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Year: 2012

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Birthday Polish: Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle

Posted on 26 November, 2012 by Cynthia

I don’t know what it is about me and green polishes, but I have found myself really attracted to them. When I saw some swatches of Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle online, I instantly wanted it. I was beyond psyched when I got this beauty for my birthday from one of my lovely French polish enablers: Sabrina from Polish In Paris. She has single-handedly created a Kiko monster out of me with all the lovely polishes she has sent me that are not available in the US. It’s a double edged sword, I tell you! Bourjois is yet another brand that is not easy to come by here in the States so this makes this polish EXTRA special.

This is 2 buttery coats of Vert Chlorophylle WITHOUT a top coat. Look how amazingly shiny this polish is. I guess their Ultra Shine line really is that shiny.

I was feeling a little dot-happy so this happened:

I don’t know about you, but dotting tools have recently opened up the crazy world of nail art for me. I’ve had dotting tools for a while but I guess I never really used them except for, uhm…dots. Let me tell you, they are not just for dots! These dots remind me of a conversation I had with my friend who is a jr. high school teacher because she was telling me how she has to have like 30 sets of eyes going all over the place to keep her kids in line. We started doing crazy googly eyes with our fingers and we laughed because we got to talking about what horrible kids we were in jr. high. Because of this, she can anticipate everything those kids are even thinking of throwing at her.

So what do you think about this polish? Do you like using dotting tools? Thanks again to Sabrina for sending me such a lovely polish!

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 25: Celebrity Inspired Nails

Posted on 25 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Can it be that we only have 6 more challenges to go after this?! Wow! We are sooooooooooo close to the finish line, and I am actually feeling pretty proud of myself. I only missed a few challenges but Nicole has done EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Let’s take a look at my celebrity inspired nails, shall we?

It may seem funny to people who know me, but I am actually a huge Katy Perry fan. I just find her so cute and quirky and her music is beyond catchy. These nails are inspired by the sugar overload images from her California Gurls video. I thought about adding a joint somewhere in there for Snoop Dogg, but I thought better of it.

I’m going to keep it short today because I am running late. I’m supposed to run some errands, do my laundry, go buy a Christmas tree and get all the decorations out. Eeeek! How has your weekend been going?

Before I forget, let me remind you of two things:

1) Don’t forget to enter my giveaway for a $25 Amazon.com gift card

2) Did you already check out the new items on my blog sale? You know you want to.

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to check out Nicole’s celebrity nails over at Polish Me, Please!

Swagbucks Saturdays: I Signed Up–Now What?

Posted on 24 November, 2012 by Cynthia

So you’ve signed up for Swagbucks and you don’t know exactly what to do next. Let me tell you a little bit about how I started out and have amassed a few hundred dollars worth of gift cards. But, before I get into that, let me remind you of my $25 amazon gift card giveaway which ends this week. All you need to do in order to qualify is join Swagbucks under my referral link here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Once you have joined, you can earn more entries as well so make sure that you check out my original giveaway post here.

The main article I wanted to share with you is this great resource that was created by other Swaggers to help people who are just starting out. So head on over to the Swagging 101 website and read up on all the different things that you can do to earn Swagbucks. It makes me so happy to hear about all the Swagging that some of you are doing–can’t wait to hear about all the great prizes you earn!

And again, don’t forget to sign up for Swagbucks under my referral link if you want a chance to win the $25 Amazon Gift Card. 😉

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 24: Nautical Inspired Nails

Posted on 23 November, 2012 by Cynthia

The closer we get to finishing this challenge, the less “inspired” I feel. After yesterday’s gluttonfest, I haven’t eaten anything besides toast today. I guess I am still kind of full. I still have a nice piece of tri tip so I will probably have some of that for dinner. I’ll just have to come up with some interesting side dishes later. So maybe I’m still feeling blah from eating so much junk and that’s why I lagged on doing my nails for today’s nautical inspired nails challenge. Let’s get to it, shall we?

I started out with China Glaze White Out as my base.

I don’t usually paint my nails all white, so it’s really nice to have a nice and opaque white polish to use. This is three very thin coats.

For the nautical part I used a combination of stripping tape and stamping.

