2012 - Page 8 of 40 - Of Life and Lacquer

Year: 2012

Of Life and Lacquer > 2012

Apotheke: M and Scent Bar – A Review

Posted on 24 October, 201224 October, 2012 by Cynthia

Although it may not seem like it, Winter is just around the corner which means that I begin my yearly hunt for something to help my skin survive the dry, cold months. You may be snickering right now if you know that I live in Southern California–the land of eternal summer. However, my skin is very sensitive and Winter is the absolute worst time for me because my skin gets dry, flaky and painful. When I start looking for moisturizers, I am looking for something that is gentle yet moisturizing. I absolutely hate products that make my skin feel greasy or that are super heavily scented, so that eliminates a lot of products. Recently, I got the opportunity to try two new moisturizing products: Apotheke: M and Scent Bar.

Both of these brands are completely new to me so I was really looking forward to using them. First up, is Apotheke: M. Target currently carries this brand which is comprised of bath/shower gels, nourishing body cleansers, after bath tonics, smoothing body polishes and enriched body cremes. I used their enriched body cremes:

Their product line comes in 3 scents: Coconut Jasmine, Mandarin Guava and Blackcurrant Fig. I was a little wary of the two scents I received because I am extremely sensitive when it comes to bath & body product scents. Mandarin Guava was the one I was most concerned about because, while I looooove to eat guavas, their scent is incredibly overwhelming. Have you ever had a ripe guava in your home and suddenly EVERYTHING smells like guava? Fortunately, the main scent I picked up was the mandarin. It has a sweet citrus scent that isn’t overbearing. The coconut jasmine scent has a stronger sweet coconut scent and I can’t really pick out the jasmine. Both of these body cremes are very thick and silky. I used them mostly on areas that need extra moisture like my elbows and knees. I also used them on my hands after swatching nail polish because that’s when my hands are at their worst after using acetone products. The cremes took a bit to soak into my skin so I found that applying them right after showering helped the products seep into my skin. After a week, I did notice softer, more moisturized skin!

Next up is Scent Bar’s Shea-Intense Body Butter. Scent Bar’s product line at Target is fairly new and have 4 fragrances: Cabana, Forbidden, Blush and Sunswept.

Cabana has notes of coconut, Tahitian vanilla and papaya so it is quite a summery and beachy scent. This body butter was also very thick and creamy; I also used it to smooth out and moisturize the skin on my knees, elbows and feet. I actually found that I loved this product on my feet. I slathered some on, put on some socks and went to bed. When I woke up, my feet were soooooo soft.

Overall, I quite enjoyed these products. They are obviously thicker than lotions which some people may not like, but I really liked how well they moisturized my skin. My only negative is that, although the scents are nice, they were a little too much for me. I must say that I am not the average scent/perfume wearer as most scents will make me ill if they are too sweet. I asked a few people what they thought of the fragrance in these products and most said that they were not overbearing or too strong. Apotheke: M products can be purchased at Target in store and online here. Their body cremes retail for $8.99 for an 8 oz tube. Scent Bar products can also be purchased at Target in store and online. Their shea-intense body butters can be purchased for $8.99 for 6.5 oz.

Have your spotted any of these products at your local Target? What are some of your go-to winter products? What are some of your favorite bath & body product scents? Thanks for catching up with me, and I’ll talk to you soon!

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

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 15: Jelly Sandwich

Posted on 22 October, 20125 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Once again I had intentions of doing my nails early today but instead I went to see Paranormal Activity 4. I tend to watch every horror/paranormal movie that is released so I was kind of looking forward to watching it, but it turned out to be horribly boring. It actually pissed me off because I kept waiting for something–anything–interesting to happen but nothing ever did. What a waste of an hour and a half! Anyway, today’s challenge calls for a jelly sandwich manicure. I’ve never really done a jelly sandwich manicure because I don’t have too many jellies so I had to improvise. I actually ended up making everything way more complicated than it needed to be so let me show you what I did.

I started with Butter London Slapper.

I got a bunch of Butter Londons recently and this is one that I still hadn’t tried. I love this colors! It is gorgeous, buttery and glossy.

I then added a coat of OPI The Living Daylights from the new Skyfall holiday collection.

And lastly I slapped on two coats of Revlon Whimsical.

I think that this ended up looking a little like the Nails Inc. Sprinkles polishes. I kinda like how muted the base color looks, but overall, I did not like all the polish layers–my nails felt super thick. So what do you think about my first jelly sandwich manicure attempt? Can you recommend some really awesome jelly polishes? I really want to get a few more jellies so I can experiment with them.Our next challenge will be on November 3rd as we are taking a little break for Halloween. I am going to take a break from doing my nails until then. Don’t forget to check back with me since I will be doing non-nail related posts until 11/3.

