I've moved on...
...to a different domain. Why, what were you thinking? The truth is, I just woke up one day and decided it's time for a change—a metamorphosis, if you will; or, in layman's terms, if Britney can shave her head, then maybe so can I? Nevertheless, it's been a rather handsome 10 years of talking to you, and thank you for putting up with all my moodswings and terrible dad jokes. Fear not! The hormonal imbalance and jokes are more terrible on CUBICLE, see you there.

Inspiration: Fabergé Eggs, Mary Katrantzou AW11, Max Mara gold-encrusted sweater on Vogue UK August 2012

What you’ll need
Base colour, glitter colour in similar hue or gold, glitter dust (Mine is from BarryM), base & top varnish  (I’m using Essie First Base base coat & Essie Good to go top-coat), a pencil with an eraser butt, a pin, Gold/Silver nail-art pen (I’m using Topshop nail art pen). Secure the pin into the eraser, it should go relatively deep into the butt!

File and buff nails to egg-shape or simply neaten to a unified length

Apply base coat

Apply base colour, then apply a coat of glitter polish of a similar hue for a jewel effect.

Using the nail art pen, make fine criss-crossing lines

I’ll be honest, this ‘inspiration’ does not stem from some encyclopaedic knowledge of art history, or anything remotely similar… in fact I had to google it at first and on spelling it ‘faberze’ Dr Google gave me all sorts of buying choices for Febreeze. Yes I’m shallow like that, and guess what hubby, we’ll never ever run out of air-refresheners, your clever wife just bought fifteen boxes online! And while I’m confessing and all, over the weekend I watched Ocean’s Twelve where George Clooney, Brad Pitt et al try to steal a Fabergé egg – and you guessed it – that’s where this idea comes from. I’m so deep it hurts sometimes.

A few tips:

  • If the nail pen is difficult to control when doing your right hand (or left, if you’re right handed) (screw you if you’re ambidextrous, you superior person), try pushing out a dollop onto a scrap paper, then paint the lines on by ‘leading’ a bit of polish using the tip of the pen. You can also advertise for a flatmate for this nail-do then evict her/him out once you’re done.
  • For the criss-crossing pattern, start from the inner corner of the nail and draw to the opposite mid-point, that should set a good angle for the rest of the lines. (Or else you’ll end up doing something like my left hand ring finger)
  • If you have flower/star-shaped glitter try making bigger criss-cross pattern, and then add the glitter into the diamond a la Mary Katrantzou AW11

Keep all bottles open and apply while each layer is wet

Vogue Girl Korea July ’11 Issue; Sally Hansen Double Duty (and Mega-Shine, later), BarryM Gold 289, OPI HLB11 & HLB10

I’m just gonna go ahead and call this ‘Skin-clipped-along-with-nail-hence-the-blood-stain-effect’ instead of rack my brain for cheesy names like Berry Kiss’d or Sunset flicker or Unicorn fart. I was flipping through Vogue Girl Korea and noticed Sandara (of 2NE1)’s nails in the Etude waterproof mascara ad. For some reason mascara ads never convince me – nevermind how miraculous the damn mascara brush, HOW CAN YOU HELP IT WHEN YOU HAVE NO LASHES IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHO AM I YELLING AT? Anyway the nails looked cute so I decided to give it a go. Ah, when was the last time you saw such a straightforward post here?