I used cheeky plate CH 49 for the wheel design with Adventure Red-y as the stamping polish. It is not a perfect stamping polish so I had to go over the design with a dotting tool and brush when needed which accounts for some of the mess-ups. Still, I don’t think I did too poorly with it.

How is everything with you after your thanksgiving feasting? Did you end up going shopping? I’m happy to report that I have avoided the stores so far and probably will for the rest of the week. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my latest nail disaster. Our next challenge will be inspired by a celebrity…oh boy! Don’t for get to check out Nicole’s nautical nails over at Polish Me, Please! Talk to you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on 23 November, 2012 by Cynthia

This being the first Thanksgiving that my blog has seen, I was wondering if I should do anything “special.” What does special mean? I have no clue. So instead, I decided to just let all of you know how grateful I am for all the wonderful support I have received since I started my blog. Whether this blog continues to exist in the future or not, I will always love it because it gave me the opportunity to meet some amazing bloggers (and non-bloggers!) whom I am fortunate enough to call friends. Around this time last year, I was dealing with so much crap that I could barely get my head wrapped around it all. While I still have a lot of not so pleasant things going on, I feel light years away from the horrible pit of depression I was in for most of 2011. In fact, the reason why I even started this blog was to VENT out into the void since I refused to go to therapy regularly. Of course the venting also included my love for nail polish and here I am almost a year later still talking about nail polish…and food…and UPS men…and pervy postal clerks. Ahhh…I have a wonderful life!

I really really hate turkey. I mean I really hate it because turkeys are ugly and they taste like feathers. Since I’ve always had an aversion to birds and poultry, I’ve always had to come up with something else when it comes to my main Thanksgiving protein so I decided to make some tri tip and it came out perfect! Since my parents weren’t able to join us for Thanksgiving this year, my brother and I are celebrating at my bro and sil’s house. We had a great time eating, eating and eating some more.

That’s my plate with some delicious tri tip. This year I decided not to eat so much that I felt like dying afterwards so I didn’t eat everything on my plate. Get ready for my brother’s plate:

He ate TWO servings like this. TWO!!! Ahh…to have the metabolism of a 22 year old guy. I told him that he eats like the apocalypse is coming.

And because this post wouldn’t be quite right without a mani picture, this is what I decided to wear on my nails today.

I didn’t want to do anything complicated so I am happy with the simplicity of this. Jessica Pumpkin Spice seemed very appropriate–even though I prefer apple pie to pumpkin pie.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and family and thank you for always being here–reading, commenting, lurking…whatever! THANK YOU!

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 23: Nails Inspired By Nature

Posted on 21 November, 2012 by Cynthia

I had absolutely no idea what to do for today’s challenge. I mean, nails inspired by nature? I am a city girl through and through and the closest I get to “nature” is the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. Nicole and I were talking about this challenge yesterday and she mentioned that she thought of not painting her nails at all and showing us her “natural” nails and calling that her interpretation of nature. hahaha! I got so annoyed with today’s challenge that I waited until the last possible second to do them. Unfortunately, my nails ended up looking craptastic for various reasons. First of all, let me show you the polish I used as my base color:

Jessica Brown Sugar is from their Spicy Dream Fall Collection. It’s a red-based brown with a very distinct shimmer. I don’t really wear these types of browns because I don’t think they look to good on my skin tone, but I do like this polish because it’s just so different!

Then I decided to do some stamping and that is when it all went downhill.

First of all, I should have used a different polish to do the stamping because Essie The Cove Copper does not show up too well. I think this is a pretty old discontinued polish because the label looks different and it definitely smells different as well. I placed some red microbeads where the leaves appeared to have little bead shapes, but it just ended up looking weird. I was so annoyed with this overall mani that I took it off right away.

Now, in order to make up for such an atrocious manicure, I am sharing with you something that I made for our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow….

These are not just your ordinary deviled eggs; they are BACON CHEDDAR deviled eggs. These are so delicious that I defy anyone to have one and not have a foodgasm. They are basically traditional deviled eggs with some crumbled bacon and shredded sharp cheddar blended into the egg yolk/mayo mix. Whenever I make these, they literally disappear instantly. Yes, they are that good. I can’t wait until tomorrow so I can eat some of these babies up.The recipe is pretty standard but I know someone who hasn’t made deviled eggs would want to know. To tell you the truth, I eyeball all of the amounts so this is an approximation.