Take a minute to check out the other jelly sandwich manicures below from Nicole, Jessica, Ave and Alaina. Thanks for stopping by.

Sation Gimme Jimi

Posted on 21 October, 201225 October, 2012 by Cynthia

A few days ago, I had a dream about my cousin. In my dream, she was her usual loud, boisterous and animated self. We all knew that she was gone, but she was still there talking to everyone and she was castigating us for being sad. I do believe in my dreams and maybe it was her way of saying that she was ok. I wish I had spent more time with her. I wish I had known her better. You always think that there will be more time to make it to the family get-togethers. You always think that there will be more time…until there isn’t.

A month ago today, we lost her. We lost a daughter, mother, grandmother, wife, cousin and friend. My cousin had a lot of stories regarding dragonflies and how they showed up at random times that ended up being not so random. I decided to do my own dragonflies today.

I used Sation Gimme Jimi from their limited edition Nailstock Collection as my base color.

The dragonfly design comes from plate MASH 41, and I used Konad special polish in black for stamping.

These are my dragonflies for her. Her passing has left a big hole in our family, but I am grateful for having known her. She will live on in the fabric of our family’s love that will weave us all together always.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Posted on 21 October, 201224 October, 2012 by Cynthia

“Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.” – Pablo Neruda

That quotation comes from one of my favorite poems by the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. It roughly translates to “Love is so short and forgetting is so long.” It is part of his work, Twenty Love Poems And A Song Of Despair which fed my soul through much heartache. A breakup can be such a traumatic event and today I am going to tell you about the breakup of a 13 year old relationship. Yes, you read correctly: 13 years!! Today I decided that my love affair with Sephora has come to an end. Why, you ask? Let me tell you…

I still remember the first time I saw the black and white signage for Sephora on the Champs-Elysées. I was a 20 year old student who had never left the confines of my cozy Southern California existence for an extended international experience. I instantly fell in love with Sephora. I loved everything about it. I especially loved how I was free to peruse without feeling like the salespeople were giving me the evil eye. Yes, everything you’ve heard about “customer service” in Paris is true. When my year abroad was up, I was sad to leave Sephora behind since I didn’t know if we had one anywhere near me back home. Soon after, I started a job that allowed me to travel a lot internationally so I never forgot Sephora and visited every time I was in France. Eventually I started ordering from them online and then a store opened up near me…I was in heaven. Since then, I have been an extremely loyal customer and always tell friends and family about the amazing products and service…until today. Over the last year, I have seen the perks and customer service decline and decline, the worst offenders being those responsible for the moderation of the Sephora Facebook page.

If you’ve never visited the Sephora Facebook page, consider yourself lucky as it is usually quite a mess. If you ever post anything that isn’t completely praising them, they will usually either delete or filter out your comment so no one else can see it. It doesn’t matter how politely you state your issue, feedback or question—if it’s not praise, chances are that it might get censored. This recently became very personal when a friend of mine was BANNED from their Facebook page for asking for help when no one was really making an effort to solve her problems in private message conversations, emails and phone calls. Not only did they pretty much continue to ignore her request for help in solving her customer service problems, but they also made her feel like she didn’t matter. That is not cool with me at all.

In the last year, I have noticed a steep decline in perks for VIB’s as well. VIB (Very Important BeautyInsider) is a level you reach in their BeautyInsider program once you spend $350 in one calendar year which means that you spend a decent amount of money at Sephora. Anyone who is a VIB can tell you that we spend enough money at Sephora to become VIB’s a few times over each year. This year, they created quite a stir by NOT offering their Friends & Family Sale discount to the public. Before you say that we shouldn’t feel entitled to a discount, I feel that if they had communicated this properly to their customers, many of us would have purchased directly from all the other brands that recently had their Friends & Family Sales that were open to EVERYONE. Many of us waited because we wanted to purchase from Sephora and instead we are now being given the boot. Let me make this clear: I don’t think Sephora owes us any kind of perk, but it is obvious that offering perks benefits them in the end. If you are a VIB, there will be a 20% off sale in November, but that is a whole separate thing from the F&F sale, and most people won’t be able to take advantage of it anyway. And don’t get me started on the joke that was the spin to win game…

Am I saying I will never again shop at Sephora? No. I am saying that because of their hit or miss customer service, the ridiculous handling of their Facebook page and the lack of communication with their loyal customers, I won’t be recommending Sephora to others nor will I purchase anything from them that I can easily get somewhere else. I’m sad that it had to come to this, but it’s time for me to find another main squeeze that will truly appreciate my business.

