January 2014 - Of Life and Lacquer

Month: January 2014

Of Life and Lacquer > 2014 > January

Nubar 2010

Posted on 31 January, 2014 by Cynthia

The one bit of good news that I got at my doctor’s office today is that I have an upper respiratory infection which doesn’t require any meds besides the usual OTC stuff. I am still pretty darn miserable right now and can’t stop sneezing and blowing my nose so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go to work tomorrow again. This morning I slept through my alarm so I didn’t even call in sick on time. I think I might have taken a wee bit too much Nyquil last night so I was knocked out cold. I’ve been so sick lately which is NOT normal for me. I have another appointment with my primary doctor on Monday so we can go over all my meds and see if anything needs to be changed. Since I finally got health insurance through work, I am going to get back on track with all of my meds so now I need to get myself ready for many rounds of bloodwork–my favorite! NOT! Anyway, I’m just glad I can actually go to the doctor again without it costing me an arm and a leg. Isn’t it sad how having health insurance feels like a treat? Everyone should have affordable health insurance…this topic just pisses me off so much so I’ll just drop it.

So the other day I was looking at some of my Nubars, and I realized that I had never really posted about my very first flaky polish ever: Nubar 2010. Oh the travesty! Let’s take a look at this lovely polish, shall we?

Normally, I like to layer Nubar 2010 over a dark base, but today I decided to try it out over Morgan Taylor Lost In Paradise. Have I told you lately how much I love Morgan Taylor Cremes? This one is so incredibly gorgeous!

This is two coats of Nubar 2010 over Lost In Paradise. So pretty, right? This makes me wish that I hadn’t missed out on all of the Finger Paints flaky polishes. I’m still not over that one!!!

Tomorrow I have another stamping mani to share with you so I hope that you stop by to check it out. I’m not feeling too hot right now so I’m going to cut this short. Thanks so much for the visit, and I will talk to you soon.

China Glaze City Flourish Collection Spring 2014 – Pollen In Love

Posted on 30 January, 20145 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Pollen in Love? I find this second half of the collection pretty ironic right now because I’m basically dying over allergies right now. It could be a combination of allergies and a cold because they seem to be overlapping somehow. I am grateful that I don’t have a cough because once that happens, I know I’m a goner. So yesterday I showed you the first half of the China Glaze City Flourish Collection which you can check out here. Are these just as disappointing? I know you’re on pins and needles, so let’s take a look at the swatches, and I will discuss them at the end.

China Glaze What A Pansy

China Glaze Thistle Do Nicely

China Glaze Strike A Rose

China Glaze Metro Pollen-Tin

China Glaze Grass Is Lime Greener

China Glaze Don’t Honk Your Thorn

Well, sadly these are pretty disappointing as well…3 of them, at least. Strike A Rose, What A Pansy and Don’t Honk Your Thorn are not weird creme mattes–they are more like traditional cremes and apply infinitely more easily. I only needed 2 coats for these three and I found them very nice, actually. I love the purple color of What A Pansy but strangely, my favorite one is Don’t Honk Your Thorn. You may think it’s a boring choice, but it’s actually really stunning in real life. It has a gorgeous silver shimmer that gives it a glowy quality. It looks very classy and work appropriate but not boring. My favorite combination! The other three polishes: Thistle Do Nicely, Grass Is Lime Greener and Metro Pollen-tin had the same thin, streaky and goopy formula that I hated so much in yesterday’s polishes. It’s really quite a shame because Grass Is Lime Greener is my favorite color from this whole collection, but the formula just made it a pain to use. From this 12 piece collection, Metro Pollen-Tin had the absolute worst formula. It was the streakiest thing ever! Now, let’s get into my overall thoughts: I don’t have time for streaky ass polishes. A lot of people recommend applying a coat of white polish underneath these. While I understand this and know of the technique, I am not going to baby a polish that much. These are not traditional jelly neons where they are going to really pop over a white base: these are creme brights that should not require a white base. Also, it’s not that they aren’t heavily pigmented…the formula is just impossible to work with. The polish doesn’t self-level at all so even when you think it looks good, you can clearly see the uneveness of the polish all over your nails. Even after I applied a thick coat of Seche Vite which helped a lot, you can still see how uneven the polish is. I give up! I know that there are people out there who don’t mind difficult formulas if the polishes are pretty enough, but these aren’t super original. As someone who does a lot of swatching, this collection took 3 times the normal time to swatch because I had to fiddle with my application so much…nope, not worth it for me. Let this collection be banished from my presence along with most of the 2013 Summer Neons, The Tranzitions and the Chrinkled Chromes. I have so much love for China Glaze because when my polish obsession first began, I turned to China Glaze for beautiful and affordable polishes so it really pains me to write a crappy review. However, I owe it to all of you to be honest and I hope that it is appreciated. Please, China Glaze–come back to me! Make me happy and giddy again with your superb collections. I am always willing to forgive and forget so I’ll be here just waiting for you to remind me why I fell in love with you to begin with.

