Gelish: Mixed Roses

Xiao Ting, a first time customer of mine contacted me on Saturday night in hope of booking an appointment for Sunday. She was extremely disppointed when I told her that I was fully booked for the late morning/early afternoon. I informed her that I had slots in the evening only to realise that she actually needs to do her nails for a wedding dinner on Sunday night. A while later, the customer who was originally scheduled for the 12pm slot had something urgent to attend to and had to postpone her appointment. I contacted Xiao Ting immediately to tell her about it and she was thrilled!

She came by the next day and was extremely nice. She was delayed for a little while and made the effort to sms me before that informing me that she'll be late. In actual fact, she was only late for 10 minutes but I really appreciated the fact that she bothered to inform me about it. That makes a responsible customer! Xiao Ting had quite a tough time deciding what to do as she loved my roses and flower designs. After much deliberation, here's what we came out with:

Xiao Ting did half moons on every nail except for the thumbs and the ring fingers. Initially, she was concerned about the growth of her nails over time. That was when I suggested doing half moons to prevent the obvious nail growth.

A final look:

Thank you Xiao Ting. It's customers like you that make the entire manicure experience a fruitful and accomplished one. (:

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Last week was a terrible week for me. I was down with severe gastric flu and couldn't eat solid food for a week. Things got so bad that I was nearly admitted into the hospital. Spent last week drinking 100 plus as my only source of food. But thankfully, everything's fine now. The bug is in the air so do be careful ya. (:

This week, my mum wanted a set of Easter nails to compliment the spirit of Easter. When I think of Easter, I think of Easter bunnies, easter eggs, Cadbury chocolate eggs! It's funny cause I've been attending Church since I was a baby, and never once were rabbits or bunnies mentioned during Easter. Mum said it was probably "man-made" since bunnies were never really a Christian symbol of Easter. Nevertheless, I thought it'd be fun to replicate that on her nails.

I google-d for inspiration and the bunny was the cutest of what showed up. I didn't save the picture, but basically, I replicated exactly the same way as how the original looked, just that the original was done on fingernails and every nail had that bunny. That was impossible on mum's toes since the other toes (apart from her big toe) are too small and I personally felt it was too overwhelming. Hence, we decided to have what reminds me of easter eggs on the rest. She didn't peep at all while I was doing the design and had a pleasant surprise when she looked at it. (:

May this Easter bring you and your family gratitude and a thankful heart.

Happy Easter! (:

Apologise for the long hiatus. My grandma got admitted to the hospital and I've been busy shuffling back and forth. She's been discharged and transferred to another place for rehab and physio. She requested for me to trim her nails for her this afternoon. This is the very first time I quietly sat with her and trimmed her nails. It definitely stirred much of my emotional feelings.

This was done on my Mum quite some time back. She requested for flowers to match her dress for a wedding dinner. This was what I came up with.

She requested for her usual "big petal flowers". I definitely still have room for improvement, but I'm glad she really liked it. Sadly, the flowers 'bled'  little when I applied the top coat. Probably didn't have the patience to wait for it to dry completely especially since this was done at 10pm.

Nail Art: Sweet Polka

Melissa was pretty sure about having polka dots on her toes, but wasn't too sure what to do on her big toes. I showed her some of my nail art mags and she saw something she liked on one of my Nail Max issues. Forgot to take a picture of it though. Here is my take on it.

This picture was sent to me by Melissa and I edited it. Common mistake for me: Forgetting to take pictures of my customer's nails!

Here's another. (:

Gelish: Bridal Roses

Angelia was pretty sure of the nail art she wanted after looking at my nail art wheel. The original design was done with OPI Passion as the base and OPI Black Onyx as the french tip with the roses lining on the french line. Angelia twisted the colour scheme to the opposite of the original and was done in white instead. It gave off a very different feeling - it very much portrayed a set of bridal nails instead of the original mysterious look. Interesting!

