Year: 2012

Of Life and Lacquer > 2012

RGB Haze

Posted on by Cynthia

It’s about time I use this nail polish. I think that because it was associated with the whole SpaRitual/Beauty.com debacle a couple of months ago, I wanted to give myself some time to forget how they sent me empty nail polish boxes twice! I’m still wondering how that even happened. Eventually, I ended up getting the nail polish set and they refunded my money for all the aggravation. This is my first experience with RGB and I’m not really blown away. It’s a pretty color, but the formula seemed kind of strange: it was kind of streaky and goopy. At $16 for .40 oz, I guess I was expecting something better. I don’t know if I just got an off bottle because I’ve heard a lot of great things about RGB. It’s too bad because these are the colors I enjoy the most: dusty, smoky and PURPLE!!!

 

 

I haven’t used this design from Konad plate M73 in a while, but I really love it. This Wet N Wild silver polish called I Can’t Stand Up Straight is my favorite silver polish to use for stamping.

 

I decided to build a better lightbox today so I went out to purchase some posterboard. While I was at Dollar Tree, I saw packages of Big League Chew. Remember that stuff? It’s like little shredded strips of bubble gum that gave kids the impression that they were using chewing tobacco like their favorite baseball players. That stuff is almost as bad at the gum cigarettes that had a powder in them that you could suck and then blow out…like you were really smoking…at 5 years old. WTF? Anyway, it took me so long to build the darn thing, but I refuse to pay for one because they are super pricey.  For you ladies who are also nail bloggers, do you use a lightbox? I’ve been using mine a lot more lately which is why I decided to make a new and bigger one.

Today I chopped off my nails down to the nub so I’m going to lay off the nail polish for maybe a week and just work on hydrating my skin and cuticles.  I have a stockpile of pictures so I’ll still be posting regularly. Don’t worry…I know you’d die without my random nail/life ramblings. 😉 I am also putting myself on a no-buy. Yeah, yeah…laugh it up. I know I’ve said that before but I really need to tone it down a bit. I’m inching closer and closer to 600 bottles and I just can’t outgrow three melmers…I can’t!  The last time I put myself on a no-buy, this happened. Yeah. I will say that I will get the China Glaze New Bohemian duochromes…no  mater what. I think I am over the idea of getting the Essie Mirror Metallics because I know that I won’t use them too often so at least I’ll save some moola on that end.

And lastly, my giveaway for the Saved By The Bell nail polish collection is ending in a couple of days so don’t forget to enter. Today I went back to my lucky dusty and purchased a couple more bottles of the OPI DS linear holos for a future giveaway. I’m really enjoying all the new ladies who are stopping by and interacting on my posts so I want to make sure I thank you all by sharing some of the polish love. These are the two polishes I bought for future giveaways.

 

Thanks for reading, ladies, and have a nice Wednesday!

Nails Inc. Sprinkles Polishes & How My Brother Would Starve Without Me

Posted on by Cynthia

I’ve seriously been drooling over the Nails Inc. Sprinkles polishes so I was psyched when I saw them at Sephora today. I was running low on my MUFE HD foundation so I wanted to go get another bottle. While I was there, I noticed that there was a new Sephora brand foundation that looked exactly like the MUFE HD…bottle design and all. I asked one of the cast members if she would color match me. I knew I had a great cast member when she guessed my MUFE HD color immediately. So I took off my make up and she redid it with the new foundation and she applied blush and bronzer too. Very nice! So far, I absolutely love the new foundation and it’s $22 compared to $42 for the MUFE. If you love your MUFE HD and are looking for a more cost-effective alternative, definitely check this foundation out! I also wanted to try the Anastasia Brow Whiz. I currently use the Anastasia brow powder and apply it with an angled brush, but I wanted to try a pencil now. Well, they were sold out of the brunette shade. Wah, wah!  The Sephora employee showed me a comparable one from their Sephora line and it seemed like a good alternative. (The price was also better: $12 vs. $20). Unfortunately, she must have grabbed the wrong color because when I got home I realized the color is honey blonde. LOL Grrrr. So I’m going to take it back and exchange it for the Midnight Brown.  I also headed to Ross and got a couple of things from their cosmetics section.

