NOTD ~ Strawberries

[NOTD - nail of the day]

I was inspired by luuthienluv's Blog with her take on strawberry nails. I picked out similar colours but lacked in lilac so opted for baby pink.

Here are the nail polishes I've used for this design:

W7 Diamond Top Coat, 17 Nail Xtras nail recovery, Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, MUA in dark fushia and H&M Hello Kitty in Garden Green

So I applied the nail recovery as my base coat due to my nails chipping (weep) and painting odds and even with the Strawberry and fushia polishes.

I used a cocktail stick to do the detailing of the small leaves [Garden Green] of the strawberry as none of my brushes are small enough for this. I don't mean the brushes from the polishes themselves but brushes I would use to paint in general. [Reminder to self: buy small brushes cheap cheap cheap!]

Again using the cocktail stick to dot the same Garden Green polish leaving a decent gap between each line. Lastly apply top coat to protect the design~~

Et voila~

simple strawberry nail art

٩(°∀°)۶ ~ yay

Mucho love,

Tofu x

DIY ombré hair [Part 1]

So the ombré hair effect has become popular over the past few years and still trending even today. Contemplating and to avoid my mum getting a real shock on the choice of colour...I will have to bleach my hair (darn my thick Asian black hair...-sighs- ●︿●). At first I wanted the bottom half of my hair to be red but not so vibrant and because it's not going to be ultra blonde straight away it's not going to be the colour shown on the box...I HOPE!!! (°∀°)...

On with the tutorial! 

These were on offer "2 products for £7.49" on all Schwarzkopf hair products or £5.99/£3.99 (messed up the pricing sorry) each saving me 49p (yay). I would have opted for the Shake It Up Foam in Ice Blonde Blast but I wasn't so certain that it would work effectively as a bleach so stuck with the usual hair dye.
 
 
I bought the Hypnotic Red 37 and Max Blonde 00B. On the side it would show roughly the end result of the dye with specific hair tones. My only concern was my stubborn hair it's not virgin hair but has previously been dyed using same brand but Mystic Violet 87. That...only tinted my hair and I received different responses such as 'your hair looks red...purple...ginger...red'...stubborn indeed!


The kit shown here is only from the Max Blonde set as it's part 1 of the ombré effect. Tinting kit is from Boots £4.69 and the range of brushes belongs to me as back combing sections of hair near the roots prevents the obvious border between the bleach and natural hair.


I read up that covering the bleached area with foil helps speed up the process -shrugs- guess it does help but willing to try for the first time. There is the tint of previous hair colour reflecting from the natural light outside and I have sufficient hair length to do this ombré effect.


Instructions were provided on mixing the solution inside the squeezy bottle that was including in the kit. It's more convenient for me to use the brush as I feel using my fingers might get the bleach everywhere and miss a few areas. Emptying the bleach into the mixing bowl, backcombed my roots, I went ahead and brushed 1/3 down on 1/4 sectioned hair. Obviously using the foil to give myself a back to work against it was very difficult to do everything mirrored because my hair length is not that long for me to just simply look down and do. I did struggle at the beginning but it was a breeze for the other side.


 
Now that the tips are waiting for the bleach to take action...I WAS BORED and felt like I was taking a trip to the oven (haha...). I did a lot of research as to how long to keep the bleach in there but I only knew that bronze would be the closest stage for this so I unwrapped all 4 foil..COBS!!! [IMPORTANT: check every 5-10 minutes to see how the colour is coming along]. 


 
Now the tricky part...with no one to help me with how far I'm sploshing the bleach (aside the occasional skin touching with the brush) I felt utterly clueless and did my best (this is the part where I weeped and hoped for the worst). Keeping in mind that this is the ombré effect I applied more on the bleached area but also further up towards my head. Again wrapped all four sections with one bit sheet of foil each and checked every 5-10 minutes til 

I'm 

HAPPY AS A BUMBLE BEE

One thing I can only say...I ran out of bleach when I got to the last section right at the end. Just managed to move the mixture up but...it's more obvious in the second image...I was being to generous with the rest of the hair! HAHAHAHAHAHA...serves me right.

I was thinking of buying more bleach but it would screw up the whole process and having to balance out everything so...it might not look too bad when I use the red dye next month. My hair hates me so I'm letting it rest...for a month!!! I wanted blue or purple but it would look pretty awkward according to my sister plus she was totally against this in the first place haha!

Have any of you guys attempted dip dye/ombré effect before and did it involve any other colours? Til the second part ~

(°∀°)

Mucho love,

Tofu x

NOTD ~ Kirby

 [NOTD - Nail of the day]

The much loved squashy little pink ball of cuteness adorns my nail today. This was done over two days to allow the base colour to dry within good time.