With the diamond ring and Angelia's slim fingers, she is definitely ready to be a model for a bridal shoot. =p

I used Gelish Waterfield for the base with Gelish Sheek White for the french tips. Somehow, I find it easier to work on french manicures with Gelish. Gelish is a lot more forgiving as compared to normal polishes. The french tip was lined with solid silver acrylic paint before swirling bouquets of roses of each individual nail.

Angelia also requested for Swarovski crystals on both her thumbs (beside the roses). Looking at the pictures, I feel that the crystals were too big and I should have used something smaller. It's no wonder they say that every set of manicure you do is a new lesson learnt. (:

Here's a final look. Definitely a wearable set of nail art while bringing out Angelia's sleek fingers.

As these were her nails for Chinese New Year, she was so sweet to send me a picture compilation that she did. It'll be great to work with such wonderful customers all the time. However, the reality is such that we don't meet such understanding customers who are always willing to go the extra mile. In fact, some of them are always late for appointments, don't bother to inform when they're not coming for their appointment, and the list goes on. That's what happens in the service industry I guess. Makes me quite skeptical about taking in new customers sometimes.

Here's Angelia's gelish manicure after 2 weeks! Still looks as good as new except for the signicant nail growth. I was really happy that the nail art stayed on as good as new. Previously, I used to have challenges with making the nail art stay on Gelish, especially when the nail art is done with acrylic paint. But this set of Gelish manicure has proven that nail art is able to stay for 2 whole weeks! Wendy's Gelish manicure stayed on well too! Read more here

A close-up. So to all customers who have spoken to me about their worries about nail art's ability to stay on Gelish, I hope this is able to reassure you that you can integrate pretty nails into your daily life. Angelia and Wendy are perfect examples who have held on to their nail art for 2 whole weeks and have been using their fingers for "tough work" too such as housework, regular work etc. If they can, you can do it too. (:

Gelish: Roses & Polka

Wendy used to order OPI Polishes from me when I was holding sprees for them in the past. Ever since I introduced Gelish into my service menu, she expressed interest in it and finally got a chance to try it for Chinese New Year.

We used Gelish Make A Difference from the limited Breast Cancer Awareness Edition for the base. Art was done with acrylic paint.

Her accent nail on her thumb was a design she picked from one of my nail art wheels. I had previously done this on my mum's toes, but with a different colour scheme. I suggested leaving that design as an accent nail and not on every finger as it'd definitely look too much. We settled for polka dots and rose bouquets on alternate fingers.

Definitely a wearable nail art! Very sweet looking. In actual fact, I told her she could leave it on till Valentine's Day. =p

Wendy contacted me again recently to book an appointment for her gelish removal and another set of Gelish + nail art for Valentine's Day. Since she has had her Gelish manicure for about 2+ weeks now, we had a short chat about the durability and wearability of her Gelish mani and she gave it 10/10!

This is a picture she sent me after having it on for 2+ weeks.



As you can see, apart from her nail growth, the design is still perfectly in place. The thing I love about Gelish is that the shine stays even after weeks of polishing. According to Wendy, she was pretty rough with her nails and yet it managed to stay so well, apart from a little chip at the side of her thumb.

I was extremely satisfied with the fact that the design managed to stay. When I first began experimenting with Gelish, the art would fade after a couple of days, especially when I used acrylic paint. But customers of late has been telling me that their art manage to stay through the weeks of Gelish! This gives me extreme satisfaction. (:

On a side note, I am considering implementing a deposit system for new customers. Am very tired of having customers giving me last minute notice and worse of all, just not coming without informing. What do you think?

Gelish: Polka Dot Lace

My colleague's daughter, Lee Yee came over with a friend to get her nails done for CNY. I was so happy when I saw the length of her nails and I said to her, "These are nails every manicurist love painting!" She asked, "Why?" And I replied, "Cause they are long and easy to paint!" Nevertheless, that doesn't mean I turn away those with short nails okay. (:

She opted for Gelish Queen of Hearts and initially wanted to draw flowers on them. However, after seeing her friend's pedi, she decided to do the same design with a different colour scheme!

