishes. They always take time to get off and I worry  the glitter pieces will scrape my nails. My second thought was, will this really work? Or is it a gimmick?

It wasn’t expensive 3,500 Korean Won. That’s around $3 USD. I’ve been seeing lots of posts recently about nail bloggers using hardware glue as a base coat to get glitter polishes to peel off. This polish seems to be Korea’s answer to that problem.

So, I tried it out. I spread it on my nails as my base coat. The first thing I noticed was that it was really think and gooey. There was no strong polish smell, no smell at all actually. It took a long time to dry, about 7 or 8 minutes. Once it was dry I applied OPI’S Fly from the Nicki Minaj range over it. Usually this polish is opaque in two coats but when I applied it over this base coat bald patches  appeared a few seconds later. It was almost like the polish was rolling off the base coat in places. But it was no big deal I just used an extra coat of polish and it was fine. I applied Modi’s gold glitter polish on top of all that, and a topcoat to make it look smooth and shiny.

I left the manicure on for a day (a whole day! ha! that’s about how long a manicure lasts me) and then came crunch time. I tried peeling it all off. Success!  Using just my nails I was able to easily peel off all the polish and base coat. Some of the polish even came off in one intact piece! (and yeah that did give me a thrill!) 🙂

I did notice that my nails were slightly stained blue from the OPI polish. That never happens with my OPI base coat. I think next time I will just apply the OPI base coat under the peel off one. Also, I think I will only use Modi’s base coat for glitter polishes. Overall, I was really impressed with this base coat. 🙂

Modi Glam Nails Swatches and Reviews 1

Last week while shopping in Gangnam, Seoul I came across these beautiful glittery polishes in a store called Aritaum. These are Aritaum’s Modi Glam Nails. They were so eye-catching I had to buy them. I’m just sorry I only bought three! They were 3,500 Korean Won each. That’s roughly $3 USD. Bargain! 🙂

The thing that surprised me the most about these polishes is that one coat was enough! They are JAM PACKED with glitter and bits and pieces. If you scroll down and check out my macro shots of each bottle you can clearly see this. So each manicure was simple and took the minimum amount of time! That’s a win for me.

The pink base coat is OPI’s Strawberry Margarita.

Look at all that inside!!

I think this manicure would be really great for a Christmas party. Some of the pieces of  glitter were quite large. The red base coat is OPI’s Color So Hot It Berns.

Mmm full of glittery goodness.

Here’s my last swatch. This glitter would go with any colour but I love how it looks with light and dark purple. That dark purple is OPI’s Louvre Me Louvre Me Not.

Can you see how jam-packed each one is with glitter? I may just have to go back and get some more this weekend!