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. (:

Gelish: Purple Roses

Hui Han is a perfect role model for new customers. She was on time and knew what she wanted. She liked my swirled roses and opted for them to be done in a purple colour scheme. Hui Han wanted a light and shimmery base and set her eyes on Gelish Vegas Nights.

The roses were done with dark purple and light purple acrylic paint before painting the leaves in light green.

I love the feminity of roses and how they never go out of trend. (:

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. (:

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! (:

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..