This doesn’t have to be said, but I’ve also put up these polishes up on my blog sale in case you’re interested in trying them out. Thanks so much for taking the time to visit today, and I hope that you let me know what you think. If you’ve tried any of these, what are your thoughts? Do you let bloggers influence your shopping or would you rather try things out for yourself? Have a wonderful day, and I will talk to you soon!

P.S. Have you entered my current giveaway for a bottle of China Glaze BFF? No?! Go enter here! 😉

China Glaze City Flourish Collection Spring 2014 – Peonies & Park Ave

Posted on 29 January, 201428 January, 2014 by Cynthia

It’s that time of the year again! Spring collections are plentiful and I am always ALWAYS excited to see what China Glaze has to offer. When I saw the display for these polishes, I nearly expired because I wasn’t expecting them to be available just yet, especially because I still haven’t been able to find the Sea Goddess Collection…but that’s whole other story! As usual, this collection is a 12 piece collection made up of two sets so I will be swatching each set in a separate post. Since the formula and my application was exactly the same for every polish, I will show you the colors first and then I will share my thoughts. Let’s take a look at the China Glaze City Flourish Collection, shall we?

China Glaze At Vase Value

China Glaze In A Lily Bit

China Glaze Lotus Begin

China Glaze Peonies & Park Ave

China Glaze Petal To The Metal

China Glaze Spring In My Step

Ahhh….where to start with this collection? The colors are absolutely gorgeous and very Spring appropriate, but the formula. There are no words. These are definite application beasts. Like full on Satan urine in a bottle. Do you remember how horrible the formula of the neon collection from last year was? (You can read my review here.) Well, this is like round 2 of that collection. I had hoped that these polishes were straight cremes, but they are more like satin/mattes because the don’t dry shiny and tend to dry really quickly. Because of how quickly they dry, if you overwork them, they will get goopy and stringy. All of these polishes were streaky nightmares so I decided to take the same approach with all of them: 2 thin coats and a third thicker coat to smooth them out. Despite my best efforts, they were still uneven and gross-looking so I applied a thick coat of Seche Vite to try to smooth everything out. While they did even out, do you really want to baby a polish this much? As I recall, some people seemed to not have that many issues with last year’s polishes (uhm, yeah…), so maybe once again it’s just me who can’t get these to work. You may say that my swatches don’t necessarily speak to the problems I had with the formula, but trust me…they are pretty freaking difficult. I just wish they weren’t so damn pretty! Damn you, China Glaze!

I am still waiting for that next China Glaze collection that will blow my socks off like the On Safari Collection. Sadly, I think I will have to keep waiting. If you’re not phased by my review, you can purchase these polishes on my blog sale so check them out. Tomorrow I hope to have the other half of this collection done, and I am really hoping against hope that they are better but I won’t hold my breath. Don’t forget to let me know what you think of these polishes. Will you be picking these up? Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Kiko 383 Oil Blue

Posted on 28 January, 2014 by Cynthia

My allergies are killing me today. My nose is literally dripping like a leaky faucet and now it’s so raw that it hurts to even touch it. I don’t know why I decided to go to old and dusty places after work because this just aggravated my misery. I did manage to find some cool stuff so I guess not all is lost. I wasn’t going to post today but then I realized that I have posted every day this month and I wanted to keep the momentum going. The polish I have for you today is a bit of a chameleon so let’s take a look at Kiko 383 Oil Blue.

