Author: Cynthia

Of Life and Lacquer > Articles by: Cynthia

Just Another Day In Polishland

Posted on by Cynthia

Today was such a weird day. I couldn’t fall asleep last night so I read until about 2:00 am and ended up waking up at 6:00 am. Grrrrr! I got up and started doing some cleaning and wanted to do some laundry but I got in bed to read a little and fell asleep again around 8:00. I took a long nap until about 10:00 during which time I missed 10 calls on my cell phone. 10 calls?!?!?! What the hell? All the calls came from an “unknown” number and there were no voicemails so there wasn’t much I could do. A few minutes later, my phone rang again and it was my dad. I should have known it was him. He always calls me a million times and he never leaves a message. Him and my mom were convinced that something had happened to me because I forgot to call my dad for his birthday, and I never forget his birthday. I don’t know what happened this year, I just completely spaced out and feel terrible about it.

This incident also made me very sad because my parents are NEVER at ease about my well-being. They no longer trust me or my brothers to tell them the truth about anything because we kept the truth of my hospitalizations from them last year. My first hospitalization happened around mother’s day so I was unable to talk to my mom, and I asked my brothers to tell her that I had the flu and was just resting and that I would call her soon. Well, her spidey sense perked right up, and she knew something was going on. I called her after I came home and assured her everything was fine. Then a few weeks later, I was hospitalized for a longer period of time, and that’s when my brother pushed me to tell them I was having issues so they could come and stay with me while I got better. Because of that whole episode, my parents are now always thinking that I keep the truth from them. It’s suffocating, but I know they do it because they care about me. How do I let them know that it drives me bananas that they call me a million times or start calling my brothers and friends if one day they can’t get a hold of me right away? That’s kind of crazy, right?

I spent most of the day with L. because she was having a really bad day and she needed some company. She is a good friend and was always there for me when I was going through my stuff so I want to be a good friend and be there for her as well. We went to the mall just to walk around and because I needed to return an eyebrow pencil at Sephora. So my reasoning is that if I return an item, I have to purchase one to replace it…right??? Well, that’s how I ended up with a new Illamasqua polish. Later in the day I also went to Ulta and I cleaned out their Essence polish section. Oh, and I also got my MASH plates in the mail today!!!!!!!!!

This post has been way talkier than most of my recent posts, and now it’s going to go the other way. Get ready to get photo bombed!

    

This is Illamasqua Swinger which I picked up today at Sephora. I really didn’t think I was going to like this polish but when I tried it on, I loved it. L. wasn’t that impressed with it, and I know she thinks I’m crazy for buying polish this expensive. I also took every essence polish they had left at my Ulta which was just 6 bottles, and I also got Zoya Marina. It’s an ok color that was on sale, but I got it mostly for the name because that’s my mom’s name. Best of all, I only paid $8 for all 7 bottles of polish after the discounts and my coupon. I am a coupon savant when it comes to nail polish…no joke. I’m adding most of these polishes to my future giveaway stash. 🙂

    

    

    

    

    

    

I am so excited about these plates…I can’t wait to try them out tomorrow. I hope they all stamp well!!!

And lastly, here is my dinner. Ahhh…..so good.

This delicious and humongous grilled steak salad is from Café Rio. The first time I ever ate there was during a business trip to Utah, and I was hooked!!!!  Then, last year I heard that they were opening up a few location in So Cal!!!! Luckily (or unfortunately for my hips), they opened up a location  a few blocks from my place so the temptation is there. Ugh!

Today was definitely a weird day. I can’t wait for tomorrow. New month, new day…another opportunity for me to mess up my life royally. Ha!  I’ve got some fun news coming soon so make sure you stay tuned.

Précision Color FX Collection

Posted on by Cynthia

Last week I stumbled upon a full display of Précision polishes that were on sale. They had me at sale. I ended up picking up the Color FX collection from 2010 and I finally got around to swatching them today. I really liked these colors, but I do think that the formula is a little sheer. I used 3 coats for all of these swatches. I would say that 4 out of the 6 colors could have gotten away with 2 thickish coats but Honey Dew This and Wait A Melon For Me needed those three coats badly. I didn’t have any problems with the brush; it was flexible and easy to manipulate. I had practically no clean up! I’ve provided two pictures of each polish: one in direct sunlight and one in the shade.

    

PINK WITH A WINK

    

HONEY DEW THIS

    

THE NEXT “IT” GIRL

    

WAIT A MELON FOR ME

    

SURFIN’ IN MALIBLUE

    

PUR-FECT FX

So what do you think of these colors? I actually think they are really pretty. I probably would have found them a little more original a few years ago when they came out because I wasn’t such a hardcore polish fiend back then. Nowadays, it seems like we get the same colors over and over again every season. Maybe that’s why when something somewhat different comes out, we all go bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S! I am definitely going to keep up with Précision collections going forward because I think their nail polishes are of good quality and are very affordable. They may not be easily found in your area in retail locations, but you can purchase them online at their website but you may also be able to find them for less at other polish etailers.

