November 2012 - Page 4 of 4 - Of Life and Lacquer

Month: November 2012

Of Life and Lacquer > 2012 > November

Winners Announced – Sephora Breakup Giveaway

Posted on 4 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Thank you to everyone who entered my latest giveaway. It was really great to hear your thoughts on bad customer service and how you react to it.

The winners are as follows:

Jessica G. – Prize Pack #1

Maribeth R. – Prize Pack #2

Alley G. – Prize Pack #3

Congratulations ladies! I’ll be contacting you shortly for your mailing info so I can get out your prizes ASAP.

I also wanted to mention that there are still quite a few people entering without being subscribed to my blog. Sometimes there might be glitches and such so I do contact people when they don’t show up on my subscriber list but come up as a winner. Usually the problem is that they did not confirm their subscription. The same goes for twitter: they say they tweeted but do not provide the link as proof and can’t provide it when I ask about it either. I guess that’s just the way things go when you hold a giveaway. I just wanted to remind everyone that I do in fact check. 🙂

I think I mentioned that I will be having another giveaway this month related to Swagbucks. I wasn’t able to do a Swagbucks Saturdays post this week but I will be doing one tomorrow with more details about the giveaway. The prize will be a $25 gift card to Amazon.com so make sure that you check back if you’re interested in entering.

Thanks again for supporting my little blog by commenting, interacting with me on facebook/twitter and just plain reading my random ramblings. Your support means a lot to me.

Nails Inc. Baker Street

Posted on 4 November, 20123 November, 2012 by Cynthia

How do you feel about blue nail polish? As a nail polish enthusiast, I think that most nail polish colors seem normal, but I’ve noticed that other people think it’s an off color for nails. I think that nail art has become so mainstream, that nothing is really that shocking anymore. Nails Inc. Baker Street is a polish that I had salivated over for a while but somehow hadn’t gotten around to purchasing. If you read my blog, you probably know that Nails Inc. cremes are just about my favorite polishes in the nail world. Before I got my hands on this polish, I received a lovely dupe by Kiko which I reviewed here. Kiko #336 really is a perfect exact dupe, but I could not resist getting both of them. Is it a sickness? You be the judge.

Nails Inc. Baker Street is a such a lovely and saturated cobalt blue. This polish definitely needs two coats because the first coat was a little thin. I actually found that the Kiko applied slightly better. I still love both of them!

I haven’t used my beloved Sticks ‘n Stones in a while so I dusted it off for this manicure.

This was my first purchase from Ninja Polish and I couldn’t have been happier. Since I would never get the Dramarella version of this polish, I’m so happy that this came out. You can purchase it here if you’re interested. Also, in case you are wondering how Sticks ‘n Stones compares to Lynderella Connect The Dots and even Dollish Polish Putting On The Ritzzz, check out this post over at My Lucid Bubble.

So there you have it, my polish peeps. How do you feel about bold colors such as Baker Street?

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 16: Polka Dot Nails

Posted on 3 November, 2012 by Cynthia

After the short break, we are back to the 31 Day Challenge! Are you excited too? No? Well, alright…

I finally got to use one of my new Illamasqua babies! Yayyyyy! Charisma is one of the two polishes from their Generation Q Fall 2012 collection, and as usual I would like to report that I love this polish for so many reasons. Look at it.

Illamasqua calls this a “deep raspberry pink” but this is actually darker than I imagined when I first saw some swatches. Nonetheless, this is a perfect call color. It’s dark but vibrant and glowy. As usual, the formula was perfect and opaque at two coats.

Since the challenge calls for polka dots, I was just going to use my dotting tool to apply dots on my nails but I decided to use some loose gold hex glitter.

I am feeling a lot more comfortable with using loose glitter now so I’m proud of myself for actually getting this mani done. While this may not be difficult for some people, I usually fail big time at anything that isn’t a simple manicure with some stamping. Doesn’t this just look like Christmas exploded on my nails?

So, what do you think of my polka dot manicure? Let me know what you think of this polish. Are you a fan of Illamasqua? Don’t forget to check out the other challenge polka dot manis below. Talk to you later.