You know I love blues, so I love this. The one frustrating thing is that this polish just refuses to photograph accurately. In real life, this is like a dark smoky teal but here it just looks like a vibrant blue. Either way, it’s beautiful and the formula is everything I have come to except from Kiko: super buttery and very pigmented so this is opaque with two coats.

Since I’ve been trying to use striping tape a lot more lately, I decided to use it here to make a simple design. The possibilities are endless when trying out a design like this and any matte top coat will here. Here I used my Nicole by OPI Matte Top Coat (press sample) which I have been using a lot lately.

Tonight I’ve been working on swatching one half of the new China Glaze Spring 2014 Collection so I hope to have that up for you tomorrow. I was so excited when I saw this at my local nail place so I basically grabbed one of each and took off like a lunatic. I still haven’t been able to get my hands on the Sea Goddess Collection which is starting to irritate me, but I know I will get it eventually. Anyway, I hope you’re all doing well, and I will talk to you soon!

OPI Ink Suede

Posted on 27 January, 201426 January, 2014 by Cynthia

Yep, it’s Monday–my least favorite day of the week for a variety of reasons. Having to wake up at 4:00 am for work doesn’t help either.

That’s a pretty normal reaction, right? Given the fact that I had such a great day of polish finds yesterday, I’m going to try to look on the bright side and just focus on getting through the day. The weather has turned here again so I’m kind of happy about that because I was definitely missing the cooler temperatures. I am also hoping that we get some much needed rain because otherwise we are going to have a really terrible wildfire season this year. So yesterday I shared with you how I found two amazing polishes and now I am sharing the beautiful OPI Ink Suede.

After using this beauty, I can completely understand why people are crazy over these suede polishes. The formula was absolute perfection as it was easy to apply and control. It is very pigmented so you could almost get away with one coat, but I applied a second coat for my swatches. Since it is a matte type polish, it dries super fast so make sure that you don’t overwork it.

I am going to make a habit of going to dusties maybe once a month to see what else I can find. I’m really trying super hard to cut back on polish spending so I am going to limit myself to a few here and there instead of my usual massive hauls. Since I was able to get 2 bottles of this lovely polish, I have put the second one up on my blog sale. I have added quite a few oldies on there this weekend such as China Glaze Channelesque, China Glaze BFF and now OPI Ink Suede. Make sure that you check it out if you’re interested in getting these or other polishes. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

China Glaze BFF…or the best Sunday EVER!

Posted on 26 January, 201426 January, 2014 by Cynthia

You know when you’re having a shitty week and then you’re looking forward to one thing and it kind of doesn’t happen and then the crushing disappointment is so bitter that you just want to crawl under a rock? Yep, that happened to me yesterday. It’s going to sound silly, but all I had been wanting all week was to get my hands on the China Glaze Sea Goddess Collection so when that didn’t happen on Saturday, I was so incredibly disappointed. It wasn’t so much about the polish but about one more disappointing thing happening this week. So today I woke up early because I needed to run some errands and wash poor Basil because he was so gross and dirty. Yesterday I didn’t recognize my own car because it was so dingy so I definitely needed to go to the car wash. After that, I decided to go to a few dusties that I haven’t visited in a long time. At first I thought that I was just looking for the Sea Goddess Collection, but I ended up just scoping out all their old polish. I don’t think that you will truly understand what happened when I stumbled upon these two…

Yep, this is OPI Ink Suede and China Glaze BFF. I must have squealed like a tween at a Justin Bieber concert because one of the owners came over to see what the problem was and asked me if I was ok. Of course I turned around and this happened:

I grabbed them and ran out of the store like I had just found the holy grail. I was so excited that I was literally shaking. Is this normal? I think other polish freaks will say yes, but most normal people would probably say there is something seriously wrong with me. Oh well…who cares. I got my polish. So let’s take a look at my swatches of China Glaze BFF and see if it was worth all my spazing.