Here are the nail polishes I've used for this design:

W7 Diamond Top Coat, Rio Professional Nail art in Yellow, White and Black,MUA Shade 16 and Accessorize in baby pink (not official name)

I'm right-handed so I only painted my left nails. I've tried waiting a few days before putting on top coat just to see if there was any difference in avoiding the whole "runny polish" problem but it still happened so I just put the top coat on a few hours after the last polish have set. The first image was BEFORE applying the top coat on plus it's better than what I'm looking at now... [runny star borders...sob]. Kirby looks intact...just about... 

(• ε •)

Mucho love,

Tofu x

March haul (small)

[Note: just trying different picture layout/format to suit my style so each post might look different each time til I'm happy with one...in time hehe]

So to begin in Boots I researched beforehand that Miss Sporty had an offer Buy 2 for £3 on the lip balms but sadly they only had 4 instead of 5 to choose from so I opted for just 2 :(.

On the right 03 Gossip Kiss SOS and 01 Sweet Kiss SOS

All the Dr Balms are very sheer and was difficult to show through on my camera but only a light tint. They're moisterising and usually on for £1.99 each which isn't too bad. There are 5 in this collection but not all the branches of Boots or Superdrug stock every single one or just have a tester.

I have a weakness for nail polishes particularly for the pastel range of any brand. Again there was an offer on the 17 brand with nail polishes 'Buy 1 get 1 half price' which was better than the offer Barry M Gelly had so opted for these ones instead. For the Revlon polishes I got them from TKMaxx in a pack (or wallet rather) of three at the price of £7.99 plus these were scented as well!

17 nail polishes in Wave and Simply Pink. Revlon nail polishes in Peach Smoothie, Gum Drop and Cotton Candy

My sister received Revlon scented polish for Christmas so it's not the first I've seen these around. We currently own Watermelon Fizz, Pineapple Fizz and Grape Fizz so far and at first you'd get the obvious polish smells but a few minutes later and scent slowly breaks through


Red Nose Day bags designed by Lulu Guinness for Sainsbury. There are 3 designs in total (managed to find the third one after the whole event at one end of the row of tills...typical!)

I don't know if this kind of editing on the layout is easier to see individual images or maybe avoid pattern backdrop? Give suggestions if possible whilst I'm trying out different ideas myself.

Mucho love,

Tofu x

✿ The Versatile Blogger Award ✿

Thank you Jenni for nominating me for this award (my first one eeeee ^^). A fellow BBC (British Born Chinese) and her blog ranges from makeup, food to monthly magazines + the goodies that comes with them. I admire her devotion to reading every comments on her post and that's important to maintain the relationship between bloggers :D. 

This is my first time coming across an award so having researched there are rules when nominated by another blogger:

> Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common  courtesy.
> Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it.
> Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. ( I would add, pick blogs or bloggers that are excellent!)
> Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site.
> Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

7 things about me

(ᵔᴥᵔ) ~ I cosplay (costume play based on anime/game characters) in my own time and have been doing so since Autumn 2009. I use my skills on the sewing machine (and hand) to make my costumes or alter existing clothing.

(ᵔᴥᵔ) ~ Food documentaries are a must for me; just understanding more about food...just makes me HUNGRY! No joke it really does. Favourite show 'Man V Food'.

(ᵔᴥᵔ) ~ Huge Hello Kitty fan (and my friends are embarrassed by this and possibly trying to avoid going anywhere that sells her) my bad ;D

(ᵔᴥᵔ)~ My music taste is a mixture of heavy metal and kpop (korean pop). Doesn't show through my fashion taste to be fair lol.

(ᵔᴥᵔ) ~ I try to do nail art at least once a month and inspired by designs that are in season or based on games and animes.

(ᵔᴥᵔ)~ The amount of times I tell myself to not buy any cosmetic product in the coming week whether it'd be a lip or face product...yeah... ££££££ (Ok I don't splurge lol).

(ᵔᴥᵔ)~ Last but not least I love DIYing when I can. My other blog Easy Like DIY -cringe- has been neglected but I plan to cramp it with so much craft ideas I've been doing recently but haven't got round to organising the images (should opt for video?)

11 blogs I'm nominating
(Sorry I couldn't decide on 15 way too difficult)

 

molliemuses

nataliasowls

the-beauty-bloggers 

zombieturtlebeauty 

hollyarabella 

viviyunn 

maliberrymakeup 

lets-makeyuup 

b-is-for-beauty 

skinthead 

midnight-violets 

 
Check out their blogs as they regularly update them weekly or even daily (more than me haha) but awesome blogs to hook up to take my word for that! Again thank you Jenni for nominating me! <3

٩(^‿^)۶

Mucho love,

Tofu x