Thanks for visiting today and I’m sorry for being such an enabler; enabling means caring in my book.

Stamping Sunday: Red & Black

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A few weeks ago, Jessica from Once Upon A Polish blogged about a facebook group called Adventures In Stamping where everyone votes for a particular look or color scheme and then all the ladies post their manis every Sunday. Well, I thought it sounded really fun so I joined! I really didn’t know what to do so I started looking through my melmers and realized I hadn’t used Layla Flash Black.

    

    

Call me crazy, but I actually don’t really like Flash Black on me.  It just looks so weird on me, and I’m really disappointed…not to mention that Layla holos chip in 5 seconds on me.

    

    

I then stamped over Flash Black with Konad special polish in red and plate BM 322. I then used a dotting tool to add the black dots with China Glaze Liquid Leather. One word: barf. I hate how this turned out but not all manis are going to be winners, and you have to embrace the good with the bad. I have no idea why I thought that stamping over Flash Black would be a good idea. It just looks dingy and grey…not interesting at all. I’m annoyed that I spent so much time on this mani and ended up not even liking it; hey, at least now I know Flash Black isn’t what I thought it would be.

So I think my first Stamping Sunday Challenge is a big fat fail. Hopefully I will do better next week. Voting has already started and our three choices are:

  • Fun In The Sun
  • Olympics
  • Using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color

I voted for using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color. So far this choice is in the lead, and I hope it stays that way! Check out the look Jessica created here. I am in love with it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Essence You Belong To Me

Posted on by Cynthia

I don’t know about you, but when you buy as much polish as your average nail polish fanatic, you are constantly on the lookout for sales. Just look at the great success of Nouveau Cheap! I love that blog because it fills me in on all the affordable cosmetics and drugstore sales. I know a lot of people stocked up on Sinful Colors despite the PR nightmare that ensued when they were caught using bloggers’ photos without their permission. Taking it one step further, they manipulated the images onto their models and incorrectly described the process of achieving the look. I find it rather tasteless on their part, and hope that they do right by the affected bloggers.

On my cheap polish quest, I found myself at Ulta a couple of times this week…and by a couple I mean I visited 3 Ultas in my area trying to find good deals. I had noticed that Essence polishes were being put on clearance and that the images of their bottles were different on the website so I figured they were trying to get rid of old stock. Well, tickle me cheap…I was all over that. I ended up purchasing all the colors I could get my hands on and they ended up being around $.79 each. Score! Today I found a few Zoyas on clearance including one of the flaky topcoats, Chloe. Woot! Major score. One of the polishes I purchased today is You Belong To Me which I decided to wear as soon as I got home.

    

While it’s not very noticeable in the bottle nor in my pictures, You Belong To Me has the faintest shimmer which makes it look so beautiful. The formula was ok…not really problematic but I needed a third coat to smooth it out.

    

I really like how delicate my nails look with this stamp design. I used BM 314 and my favorite WNW Silver for stamping called I Can’t Stand Up Straight. Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap silver that stamps really well? Upon closer inspection, I think this design looks arachnid-like and it’s kind of freaking me out.

I was feeling really lazy tonight so I didn’t feel like cooking dinner. Instead, I made my special tuna sandwich: tuna, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, swiss cheese and slices of hard-boiled egg. Egg?!? Yes, egg. You have no idea how delicious it tastes. The creaminess and richness of the egg adds a whole new level of yumminess to this sandwich.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve talked about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on this blog, but I’m going to do it again because I have a major girl crush on Noomi Rapace. She is such a crazy badass in these movies. If you have Netflix, the full Swedish trilogy is online and it has like 2 extra hours of content that was edited out when they were released in the US. And yes, I’ve been watching the movies all over again. lol

I hope you’ve had a good and relaxing Saturday! Thanks for the visit and let me know what you think of my “spider nails.” hehehe

P.S. Do you have a preference for the picture size on my blog? I’ve made the images smaller for this post instead of using the full-sized images. What do you think?

Barielle – First Impressions

Posted on by Cynthia

Barielle is not a brand that I’ve ever had easy access to so it’s not a big surprise that I hadn’t used any of their products yet. When I stopped at TJ Maxx the other day to scope out their cosmetics section hoping to find some Deborah Lippmanns (is this just an urban legend??), I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of Barielle sets so I didn’t hesitate a second and bought one. Out of all the sets I saw, these dark vampy colors seemed the most interesting especially because I spotted a few cremes in the set and we all know how I feel about cremes.