12 hard-boiled eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
4 bacon strips- cooked and crumbled
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

After you cook the eggs and peel them, cut them lengthwise and remove the yolks. Place all the yolks in a bowl and mash them up. Add the mayo and mustard until the mixture is creamy and well blended. Then mix in the cheese, crumbled bacon and black pepper. After this, I usually use a pastry bag to pipe the mixture back into the egg whites. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you an always just use a plastic bag and cut off a corner to make a small hole. Lastly, sprinkle the deviled eggs with paprika and bask in the glory of rave reviews that your dish will get.

Can we please just ignore my nails and focus on the food? That would make me happy. Do you have any special Thanksgiving plans for tomorrow?

LCN Urban Expressions Collection Fall 2012

Posted on 21 November, 2012 by Cynthia

For all of you rabid neutrals fans, you are going to love this. Even if you don’t normally gravitate towards neutral colors, I think that this cohesive set of four buttery neutrals is going to impress you. The LCN Urban Expressions Collection was released for Fall 2012 and brings us 4 polishes that showcase the chic sophistication of some of the most exciting fashion capitals of the world. Are you ready to see the polishes and which city inspired each shade?

Paris Chic is described as a nougat beige, and I think it is a very apt description. Out of the 4 polishes in the set, I found that Paris Chic had a difficult formula. It might have just been a fluke since the other three were great, but this one was very thick and applied very streaky. Once I added a few drops of thinner, it was MUCH better. I normally don’t like to thin bran new polish, but sometimes you have to make an exception.

London Glam is a slightly pink leaning gray which is a color that I always seem to be attracted to in all its infinite variations. I think that it is one of those shades that is work appropriate yet it is not boring whatsoever. The formula on this one was great–buttery and opaque at two coats.

New York Beat is definitely my favorite shade from this collection. It’s such a gorgeous smokey gray-green that I defy anyone to tell me it’s not current and fresh. It reminds me a bit of Essie School Of Hard Rocks but it is less green and more gray. Still, it’s a great shade with a great formula as well.

And lastly, here we have Tokyo Expressions. Could this collection really be complete without a creamy slightly blue-leaning gray? I can see myself wearing this color through fall and through winter because it has that steel

As a creme polish lover, I absolutely love this small collection. I like all the colors and the formula was great (well, except for Paris Chic). The LCN Urban Expressions Collection is available now on the LCN Website. One thing I would like to mention is that these polishes run pretty small at 8ml. each and sell for $7.50 each or $29.90 for the quad. Have you tried any LCN products before? Which is your favorite color of the 4? I’d love to hear what you think.

Thanks for catching up with me today and talk to you later.

**These products were provided for review purposes. All opinions are my own.**

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 22: Galaxy Nails

Posted on 19 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Here we go again: another challenge I was not looking forward to. Last night I tried to recreate some amazing nebula nails that I had seen on Diane’s blog, Turbomagik, but they ended up looking like a hot mess so I had to regroup today and try something else. Well, they didn’t come out the way I imagined them but any time sponging is involved, I tend to find a way to mess it up. I started with Wet N’ Wild Blue Moon as my full nail color:

I love Blue Moon, but it is a little thin as you can tell from a few bald spots. I think that with three coats it would be fine but I stopped at 2 because I was going to sponge over it anyway.

I’m not wild about them, but they’re definitely not the worst thing I’ve ever done. Just take a look at some of my older posts and this will be a Renoir to you. haha! I used a little planet stamp from Cheeky plate CH 45 but otherwise, I just used polish, a dotting tool and a sponge.

I am not that much of a fan of galaxy nails s0 I probably won’t be in a hurry to try this again any time soon. Before I forget, I have a funny story for you. Well, it’s funny to me anyway. Ever since I started my blog sale, I have been going to the post office a lot. I was there today to drop off a few orders, and I was waiting in line. One of the post office employees is really nice but there are 3 others that are total grumps. He was helping a guy who had to fill out a customs form so I thought he wasn’t going to take me until the guy was done. Then he looks at me and says: “I’m waiting for you.” I walk over to the counter and this was the conversation that ensued:

Me: “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know that you were ready to take someone new.”