Ok, this is not the color I was expecting. I thought BFF was supposed to be a deeper hotter pink….right? Thanks to google, I learned that it appears that there were 2 formulas: one that was hot pink/purple, which is the one I wanted, and this one which appears more pink/brown/salmon. To be honest, I think this one is really beautiful as well so I’m not going to get all bummed about it. If anything, the high of seeing that label is going to keep me pumped for at least another day. hahaha! As my pictures show, the polish can look a little different depending on the lighting but that holo effect is really strong. It’s not very sunny here today so I couldn’t take any pictures in direct sunlight, but I bet it’s going to be awesome! The formula is a little tricky because it’s super easy to create bald spots if you’re not careful. Initially I tried to apply it over a ridge filling basecoat because I have some nasty ridges going on, but it applied really poorly. Once I applied it on my bare nails, it was much easier to work with.

And because I want to share the happiness of finding a polish that I thought I would NEVER get without resorting to evilbay, I am going to give away one bottle of China Glaze BFF to one lucky reader (yep, i got more than 1 bottle!!! lol) In order to enter, just use the rafflecopter widget below. This giveaway is open internationally, but please make sure that you don’t enter if you know your country has strict restrictions on shipping this type of product.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

So what do you think about this polish? I know it’s not the hot pink I was expecting, but it’s still beautiful. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend and good luck if you decide to enter the giveaway. Talk to you soon!

Stamping Saturdays #3

Posted on 25 January, 201425 January, 2014 by Cynthia

Hello there and welcome to Stamping Saturdays! I was planning to get this written and posted earlier in the day, but I just didn’t have time to do anything while I was at work this morning. After that, I went to a couple of nail places but didn’t really find anything….except a few bottles of Channelesque! Yayyy for backups!!!! For today’s stampicure, I started out with my base color of Channelesque which I reviewed here.

Yep, you know I love this color! Because I wanted to make Channelesque a little blingy, I added one thin coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire on top of it.

I know that this looks uneven, but I didn’t really care because I was going to stamp over it anyway. Doesn’t it look pretty with that purple and sparkly tinge?

I am a huge fan of houndstooth print in everything (nails, clothes, shoes) so I decided to use Pure Ice Silver Mercedes to stamp on the houndstooth design from plate BM-322. I absolutely love how this turned out. I wish that that the beautiful base stood out more, but when I went outside with this design, it was like my nails were glowing.

What do you think of this design? I’m already starting to plan my design for next week because I have so many ideas! I hope you’re having a nice weekend so far and thanks so much for stopping by today. Also don’t forget to check out my other girls’ designs. Talk to you soon.

Amanda from Mae’s Beauty

Siobhan from For The Love Of Nail Art

China Glaze Channelesque

Posted on 24 January, 2014 by Cynthia

Since you’re here, you are probably a polish freakazoid like me so you will understand my excitement regarding today’s polish. Since I came into this obsession later in life (early 30’s), I missed out on TONS of amazing collections. I still want to cry tears of regret when I think of how amazing my local beauty supply stores must have been about 10 years ago. When the polish bug hit me in 2010/2011, I began to explore my local dusties but didn’t really know what was considered a HTF polish nor did I know how valuable they were. I’m sure that I passed up some amazing finds, but I can’t dwell too much on that because I will just get annoyed. Eventually I got smart and started making a wishlist of polishes I would love to have and always carried it with me—just in case. Imagine my surprise and joy when I came across a super old stash of polishes and amongst those dusty and rejected bottles, I spotted a few gems that made my heart skip a beat. Amongst the rubble of collections past, I found 2 of my biggest China Glaze lemmings: Who’s Wearing What? and Channelesque. Let’s take a look at Channelesque, shall we?

China Glaze Channelesque is a dusty lavender taupe mushroom-y dream. This color is so beautiful so I can imagine what a revelation it must have been when it first came out in 2004. Sadly, like so many gorgeous shades, it was discontinued. I had previously read that the formula was amazing: smooth, pigmented and opaque. WRONG! I don’t know if the polish change a bit in the bottle since it’s so old, but it was super streaky and goopy. In fact, it applied so poorly that I took off the polish and added a few drops of thinner to the bottle for round 2. The thinner made a world of difference because it applied so well this time around. For my swatches, I applied 2 coats and a coat of Seche Vite for extra shine.