So, in order to commemorate a love affair gone wrong, I am having a Sephora breakup giveaway. Up for grabs are three sets of some of my favorite nail polishes:

Prize #1 Jessica Pumpkin Delight, Jessica Cinnamon Kiss & OPI On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Prize #2 Sation Oh My Oceania!, Sation Rock-a-Guy Blue & Sation Power To The Purple

Prize #3 essence Fame Fatal, essence Gorgeous Bling Bling & essence Chic Reloaded

All polishes are brand new and purchased by me. This giveaway is open worldwide.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Again, I am not telling you to never shop at Sephora again. What I am saying is that Sephora no longer holds a place of esteem for me. These are my personal feelings stemming from what I have seen from the company lately. I have had many pleasant experiences with Sephora over the years so it is truly disheartening to see their customer service and overall attitude circle the drain. Feel free to leave comments below–whether you agree or disagree. I won’t be censoring comments. 😉

When there are so many choices out there for us, you would think that a company like Sephora would make customer service and satisfaction a top priority, but I guess we—the customers—aren’t as important as we thought we were. Thank you, Sephora, for the wonderful years. Too bad it had to end this way.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 14 : Saran Wrap Manicure

Posted on 19 October, 2012 by Cynthia

As usual, I am waiting until the last possible second to complete my manicure for today’s challenge. I had good intentions of getting it done very early, but I completely forgot that I was getting some windows replaced in my place so I got wrapped up in moving stuff. In fact, I had to move my bed which weighs about a ton. The mattress alone weighs more than a hippo so I am glad my brother helped me. While the guys were replacing the windows in both bedrooms–and walking around my cream colored carpet with their dirty shoes!!–I started watching The Walking Dead on Netflix. Wowsa that show is good! Anyway, in the middle of all that the mailman came and I got some awesome polish.

Aren’t these amazing?!?!?! Thank you, Sabrina! Since I was having a hard time deciding what polishes to use for my saran wrap manicure, I immediately zeroed in on two Kikos.

For my base color, I used Kiko Periwinkle Violet #337.

This polish is perfection in a bottle. It is creamy, opaque in 2 coats and dries SUPER CRAZY shinny. I really like the Kiko brush so I had very minor clean up to do.

For the saran wrap part, I was a little scared because I have never tried this method before and I didn’t want to ruin my beautiful mani with a crappy saran wrap job. lol Well, I headed over to Nicole‘s blog and copied her tutorial.

I used Kiko Cerulean Blue #295 and a ball of saran wrap to apply the color over Periwinkle Violet. I absolutely adore how this turned out because it is super subtle, and I love how the two colors compliment each other.

So what do you think of my saran wrap manicure? Have you tried this before? I have seen two methods: one where you pick up the color with the saran wrap and them apply it on your nails and the other where you apply the second color directly on the nail and use the saran wrap ball to pick up some of the wet polish. I wonder if one works better than the other. If you have tried both, let me know which method you prefer.

Thanks for visiting today and don’t forget to check out the manicures created by the other challenge participants.

Nicole – Polish Me, Please!

Jessica – Once Upon A Polish

Ave – Polish Pixelle

Alaina – The Little Canvas

OPI Tickle My France-y & We’ll Always Have Paris

Posted on 17 October, 201216 October, 2012 by Cynthia

I am just about ready to give up on doing gradient manicures. I just don’t understand why I have such a hard time with them! I’ve tried just about a million tips that other nail gurus have offered, but my gradients just keep coming out harsh and choppy–never smooth and beautiful. My nails for the challenge yesterday, which you can see here, are a perfect example of how my gradients always turn out. I love the colors that I used, but that weird and uneven gradient totally killed it. So in order to make up for that, I picked a Fall color and lovely nude to work with: OPI Ticke My France-y and OPI We’ll Always have Paris–both from the Collection de France. I seriously love that whole collection.

Tickle My France-y is perfection. It’s such a gorgeous pinky nude that is opaque and easy to work with and doesn’t need a billion coats: I only needed two. Since I kind of failed on my previous tape manicure, I decided to try it again WITHOUT the gradient.

After I applied the stripping tape, I then painted over my whole nails with OPI We’ll Always Have Paris. I know this is a fairly common manicure but it’s only the second time I use stripping tape this way. If you’ve never tried this, just make sure that you do one nail at a time because otherwise the top layer of polish will dry and you will have a serious mess on your hands–literally!

So, you tell me: did redeem myself from yesterday’s gradient disasticure? Thanks for catching up with my crazy nail adventures–talk to you soon.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 13: Tape Manicure

Posted on 16 October, 2012 by Cynthia

I literally just finished my tape manicure…just a little late. I have been late with everything lately which is super annoying. I’ve been lacking a lot of inspiration when it comes to my manicures or anything in general, actually. I hope it’s just temporary! So anyway, here is my tape manicure for today’s challenge:

I don’t think that I have used You Belong To Me since the first time I swatched it, and my only question is: WHAT WAS I WAITING FOR??? I really love this color especially because it has this really beautiful hidden shimmer. These pictures make the color look more blue when in real life it has more of a green tone to it. The formula was ok–a little thick but nothing a few drops of thinner can’t fix.