The thumbs and the ring fingers were the accent nails while the rest just had polka dots on them. I suggested doing that as having the focus design on every nail would make it too overwhelming.

She was really nice to send me pictures of her nails when she reached home~ (:

This set costs $32 inclusive of Gelish, Nail art and extra Gelish top coat.

CNY Designs!

I've begun my CNY appointments last week (more in the following post) and am fully booked next week! In this festive season, I believe most salons & home based are definitely fully booked. So customers, please be considerate and be on time for your appointments or it definitely affects the customer after you.

So anyway, I did a nail art wheel (incomplete) with several designs which I felt was suitable for the new year. Some were done based on Nail Venus while some adapted from Nail Max. I'm hoping to finish the entire wheel, but not sure if I have the time esp since my first appointment starts tonight. =/

Will be doing up Valentine's Day designs after CNY. Stay tuned!

Express Manicure: Swirled Roses with Mini Polka

Angelia saw my sweet roses with mini polka design on my mum's toes, she requested for the same on her fingers. She was a little worried inititally that her fingernails will not be long enough to carry the design but in the end, this design actually helped to make her fingernails appear longer!

Angelia opted for OPI's What's With The Cattitude. The roses were done using acrylic paint before lining the sides of the white with a silver striper polish.

We decided to have polka dots on the other fingers so as to leave the thumbs as the main focus for the day. Really sweet looking. <3

Cost of this manicure: $12 (including express manicure)

Inspirations: Nail Max, Nail Up

My accounting paper marked the end of another semester. It was quite a tough paper for me. Though I attempted the questions, but I'm not 100% confident about it. Nevertheless, it's over and it's now time to enjoy!

Since it was a morning paper, I was excited to rush home and work on my nail wheel with more designs! These 3 designs were done quite a while ago.

Not perfect definitely. But who is? What matters is to never stop trying. (:

Continued on with these designs and was happy to have completed half of my nail wheel! Designs were taken from various Nail Max and Nail Up magazines. For now, I'm only trying to replicate designs that I see from these mags. Definitely not capable of coming up with my own designs as yet. I'm actually very interested to do these designs on actual nails. So... if you have long nails and you're willing to lend me your nails to work on my nail art, do leave me an email at valerie.gmh@gmail.com! As I'm keen on practising these designs, I will be offering them at promotion prices. Email me for more details.

Worked on a Gelish French Manicure this afternoon. Wayyyyyyy from perfection. No pictures cause it's not up to standard yet. Hope to be trying more of it! You'll probably hear me doing french manicures over and over on my own fingers. =p

Christmas is around the corner. Will be doing up some christmas designs. For those who are still not aware, we're open for Xmas bookings already. Email be if you're interested! Will be offering nail services in the evenings from 7-9pm. I'll be opening up bookings for CNY pretty soon too. Stay tuned! (:

Gelish: Sweet Polka on Make A Difference

I promised to blog last night, but was seriously too tired, plus I'm coming down with a flu. Struggling to update now and having to blow my nose from time to time. But with no further ado, here it is. (:

Mum did a gelish switch from Gelish Light Elegant to Gelish Make A Difference (from the Breast Cancer Awareness Limited Edition). A pity I forgot to take a picture of her previous Gelish before removing it. Mum was extremely satisfied with this set of nails! For the first time, she finally got her nails painted. In the past, it would chip off after 2-3 days. Hence, she didn't see a point in painting her nails. She is partly why I invested in Gelish as well, so that she no longer have to worry about non-lasting manicures. (:

 A final look! Advised mum to apply more hand cream and cuticle oil daily to nourish her cuticles and the skin around it. (:

Advance bookings for Christmas 2011 available now!

Advance bookings for Christmas available now!

Help to spread the word around.

Thanks!

♥♥♥

Swirled Roses with Mini Polka

Hello everyone! I apologise for the lack of updates. Work + studies have been really crazy. End of the year is always a killer period for teachers. Makes it much worse now that I am studying and exams are in November. Will probably be hibernating during that period. =(

Anyway, here's a design I did for my mum quite a while ago.