As soon as I got home, I had to try out one of my sprinkles polish and I am in loooooooooooooooooove! (Why am I always saying this when it comes to polish?)

I completely adore the way this polish looks!!! You can get away with one coat but adding the second coat adds depth to the polish and how the sprinkle/glitter looks. Nails Inc, you’re killing me…

So here is the rundown of what I got today:

Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes in Topping Lane and Pudding Lane

Doesn’t this look exactly like the MUFE HD bottle??? EDIT: I did not notice this right away but this is not exactly the super amazing, great deal I was touting. The MUFE HD foundation is $42 for 1.01 oz and the Sephora Instant Radiance foundation is $22 for .67 oz. DAMN THEM FOR TRICKING ME! lol Well, it’s my fault for not looking at the bottle more closely.

These are the items I picked up at Ross:

I’ve never tried this line of SH polishes so when I saw these for $1.99 each, how could I resist? I actually saw these at Rite-Aid a few minutes later for like $5.99!!! Same exact polishes.

I am always on the hunt for good cuticle stuff and this was just $2.99 at Ross. I tried it already and I really like it! It’s really thick and leaves my skin really soft even after I wash my hands. It also smells great so double win!

This is what I had for dinner:

You know how they say that if you use smaller plates, you will eat less? Well, that doesn’t quite work when you help yourself to multiple servings…

Since my brother is working late today, I told him I’d leave him some food so he can eat when he gets home.

Oh, the joys of having my little brother live with me. He’s 22 but he is a complete dunce when it comes to cooking anything except cup o noodles. Sometimes I leave him a plate with food prepared and all he has to do is pop it in the microwave and eat it.  I will wake up the next morning, and it’s still there. When I ask him why he didn’t eat it, he tells me that he didn’t know how long to heat it in the microwave and that I was already asleep so he couldn’t ask me. Oh dear Lord, help me. Why would I ever want a child if I have my brother?

How was your Monday? Anything exciting happen? Mondays are always my least favorite day of the week. Well, hope your weekend was pleasant and I am so enjoying the  cooler weather.  Thanks for stopping by and talk to you later!

Sunday Hunting

Posted on by Cynthia

I don’t know why I’m watching a NOVA documentary about lizards in Australia, but it’s actually really interesting despite my fear of them. I do hate any kind of lizards, reptiles, frogs and anything with feathers. Oh, and alpacas. Alpacas freak the crap out of me. I don’t know where my aversion to so many animals comes from, but I start to get agitated when I think of being close to any of the animals I mentioned.  Before I start freaking myself out, I’ll move on to the polish part of my post.

I decided that today would be a dusty hunting day. I have about 3-4 nail places that I go to regularly for all the new collections (OPI, Essie, Jessica, Color Club, Sation, Orly), but a couple of them also have pretty ancient  polishes that I love to sort through when I have the time, patience and dust mask. They are called dusties for a reason! So I went to two of my usual places but I didn’t see anything that I really wanted. They are seriously lagging on getting their shipments of Essie which is what I wanted to check out.  I went to another beauty supply that I’ve only been to once just to see if anything had changed. The owner (I’m assuming she’s the owner) is a see you next tuesday. She is so rude that I couldn’t believe it when I first went in there. At first she ignored me and then she followed me around like I was going to steal something. Then she kept asking me: “what do you want?” Ok, part of it was that her English wasn’t very good so I figured that she meant to ask if I needed anything so I wasn’t offended. Once I found a bunch of stuff I wanted, she was nice to me but I was so annoyed that I hadn’t been back since. I guess I decided to give this place another try because I really wanted to see if they had any old interesting polishes. Well, let me tell you that I seriously scored. I found some OPI Designer Series polishes…not the new ones that are glitterbombs or scattered holos. I’m talking about the original DS line that were linear holos. I saw a bunch of the silver caps and figured they were just the usual DS polishes until I got closer and saw the liner holo. I seriously almost shit my pants with excitement and started grabbing them like my life depended on it. One of the employees came over and eyed me like I was insane, and he starts to tell me that those are more expensive than the usual OPI because they are holo. He looks at me like he wonders if I’m going to change my mind once I find out the price which he informs me is $8. $8!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For OPI linear holos. I wish they had more colors, but they only had the colors that I ended up purchasing. Freaking A I was happy. My linear holo experience is limited to the way pricey Layla Hologram Effect line so I am super happy to have found these.  Afterwards, I headed to my FAVORITE nail place and I purchased a few China Glaze polishes and some super oldies from American Classic and Color Club. The Color Club colors weren’t that interesting but I wanted them for the old vintage bottles. Since they were dirt cheap, I didn’t care that the colors weren’t too exciting . I probably will still try them out since they are both neons and neons are so IN right now.