 

REMEMBER ME

 

FRIDAY NITE PARTI

 

BLACK ROSE

 

MYSTERY WOMAN

 

HIDDEN HIDEAWAY

I really do like these colors especially Hidden Hideaway and Mystery Woman because of that beautiful lit-from-within shimmer. I think that Remember Me and Friday Nite Parti are way too similar to be together in a set, but both colors are nice. Remember Me was probably the only one I didn’t appreciate as far as the formula is concerned. It seemed really sheer despite how dark the color is. You can see in my pictures that it looks somewhat streaky and uneven which I did not notice until I uploaded the pictures.  In case you’re interested, I got this set for $9.99 so check out your TJ Maxx. They had tons of these and other sets. I know stock varies from store to store but I think these are worth a look.

And for my food chronicles, today I decided to make some chicken strips and Rice-a-Roni. I had seriously been craving potato salad, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time to make such a small amount so I bought a little side container of it from Sprouts. I love Sprouts!

I’m getting really pumped for some interviews next week so I have to do some boring nail look…can’t go in there with some sparkly stamped up nails…or maybe I can! I am happy to report that I have seen some slight nail growth and that makes me really happy. I ordered the latest MASH plates today because I found a 20% off code online which made them around $11 and they ship for free! I hope that by the time they get here, my nails won’t be so crazy short anymore so I can really try out my new plates!

I hope you have a lovely weekend and thanks for the visit.

Self-Control? What’s That?

Posted on by Cynthia

I had mentioned to Nicole on twitter that I had scored a lot of polishes during my latest Ulta escapade. I failed to mention that I also stopped at Walgreens to pick up some polishes for a friend (my imaginary friend that refuses the polishes and I am forced to keep) and that I also went to TJ Maxx and I found an interesting Barielle set. I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t this the girl who is always talking about no-buys? Sadly, yes…that’s me. I am just going to shut my trap from now on about no-buys and just resign myself to the unfortunate fact that I have a serious polish hoarder problem. As far as problems go, this one is not so bad. However, if later this year you see some crazy California chick on Hoarders who can no longer walk around in her apartment because it’s full of polish, yes, that would be me.

I am actually very proud of myself because I got a bunch of polishes for very little money. Let me show you what I got at Ulta before I tell you how much I actually spent.

After my coupon and redeeming some points, I ended up paying around $12.50 for all the polishes above. Can you say fantabulous deal?

 

I broke down and got a few more bottles of Sinful Colors while the sale is still going on. I actually did grab a few of these for a friend so I don’t feel so bad about this one.

I’m really excited to share these Barielle polishes with you because it will be my first try with this brand.

 

So how was your Thursday? Happy it’s Friday?

YOU WON!!!! Round 2: WNW SBTB Collection Giveaway

Posted on by Cynthia

I am happy to announce the winner of the second chance giveaway: ChiChi!

You have won the 6 piece Saved By The Nail collection! I have sent you an email and will wait to hear back from you so I can mail out your nail polishes.

 

  

 

Thank you everyone for making this second giveaway so fun. Because of all of your comments and participation, I was able to surpass quite a few milestones that I didn’t think I’d get to in a long time. I think I am becoming quite addicted to hosting giveaways so don’t be surprised if you hear of another one in the near future as a great big thank you to all of you!

Thanks again for reading, commenting or just plain lurking. You are all very welcome here, and I hope that you will continue to drop by every once in a while if only to see that I’m still as crazy as ever. 🙂

~Cynthia

Dear Nails, Please Grow Faster

Posted on by Cynthia

My hair has grown enough that it is now refusing to cooperate. I had some real craziness going on today with my hair; so much so that L. was laughing at the state of my hair. It was like an out of control, curly, frizzy and lopsided pompadour. I just wish my nails grew as fast as my cray hair. :/ I really miss having longer nails to work with when I do stamping so I haven’t been playing with any of my plates for almost 2 weeks!!! The following is a mani that I did a while back but hadn’t gotten around to posting. I started with a couple of coats of Essence Black is Black.

Doesn’t this seriously look like patent leather? I think this is my favorite black nail polish.

I used plate BM 320 for this design along with Konad special polish in yellow.  I really wish that the yellow polish had been more opaque. Maybe it looks like that because it was stamped over black?

I’m not feeling particularly talky tonight so I’ll leave it at that. What do you think of this mani?

Some New Stuff

Posted on by Cynthia

I’ve been having some really crappy days lately. I think that most of it is my fault because I tend to ignore things until they become huge issues instead of just dealing with everything when it happens. At 32, I definitely should know better yet I let this happen over and over again. How many times do things have to blow up in my face before I learn my lesson? I am so frustrated with myself right now.