Him: “I looked right at you and you just looked away…trying to play hard to get.”

Me: “Yeah, I just wanted someone different because you’re the meanest one here.”

Him: “Oh yeah? Sometimes people like it mean.”

Me: “Oh?”

Him: “Yeah. Some people like it mean. Some people like it rough.”

Me: “Ok…”

If you follow me on twitter, you know that I am in no way a prude, but his comments kind of shocked me especially because the other male customer who was filling out the form was still there and he was snickering and said: “Oh yeah!” hahaha Well, that’s my inappropriate story for the day.

What do you think of my galaxy nails? I’d love to hear what you think. Also, don’t forget to check out Nicole’s galaxy nails over at Polish Me, Please!

Birthday Polish: Cult Nails I Got Distracted

Posted on 18 November, 2012 by Cynthia

One of the first indie brands that really caught my attention when I became a nail polish ~~hoarder~~ enthusiast, was Cult Nails. It was like a nail blogger fairy tale with Maria starting out as a blogger and then working her behind off to create an amazing brand. That was the initial appeal for me until I saw all of her amazing polishes. I mean, seriously…they are amazing. So when I got my lovely birthday gift from Frosso and I realized it was Cult Nails I Got Distracted, well I was beyond excited. A little funny story about this package: a week before I received it, I had seen this on twitter and facebook:

When I saw it, I thought to myself: “Wow that is so cool and so pretty!!!” Imagine my surprise when I opened up the package and realized it had been my package that I had seen. hahaha! I love it. Frosso is one of the very first bloggers I met when I started my blog and I just adore her blog. In fact, she is having a really fantastic giveaway right now to celebrate her One Year Blogiversary so make sure that you go check it out.

Now, let me show you the beauty that is I Got Distracted:

This is two coats without a top coat. It dries super gritty and kind of matte, but I find the texture really interesting! I know that Frosso gets a kick out of me oohing and ahhing over glitter nail polish because I was such an insane glitter hater a few months ago. But really…I had to come to my senses because who wouldn’t go nuts for this? It’s absolutely gorgeous.

I decided to also show you how it looks with some top coat:

Ohmygoshthisisgorgeous. What else can I say? I also received a bottle of Wicked Fast top coat in my lovely package. I tend to alternate between using Seche Vite and Poshe so I was a little cautious about trying a new top coat. Well, let me tell you that it’s fantastic, but it did not work well with this polish on its own. I Got Distracted is one of those thirsty glitters that sucks up top coat like there’s no tomorrow. I had to apply two thick coats of Gelous to completely smooth out this glitter and then I applied Wicked Fast to make it all extra glossy. Here is a bonus super blurry picture so you can see the holo gorgeousness.

So there you have it: my gorgeous birthday polish from the lovely Frosso. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Have you tried Cult Nails yet?

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 21: Tribal Print Nails

Posted on 17 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Much like Nicole, I was not really looking forward to doing tribal print nails mostly because I never really liked the way they look. I guess I’ve just always found the patterns too busy for my liking, but I have definitely seen some really amazing manis from talented ladies. I was super duper tempted to just do a skittle mani and use a stamp for the print, but I decided to finally do some kind of free-hand design attempt. Oh boy do I need practice! I started out with 2 coats of essence Nude It!

Nude It! is one of my favorite–if not my favorite–nude color. I like wearing nude colors on their own because my short sausage fingers look longer.

These are all the polishes and tools that I used for the design that follows: essence Let’s Get Lost and Break Through for the color accents, my nail art polishes in black and white and a dotting tool.

Are you ready for my interpretation of tribal print?

To tell you the truth, I am surprised that these came out somewhat decent. While I don’t see myself doing this type of design again any time soon, I am glad that I am finally trying some free-hand stuff. Practice makes perfect, right?

What do you think about tribal print nail designs? What do you think about my first free-hand attempt? (Be nice!) Don’t forget to check out Nicole’s tribal print nails over at Polish Me, Please! Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to check back for our next challenge: Galaxy Nails!