Sorry about the verbal diarrhea…I just really got excited about those freaking OPI holos. Here are some hoard pics.

 

And lastly, here is some food porn:

In-N-Out really is the best thing in California. Don’t fight me on this because you will lose.

So how was your weekend?

 

Illamasqua Muse

Posted on by Cynthia

Are you surprised that I have yet another Illamasqua beauty to wax poetic about? I think that Illamasqua is looking to dethrone Nails Inc. as my favorite brand for creme finish nail polish. I’m feeling a little rotten right now because I had too much to drink last night. I actually hate drinking because it brings back bad memories (I should write a post about that! lol). Honestly, I don’t know why I drank last night…probably to dull my senses if only for a little while. I am not feeling completely miserable this morning despite my little indulgence so I am very grateful to my body for now turning against me. Being hung over is such a horrible feeling so I don’t get how people can do it regularly. Anyway, I’ll stop with the random alcohol talk and come back to the topic at hand: Muse!  (Revenons à nos moutons!)

Muse is gorgeous, right? The name is so fitting because this color inspired me to do so many things: I wanted to stamp the crap out of it, glitter it up, dot it up…the list is endless. Illamasqua calls this a deep teal blue but I don’t see that much teal in it; it’s a lot more blue than green in my eyes. Does this remind you of other colors? Maybe OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui. I don’t care how many similar colors I may already have–the formula makes this an absolute stand out. I applied two thin coats here and it was perfectly opaque.

 

I know I said I wasn’t going to purchase any of the CG Prismatic glitters, but I changed my mind once I started seeing all the great things people were doing with them. I used Optical Illusion for the sponging on my tips, and I quite like how my nails turned out. I’m such a glitter hypocrite!

How has your weekend been so far? Thanks for visiting and I will be back later. I’m headed to my nail polish mecca in a bit and I know that’s just trouble. 🙂

American Classic Kissin Cousin

Posted on by Cynthia

Today I have another oldie for you from American Classic. I am still actively trying to hunt down more information about this company and this phantom line of nail polishes. I might just have to go and talk to my nail polish guy again since he told me some background info on the the founder of the company. I was looking at the ingredient section on the back and it is definitely not Big 3-Free…not that it’s a big surprise considering how old the bottle looks.

 

This color is called Kissin Cousin. What is a “kissin cousin” anyway? I mean, it sounds a little incestuous to me.  The formula on this was very sheer but also very buildable. I love this soft color because it just looks so delicate and bright.

 

Will you stop with the glitter already!? Here is Kissin Cousin with a coat of Servin’ Up Sparkle. I also applied a mattifier  to change the look of the glitter and polish.

Have you ever come across these American Classic nail polishes? Please let me k now if you have any information about them; I’d love to know how old these are! Thanks for visiting today and I hope that you have a lovely weekend.

Illamasqua Faithful

Posted on by Cynthia

I feel that I am rather faithful to make-up brands especially when I find something that really works for me. But what about nail polish? I seem to buy anything and everything because I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity purchaser when it comes to nail polish. I don’t have the most lavish budget so I am an avid deal hunter. I am very lucky to have so many beauty supply stores in my area that sell a lot of the major brands at huge discounts. Unfortunately, this also makes me buy huge quantities of nail polish because, well, who can resist discounts? Not me!

Illamasqua is a brand that I don’t mind spending a little more money on…or a lot. Granted, their nail polish sells for $14 which is nowhere near  bloated Chanel prices, but it’s still pricier than I would like.When their Naked Strangers Collection came out, I wasn’t that excited about it because I am more of a bold nail polish lover and the colors just seemed so…tame. I had gone to Sephora earlier in the week because I wanted to see if they had any of the Nails Inc. matter glitter “Sprinkles” polishes. Alas, they are not in store yet so I had to console myself with other nail polishes. I was playing around with the newest colors and Faithful really caught my attention. It looked like it was glowing from within. It had to be mine.