Another thing is that I stopped taking my meds and haven’t been back to see my psychiatrist. Actually, he moved to a different facility as of June so I just didn’t want to go through the process of dealing with a brand new person. I have an interesting relationship with the doctor who runs the clinic because she made me have a mini breakdown while I was hospitalized. How does that happen when I’m in there for a breakdown to begin with? I actually don’t recall if I’ve written about this incident yet so I’ll just gloss over the unpleasantness and say that she accused me of lying, “being too smart for my own good” and that I was only telling the doctors what they wanted to hear so they would let me go home. I remember that day very well because I was already very upset with one of the other patients who went behind my back and told my doctor about things I had told him in confidence. Looking back, I know he was just trying to help me but I felt so betrayed at the moment. I’ve seen that doctor a few times already and she seems nice now that I’m not being held against my will (ha!), but something about her makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know why I’ve been so hung up on all this stuff lately. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t been taking my meds? I don’t know. But I can tell you that I’m definitely tired of feeling so vacant and drone-like. I hate the hot flashes. I hate the runny nose. I hate the wacky dreams.  What would you do? What would Jesus do? lol

Anyway, I don’t know why I just went on some psycho tangent so let’s get back to simpler things like nail polish. I know I said I wasn’t going to go to my nail places but I went today anyway. I didn’t really go crazy so at least I don’t feel that bad. I went to a shop that I haven’t been to in months because I couldn’t remember if they had interesting stuff or not. Well, I did end up getting a few things. Of course.

Happy Go Lucky and Lasso My Heart are relatively new polishes but Stone Age is an oldie. I think it’s from before China Glaze went 3-Big free. It smells different. I also got the super old Color Club just because I like red, and I like the old bottles. Since it was just $1.50, it wasn’t a difficult decision. haha

Now, this is a brand I haven’t used before. I’ve seen Précision at a few places already, and I decided to get this collection because it was on sale.  This collection is actually from 2010 which goes to show you how every spring/summer we get the same darn colors and we go bonkers over them anyway.

And this is my regret for the day. Since I was dealing with some crap in the morning, I didn’t have breakfast or lunch because I wasn’t hungry. Well, by around 5:00 I was hungry like the wolf.

These carne asada tacos were so massive that I couldn’t eat the rice or beans. How much meat did they put in my tacos??? Anyway, they were pretty good, but I felt like death after I ate them and I still haven’t recovered 4 hours later. I hope that tomorrow is a better day. My friend L. is coming over tomorrow since she will be in the area and she’s bringing over some polishes so I can thin them out a bit. I think D. is coming over too so we might all go to the beach or just hang out. Since I linked Hungry Like The Wolf, I will leave you with another Duran Duran song that brings back a lot of memories.

P.S. “How much meat did they put in my tacos?”  That sounds kind of inappropriate.

P.P.S. I watched The Dark Knight Rises today and it was AWESOME! I highly recommend it.

Nail Mail!

Posted on by Cynthia

I feel like I haven’t done my nails in eons. Really, eons. Ever since I went chop crazy and cut my nails down to the nub, I haven’t really bothered doing my nails except for a half-assed attempt on Saturday which I promptly removed. As a little reminder, this is how painfully short my nails are right now:

Well, today I received something in the mail. Oh yes, dear readers, my liquid gold arrived!

The lovely Sabrina from Polish In Paris, recently went on vacay to London and she was sweet enough to get me a bottle of Max Factor Fantasy Fire. I know I will never get my hands on Clarins 230 so this is the closest I will get. Since my nails are still so short, I didn’t want to use any of my Fantasy Fire, but I couldn’t resist at least trying out the other polish she sent me: Essence Blue Addicted. For those of you who recognize this polish right away, yes it is a dupe for Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe. The base of this polish is pretty sheer so I knew that I would have to find a color to use as a base for this glitter gem.

So what color did I pick? Wet N Wild Blue Moon!

Pretty, right? Oh boy…look how short my nails still are. Yes, they still hurt and no, I won’t be doing this again.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I love this. Shut up. I know it’s glitter. One thing I have to mention about the formula of this polish is that it is beyond goopy. I tried it on a nail wheel before I did this mani and it was really bad. It was patchy and goopy at the same time so I knew I would have to bust out the Seche Restore. A couple of drops fixed this right up and it was a lot more pleasant to work with. Either way, it’s worth the effort because I love the end result.

I also wanted to share the cutest card and drawing that she included in my package:

Sabrina’s little sister does the cutest drawings for her and you can see some of her other work here and here. How freaking adorable, right?

I hope my nails grow quickly so I can finally try my Fantasy Fire. What base color do you recommend to use under FF?

 

Merci Sabrina pour les beaux vernis et remercie ta sœur de ma part pour le dessin. Elle est vraiment douée! Je suppose que c’est ta soeur qui a fait le dessin! 😉