Sation Seriously Slate

Posted on 2 November, 2012 by Cynthia

I did something today that strikes fear in the hearts of the most hardened individuals: I went to the DMV…without an appointment. Like an idiot, I lost my registration card so I headed over there to get a duplicate. Yes, I could have mailed it in, but I just wanted to get all straightened out as quickly as possible. When I got there, there wasn’t a huge line–maybe 10 people in line to get a number. It took over an hour just to get through the first line to get a number which entitles you to wait again while your number is called. Look, I know the DMV is a nightmare. I think everyone knows the nightmare is exponentially more painful if you go there without an appointment so I was ready for the long annoying wait. However, there seemed to be a lot of people there who apparently had never been to the DMV judging by their behavior. A few people were screaming at the DMV employee who was processing documents and giving our numbers. One guy was yelling at people to hurry up and go to the desk even if you weren’t being called yet. I ignored that guy and then he started telling people behind me to tell me to go up to the counter. WTF? I swear that if I hadn’t been in a mellow mood, I might have punched this guy in the vas deference. So after 2.5 hours, I finally got to talk to a DMV employee for 2 minutes and she printed out my new registration card. I guess all I want to say about this experience is: make a freaking appointment. If you don’t, then don’t act like a douche when you have to wait.

So once I got home, I was trying to figure out what to do with my nails. Since our 31 Day Challenge resumes tomorrow (polka dots!), I didn’t want to do anything too complicated since I’m going to have to remove it tomorrow and do the challenge manicare. So, I pulled out one of my untrieds: Sation Seriously Slate.

This colors is seriously gorgeous. It’s like the dark and twisty older sister of China Glaze Immortal. Don’t you just love that shimmer?? The only thing that I don’t like about this polish is that it is super sheer so I needed to apply 3 coats. The first coat is crazy sheer and patchy, but I am glad to say that it does build up nicely.

I have had this bottle of Miss & Makeup for a while now but hadn’t used it so I decided to layer it over Seriously Slate.

Look at this pretty macro shot of Miss & Makeup! This sweet and pretty glitter comes from the “I Love Miss-self” specialty glitter collection that was released recently.

So what do you think of Seriously Slate? Do you like Miss & Makeup? Are there any other base colors that you think would go well with this glitter? I was thinking of using a hot pink underneath. Don’t forget to check in tomorrow since we will be resuming the 31 Day Challange–fun times! Talk to you later.

P.S. Did you enter my giveaway? It ends in a couple of days. Don’t miss out.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

China Glaze Little Drummer Boy

Posted on 1 November, 20121 November, 2012 by Cynthia

November is here which means that the only holiday I like is around the corner: Christmas! I am not a person who usually enjoys holidays, but I love decorating a Christmas tree. There is something so lovely about the process of unwrapping and unpacking Christmas ornaments that just makes me happy. I was looking through my polishes today since I had a bunch of them out after my blog sale post, and I reached for China Glaze Little Drummer Boy. This polish comes from the 2010 Holiday collection which predates my nail polish obsession. The reason why I even got this polish is because I can never think of the song The Little Drummer Boy without thinking of Angela on the office singing this song during office karaoke or when she asked Andy if she could walk down the aisle to this song when they were planning their wedding. hahaha…I am cracking myself up over here. I tried to find a clip of these exchanges on youtube but could not come up with anything. 🙁 However, I did find one clip that I had forgotten about:

That’s classic Dwight right there.

Back to the polish: Little drummer boy is a darkened blue with some gorgeous shimmer. This polish is super opaque so I could have gotten away with one coat but I used two.

Since I haven’t been doing much stamping lately, I decided to stamp an argyle design from Konad plate M60.

I am not that happy with this stamping job. I have noticed that all of the white konad polish that I have purchased the last year or so have been really watery. The first couple of white konad polishes I bought where so thick and opaque and always stamped perfectly. These new ones, not so much.

And just as a treat (I’m looking at you, Lesley!), here is a compilation video of awesome Dwight moments:

I think that I have just found the perfect opening sentence for my next job interview: “How would I describe myself? Three words: hard-working, alpha-male, jackhammer, merciless, insatiable.” How could they NOT hire me, right?