Realised that the picture does not do justice to the design at all! The picture is a little too dark ya? But bear with it. (:

Base colour used was Sparrow Me The Drama from the Pirates Collection. I used the big toe as an accent nail. I painted the white with OPI's Alpine Snow and lined it with Art Club's silver striper. The swirled roses were done with pink and red acrylic paint while the leaves were painted with light and dark green. I like this design on the whole! Looks very delicate and lady like. Gives a very princess-y feel! I wanted to add some rhinestones or bullion beads but mum hates those! She always says its a waste to put it on her toes as she feels very "sayang" to wash it away. hhahaha. I'd love to do this design on fingers!

Halloween is coming! Maybe I should find time to do some halloween designs. =)

On a side note, I find it very unprofessional for others in this line to promote their services at the expense of bringing others down. On the surface, they openly claim that it is for the benefit of their customers. But honestly speaking from a business perspective, they are just trying to promote more business for themselves. So selfish and unprofessional I feel..

Overdue Daisies

Some time back, I saw a design on Simply Rins and decided to use Mummy as my guinea pig! Moreover, I was dying to try OPI You Don't Know Jacques so I combined both and killed 2 birds with one stone. Hahaha.

It really is an extremely easy design and I was very satisfied with the end product! So was mummy. (:

As such, I'll be having a promotion for this design!

Going at $10 (inclusive of express mani)

Available only on 17th/24th July

Book an appointment now!

valerie.gmh@gmail.com / 94577783

Mum's first french

Sorry for the lack of updates! This time of the year is one of the busiest moments for most early childhood teachers out there. Portfolios and parent teacher's meetings were haunting me for the past week! But I'm glad everything went well and parents are very satisfied with their children's learning under my care. (:

That aside, here's a long overdue picture of my mum's first french manicure experience. I was disappointed with the french that I did for her. Partly was cause it was done at 11 in the night with bad lighting (mum's thinking of changing the lighting in the living room) and the white that I used was extremely thick! Gonna spam it with Seche's restore.

The base colour that I used was OPI's Passion - a famous base colour for french. It's a very light pinkish colour, making your nails look very natural for french manicure application. I used OPI's Alpine Snow for the tips before drawing the flower outline with black acrylic paint. Lastly, I layered it with OPI's I Juggle Men before topping the center of the flower with a pink rhinestone.

Though the french was disappointing, I absolutely loved the flower. Looks extremely elegant and perfect for weddings in fact! Would love to do this design on someone's fingers. If you're interested, do contact me at valerie.gmh@gmail.com I may give a big discount for this design since it's something I really wanna try! (:

Roses & Springtime

Miss Mary came over on Wednesday to change her nail design before going for her Genting trip today. She brought He Laoshi along too! (He laoshi's my ex-colleague who was my partner when I was teaching in my previous school. A really nice lady. (: )

I showed them my nail mags and they had a hard time deciding! Spoilt for choice. Hahha. I did He Laoshi's nails first. She picked a nail design from the magazine and I tried to replicate it. Was quite disappointed with the pictures. It doesn't do justice to the design! Looks A LOT better in real life. My Canon camera was flat, so I had to use the Olympus one.

 

He Laoshi wanted this particular shade of pink polish, so she brought it from along with her. It's from TheFaceShop, not the usual OPI range that I use. But the application was still manageable. I was quite worried at first because some of my faceshop polishes became rather streaky after a while. But it turned out well. (: On the index and ring fingers, I covered half of the nail with black acrylic paint by painting it diagonally to give a contrast with the pink. I then swirled roses with pink and white. On the middle finger, I created a half moon design before swirling roses with black and white. On the thumb and pinkie, I just swirled roses as the nails on her thumb were rather short. I painted the leaves with green acrylic paint before lining the "partitions" with my silver striper polish.