Do you have any polishes that are on your major lemming list? How do you go about acquiring long discontinued polishes? I hate going to evilbay because the pricing is mostly ridiculous on there, so I try to go to local places. I’ve pretty much given up on getting certain polishes like those from the OMG! Collection, but I do think that some of my dusties have tons of hidden gems. One place in particular must have thousands of polishes, and I think I would need a whole day to go through that store. Anyway, I am planning to go to one of my nail places tomorrow hoping that they have some new collections…particularly the Sea Goddess Collection. I’m kind of excited about those! Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for another installment of Stamping Saturdays; I can’t wait to show you my mani! I hope you’re having a nice day, and I will talk to you soon!

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

Posted on 23 January, 2014 by Cynthia

Remember when the OPI The Amazing Spider-man Collection came out? Yeah, me neither. The one thing I do remember is going super nuts over OPI Spotted which was a French exclusive. I did manage to get a bottle of this through my French polish fairy, Sabrina, and I was super excited to try it out. I recall purchasing two polishes from the collection but they sat there collecting dust for a while. When I finally got around to trying them out, I was floored. OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls is such a beautiful polish that instantly became a favorite. Let’s take a look at my swatches below.

The beauty of this polish lies in the beautiful creaminess and gloss of this slightly greyed white. It doesn’t have that stark white and chalky look that some white polishes tend to have so it’s a lot more wearable. Since this is a white polish, I was expecting an application beast, but it was fine with three thin coats. The first coat is a little scary because of the streakiness, but it evens out nicely. You may not think this is anything special, but I assure you that it’s absolutely stunning in person.

Today I was thinking about making slow changes in my diet stuff. Since I was reading Marlena’s blog, I liked that she was talking about making slow changes. My first change is to not use the vending machines at work. Even when I think I am making a healthy choice with trail mix or something of the like, I am just a button away from those bags of Cheetos. I love Cheetos. I can’t be around them. So that’s my plan for this week. Small changes seem more manageable and those small changes will add up to big results over time. I think that my biggest hurdle is giving up coke. I drink about 2-3 diet cokes each day which I know is way too much. I do drink a lot of water and I like iced tea, but I just can’t seem to give up soft drinks. I love the carbonation and I love the coke taste. Uuughhh! If you’ve given up soft drinks, let me know if you have any advice or tips. So how’s your Thursday going? Mine has been pretty meh so far, and I’m already looking forward to my next day off. Thanks for the visit today, and I’ll catch up with you later.

Geometric Gumdrops

Posted on 22 January, 2014 by Cynthia

Does calling Wednesday “Hump Day” annoy you? It usually doesn’t annoy me but for some reason I cringed when I typed it out. Maybe it’s the fact that my pseudo-diet is putting me in a shitty mood cause I want to eat junk. So how is my diet going, you ask?

Yep, just like that. Now that I’m feeling a little better, I’m going to start incorporating going to the gym after work. I think that’s going to help me in a lot of different ways especially to relieve stress and just put me in a better frame of mind. Let’s hope that all happens and that I don’t end up sad and eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.

The other day I was talking with some friends about this bare nail design that Chalkboard Nails did with some Nicole by OPI Gumdrops so I totally wanted to do something in that same vein. This is what I came up with:

For this design, I used Nicole by Opi My Cherry Amour and A-nice Treat and some stripping tape. All I did was to apply the tape in a criss-cross pattern and then carefully filled in the areas with the two polishes. Lastly I applied a silver stud in the middle because I felt that really finished off the look. I really like how this turned out! I’m getting more excited about doing more than just swatching so I hope that you guys like this.

So what are you up to today? I have work tomorrow so I’m getting ready for that…after being off/sick for the last 5 days, it’s going to be rough! My little nephew is coming over tonight so I’m excited to see him. On Monday he had his 2 month check up and he also got some vaccines. Here’s a recent picture of him:

He’s being very scratchy lately so you can see the little nicks on his nose and cheek. Isn’t he freaking adorable?? Anyway, I hope you’re doing well today, and I’ll catch up with you later.