I hope that the following qualifies as a tape manicure? I mean, I did use stripping tape…

I used a sponge to apply Choose Me! over You Belong To Me and the stripping tape I applied in a crisscross pattern.

Sorry, I couldn’t help it. This song was huge when I was in 6th/7th grade and I remember everyone wearing their jeans and sweatshirts backwards. I tried to join in on this fad until my mom made me change and told me to stop acting like a fool. Ahhh…I love my mom. hahaha.

So back to the final mani: I still hate my sponging but I do like the colors. Again, the pictures make everything look more blue than green. Choose Me! is such a pretty polish which is a dupe of OPI Catch Me In Your Net/Zoya Charla/Orly Halley’s Comet/WNW Teal Of Fortune/Sinful Colors Kissy so it is definitely more green than these pictures makes it out to be. The beautiful shimmery flecks make this polish a favorite of mine…along with the other dupes as well.

So, let me know what you think of my tape manicure. Don’t forget to check out the other challenge submissions below as well. Thanks for stopping by–catch up with you later!

Come See Who Won My Giveaway: WNW Fantasy Makers

Posted on 14 October, 2012 by Cynthia

I would like to thank everyone who enthusiastically entered the giveaway for 2 sets of the the Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Halloween polishes. I have picked two winners via the Rafflecopter widget and have emailed both of them. So, congratulations to Jamie and April!

If I don’t hear back from them in the next 24 hours, I will be picking new winners. Thanks again to everyone for entering and making this giveaway fun. I will be hosting more giveaways in the future so don’t forget to check back. 🙂 I have really enjoyed interacting with all of you–especially all the wonderful ladies on Facebook.

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 12 : Chevron Nails

Posted on 13 October, 2012 by Cynthia

I was feeling completely uninspired about doing today’s challenge. I love chevrons on my nails, but I don’t think that chevrons would look good on my rounded super short nails so I decided to to inverted chevrons.

Sation Rock-a-guy Blue is a great blue that I recently purchased. It’s my favorite color from the Little Horse On The Prairie Collection.

I then used Sation Blue Sky’s The Limit for the inverted chevron tips. I am so annoyed that I didn’t see a couple of fibers on my nails and now I can’t do anything about it. Grrrrrr!

I don’t know why I decided to stamp over this, but I did…

I used the paisley print from Bundle Monster plate BM 315 and Wet N Wild’s I Can’t Stand Up Straight. This is so subtle that I can barely tell the stamping is there in indirect light. I’m totally not feeling this stamp on these base colors–can’t win them all.

I need to go cook dinner so forgive me if I’m not particularly talkative throughout this post. Today is a crappy day–just feeling a little down in the dumps so hopefully I’ll feel better once I eat something. Food: always the answer! 🙂

Don’t forget to check out the other manicures my lovely challenge participants created. Thanks for catching up with me today.

Sation Violet Sapphire

Posted on 13 October, 201213 October, 2012 by Cynthia

I don’t remember when I first purchased Sation Violet Sapphire…I actually don’t remember purchasing it at all! Does this happen to any other nail polish enthusiast out there? I must have hundreds of polishes that I have never used–even for swatching. Yes, I am hanging my head in shame, but I know that some of you out there understand!

Violet Sapphire is such a girlie color. When I first looked at the color in the bottle, I was afraid that it would be super brush stroke-y, but it really isn’t. It’s has a pearlized shimmer that makes it look delicate, but I’m not going to call it the dreaded F-word…FROST!

For this final mani, I used Konad Special white polish and a design from image plate MASH 39. I like this fish scale design, but I don’t really like the colors I used. I think that the white looks too harsh against the base color. I am imagining something much more delicate like maybe a pastel with this pattern stamped in silver.

So a couple of my girlfriends and I are trying to motivate each other to work out (hopefully we can start going to the gym together) and eat better. So what did I do today? I didn’t eat anything all day and then I went out and got this:

I don’t know how big and widespread the Chipotle chain is, but that is where I got this massive burrito. It is full of cilantro rice, pinto beans, grilled steak, cheese, sour cream and salsa. If you’re wondering if I ate the whole thing….well, a girl with a gullet the size of the grand canyon would never eat and tell. haha!

Are you excited about the weekend? Do you have any plans? I don’t have much going on except maybe doing some more polish organizing since I acquired over 100 bottles in the last month or so. I know…it’s a sickness. All I have to say in my defense is that I got a bunch of them for free and some as gifts. Speaking of gifts, once my nails grow out a bit, I’m going to start featuring the lovely polishes I received for my birthday.

Thanks for stopping by to visit my little pyscho corner of polish addiction…and massive burritos. Talk to you soon!