Miss Mary couldn't design what to do! She said, "Okay I choose this colour. You can do anything you want!" The colour she chose was 'Who The Shrek Are You' from OPI's Shrek Collection. It's a really nice shade of green, that is striking yet not flourescent kinda striking. A very pleasant shade of green in fact. It's one of my favourites too!

Since the polish was rather striking, I decided on drawing white flowers for her with acrylic paint before outlining it with black acrylic paint. Lastly, I added random swirls and dots to make it look more natural. I was really happy with the end product! Miss Mary showed off to He Laoshi and said, "You see! My nails longer... can draw nicer lor.." Hahaha..

They were so cute! Miss Mary suggested holding my name card and doing free advertising for me. See the gimmicks they came up with.

 

I sure had a fun time painting their nails. It was a night of laughter. That's how manicure sessions should be - light hearted and relaxed. (:

Swirl Roses

I invited my ex-colleague, who is also my mum's very close friend, Miss Mary, over to my place the other day to get her nails done. She has a really nice nail bed that's long - exactly what I need to practice nail art. Hence, she brought her OPI Polish over and I did a manicure and pedicure for her f.o.c.

I used OPI's Planks A Lot from the latest Pirate's Collection for the base, before swirling the roses with white and purple acrylic paint. I added the leaves with dark green acrylic paint before adding details with light green acrylic paint to give it more depth.

I really liked the outcome of it because it was a vast improvement as compared to the first time I tried swirling roses. Practice makes perfect eh? (:

Miss Mary has a habit of painting the exact same thing for her hands and her feet. Hence, I created a matching set for her toes. Felt bad cause boyfriend dropped by my place and was waiting for me to finish. Miss Mary was so afraid that I'd just forget about her toes. Hahaha.

Tadah! I'm happy with the end product. How about you? How would you rate the design?

Miss Mary will be coming by again on Wednesday to change her design. Stay tuned! (:

SJC Funfair 010511

The funfair at St. Joseph's Church yesterday was a blast! The church organized a funfair in conjunction with their 165th anniversary, and I took up a stall there since I'm from that church as well. The church will be undergoing renovation after next week, so all proceeds from the funfair will go toward the church's building fund.

My Primary 2 cousin, Fhilis, stayed over at my house on Saturday to help out on Sunday as well. Hence, I took the opportunity to use her as my model. Some of the designs were taken from http://www.rina-alcantara.com/ and I tried them out.

Tadah !! Decided to try out designs that I've never tried before. Some are repeated cause I really couldn't think of 10 different designs at 9 in the night.

A closer view on her left hand. Featuring a few characters - the cow, bear (which turned out like a hamster), panda which I've done before during the Singapore Poly event, the minnie mouse ribbon and a simple flower. I really love the cow! It was the love of many parents at the funfair as well.

A closer view on her right hand. Featuring the usual polka dots, cupcake which I really love as well. The "cherry" wasn't suppossed to be so big! Somehow the OPI polish for that was exceptionally runny and it flowed down. Tried to rectify it and that was the best I could do. The heart, need to brush up on my outlining! The tree with clouds in the sky, wanted to add in the sand, but her nails are too small. Probably workable for adults. And the bumble bee! It looks opposite in the picture because of the angle I took the picture.

Business was really good! All my OPI were sold out. So were the mother's day packages and top/base coat bundles. Majority of my customers who did manicures were children! They were so cute. According to the parents who told me, in past years, their children would pull them to the game stalls. But this year, they pointed and said they only wanted to come to my stall to do their nails! Hhahha. All of their coupons went to their children's nails already. It was a waste that I didn't manage to take pictures of their nails cause many were queueing to get their nails done. If any of you have the pictures, do tag me in facebook!

Some parents approached me and asked if I do nails for children's parties and functions. Why not! Just call me. I'd definitely be more than happy to go if my time allows me to. It feels like a great joy to be able to integrate my job as a teacher into doing nails for children. I see a little link there now. (:

The children were really sweet. One of them even turned around to say thank you to her mummy for giving her the money to paint her nails. It's a joy to paint for children. Will want to do it more in future!