 

How can you resist the metallic looking glow of Faithful? The formula was perfect, as usual for Illamasqua, and I only needed two coats. This is a color that I could wear anywhere because it’s a bit neutral but still has a certain playfulness to it. It’s not overpowering, but it’s not boring either. Can you tell I love this color?

I’ve been playing a lot with glitter lately so I took out my #1 favorite glitter of all time: China Glaza Mahagonie. It has such a beautiful brown/red base with lots of holo glitter thrown into the mix. I think this combination sounded better in my head because I’m not too happy with the way it turned out once I sponged it on top of faithful. I don’t know if it was the sponge, my technique or the glitter, but this just doesn’t appeal to me as much. This just goes to show you that two rights, don’t always make a right!

Since I wasn’t too happy with the sponging, I went ahead and applied one thick coat of Mahoganie over my nails. This glitter is opaque at two coats if you wear it on its own. Since I already had a base color in Faithful, I was able to get away with one coat.

So what do you think? Are you an Illamasqua fan? Have you tried any of the China Glaze specialty glitters? This one is my favorite but Atlantis comes in at a close second. Wow…all that writing about glitter is throwing me off. Hello, my name is Cynthia and I am a reluctant glitter lover.

Wet N Wild Saved By The Bell Collection Giveaway!

Posted on by Cynthia

EDIT 7/19/2012: A Winner has been picked. Please refer to this post for details. Thank you for entering!

 

Ok, I’m going to give this a try and host my first giveaway! Yay!  Since this is my first giveaway, I am only opening this up to US residents. I’m sorry! I just want to make sure this works fine before I do a bigger giveaway for everyone. The giveaway is open starting today, 7/12, and ends at 12:01 am est on 7/20.

Because I still haven’t transitioned from free wordpress hosting, I can’t embed the Rafflecopter widget in this post, so I hope it  still works. I created the giveaway on Rafflecopter so you will have to click on the link below and enter that way.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You will be able to accumulate a total of 5 entries should you wish to complete all 4 tasks.

  • +2 entries Follow my blog
  • +1 entry Leave a Blog Post Comment
  • +1 entry Follow @LifeAndLacquer on Twitter
  • +1 entry Tweet About the Giveaway

You won’t get any extra entries, but you can also follow me on facebook and pinterest if you are so inclined.

For swatches of the collection, please see my previous post here.

I want to thank all the wonderfully creative, caring and lovely ladies whom I have had the pleasure to meet in the 8 months that I’ve been working on this little blog. I know I’m just one person in a sea of talented ladies so I appreciate every single one of you who visit my little world.  And for those of you who are regular readers and who join in the insanity that my comments section sometimes becomes, I love you! 🙂

Here is the prize. I am going to bubble wrap it nice and secure. (My set is in the background since someone asked me if I was giving away the set I swatched: no, they are brand new.)

I really hope there aren’t any issues with the rafflecopter link, but if there are, please let me know right away.  I know this isn’t some huge prize or anything, but I hope someone gets to enjoy it if only for the fond memories of being a kid.

Wet N Wild Saved By The Bell Collection

Posted on by Cynthia

I went shopping at Ulta today because my mom wanted to buy some make-up so of course I had to get another Layla holo. I know…I know. Afterwards, we went to CVS to purchase some vitamins and other health stuff and I saw a Wet N Wild stand with a bunch of neon polishes. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a Wet N Wild Saved By The Bell collection. OMG!!! I nearly shit myself. Saved By The Bell?!

(For whatever reason, it was really hard to find a clip of the intro to the show. Totally weird…that’s why I went with this crappy one. Sorry.)

I used to watch Saved By The Bell religiously when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite shows along with Small Wonder, California Dreams, I Love Lucy and Gilligan’s Island. Fuck, I feel old. If you’re in your late 20’s-early 30’s, you probably watched some or all of these shows. It’s ok to cringe when you think  about  the Screech sex tape or Jesse in Showgirls. Anyway, on to the polish!

Pom Pom Kelly

Nerd Alert: Screech

Straight A Jesse

Pin ‘Em Slater

Fashionista Lisa

Chick Magnet Zack

I really liked this collection despite the fact that I think I’m on neon polish overload. My favorite color is Nerd Alert: Screech. I love that it’s such a fun, shimmery, neon lime green. I’ve never really been too impressed with the brushes on Wet N Wild Wild Shine polishes because they seem to work against me when I try to apply smooth coats. I did not apply any top coat to my swatches because I wanted to show you the satiny finish. Overall, I am beyond happy with this collection. Come on…for $.99 a bottle, can you really complain?  Let me know if you spot these. I don’t know if they are exclusive to CVS and I haven’t been able to find any information about this collection online. I find it very strange.

Ah, memories! Would anyone be interested in a Fresh Prince of Bel Air nail polish collection? No? Just me, huh?

 

What To Do When Your Nail Polish Smells Like Shit

Posted on by Cynthia

I never thought I’d say this, but you throw it away. (Pause for dramatic effect) I know what you’re thinking. How can you throw your babies away when they deserve a life of happiness on your nails? Just because they smell, it doesn’t mean that they don’t bleed if you prick them. Now, I’m not really comparing my nail polish to Shylock so don’t get your Bardolatry panties in a bunch. After the experience I had with a nail polish today, I think I know what pure evil smells like. But before I can get into that, I am going to tell you about another polish that I used as my base for the offensive manicure.

I have to say that I was super excited about the China Glaze Summer Neons when I first saw promo pictures, but then my excitement fizzled once I started seeing swatches. Don’t get me wrong…they are pretty and all, but they just don’t call my name like other polishes. I still picked up a few of the colors, and I was excited to try Ride The Waves.

I’m trying to hold myself back because I hate to say bad things about my beloved China Glaze, but I just did not care for this at all. I love blue nail polish, but I just don’t like the finish on this AT ALL. I knew it wouldn’t be completely opaque before trying it on, yet I’m still faulting it for it? I’m mad at a jelly for being…a jelly. Maybe I was just in a weird mood because I was anticipating disaster.  I applied three coats here, in case you were wondering.

Now here is the offensive little turd: Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple. I took a picture of it in the shade so you could really appreciate the beautiful color shifts. The beauty of this is completely cancelled out by the stench that fills your nostrils once you open the bottle. If you want to know what death and evil’s baby would smell like, look no further.

Despite the stench, I love how glowy my nails looked. I went to the supermarket after I finished my mani and a few people commented on them so at least I know that they are attention-grabbing nails. I wore these for about 2 hours and then I had to take them off. My fingers smelled–reeked–even after applying a top coat.

Do I recommend Kleancolor? Sniff at your own risk.

Color Club Hydrangea Kiss

Posted on by Cynthia

Did you know that the hydrangea is the 4th wedding anniversary flower? I didn’t. I didn’t even know there were “anniversary flowers” to begin with. Who comes up with this stuff? I mean, isn’t it completely arbitrary? Maybe I can start saying that a can of Hormel Chili is the new 1st anniversary present. Forget the whole “paper” thing. I mean, what’s more romantic than a can of Hormel Chili? Despite my annoyance with certain weird traditions, I have to admit that hydrangeas are gorgeous.

Hydrangea Kiss is the only color that I purchased from the Color Club Spring 2012 Blossoming Collection, and I don’t know what really attracted me to it. Yeah, it’s pretty but is it really unique? Not really.

I don’t know if it’s the same with other polishes from this collection, but I found that the formula was a little thin and sheer. The first coat was seriously like a wash of color on my nails. I ended up applying 3 coats because the second coat dragged a bit, and I had to even it all out. It’s important to let the polish dry a bit in between coats to avoid this.

Are you surprised that I did more stamping? I used a design on BM 314 to stamp the area between the silver striping tape. I bought my striping tape on eBay, and it doesn’t seem to stick very well. I wonder if maybe the heat from the trip from Hong Kong made the glue go bad. It was definitely a pain to manipulate the tape, and it was almost curling up on a couple of areas. Ugh! Still, I really like how this turned out.

Did you purchase any colors from this Color Club collection? What do you think of these nails? Let me know what you think about this and my Hormel Chili idea.