March 2015 - Of Life and Lacquer

Month: March 2015

Of Life and Lacquer > 2015 > March

Cirque Colors Metropolis Collection April 2015

Posted on 31 March, 2015 by Cynthia

Can you believe this is the last day of March? Where does time go? I’ve been away for most of March but even though I haven’t been posting, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been painting my nails like a crazy person. It felt pretty good to just paint my nails and not have to worry about writing up posts and such. Now that we are entering a new month, that means there are two new beauties to add to the Cirque Colors Metropolis Collection! Aren’t you excited? I really look forward to these monthly releases because Cirque Colors does cremes like nobody’s business. Let me show you the two beauties for April.

Cirque Colors Sunset Park

Cirque Colors Vigo

Yes, they are gorgeous. Yes, the formula is perfection. Yes, you need these. Any questions? I am already excited about seeing next month’s colors–am I weird? These beauties will be available April 1st so make sure to check them out. What do you think of these lovely shades? Thanks for the visit and talk to you soon.

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Colores de Carol for Live Love Polish

Posted on 30 March, 201529 March, 2015 by Cynthia

I am really happy about finally being back on track with my blogging. I spent a good chunk of time on Sunday swatching, editing pictures and putting posts together. I made a pretty big dent in my swatching pile (I only have 6 polishes pending right now!), but about 20 more are arriving this week so I’m back where I started. haha I guess that’s not a horrible problem to have, but it can get a bit overwhelming to someone like me since I’m so anal about staying organized. In any case, I hope that I can stay on track with my blogging and swatching because I really miss doing it. I am definitely glad that I took a month to recharge my batteries because we are getting super close to the release of summer collections which always blow me away. Today I have some glittery beauties to share with you. These 4 glitter-dense polishes are my very first from the Colores de Carol brand and they also happen to be limited editions and exclusive to Live Love Polish. Let me show you how blingtastic they are!

These holographic glitter polishes are very pretty and in my opinion work better layered over a solid color base. Since the glitter is so dense, you can wear them alone but be warned that you will need multiple coats to get fully opaque coverage. It is recommended to use the sponge method if you will be using these on their own otherwise you may end up with very thick coats on your nails. For my swatches below, I applied 1 coat of each glitter over a similar color base–no top coat needed.

Colores de Carol Gatsby

Colores de Carol Don Draper

Colores de Carol Harvey Specter

Colores de Carol Dexter

So what do you think? While these glitters first struck me as being super basic, I ended up really liking them especially over the colored bases. I bet that there are a bunch of different colors that these will look good over. You can purchase these polishes over at Live Love Polish for $12 each or you can purchase the 4 piece set for $39, and you get free shipping on orders of $20 or more. These are LE so make sure to grab them before they’re gone if you want them. If I could only have one of them, I would go with Gatsby just because I love green glitter and because The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels of all time. I’ll leave you with the final lines of the novel:

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning ——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Is there a The Great Gatsby nail polish collection out there? Cause I’d buy it! I’d also like to see someone do a Cien años de soledad collection, but I think that would be as impossible as Essie doing that The Office collection but we can all dream, right? Anyway, I’d better stop here before I start raving about Invisible Man and Catcher In The Rye. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

The Lacquer Ring – Negative Space

Posted on 26 March, 201525 March, 2015 by Cynthia

Hey! I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaack! I’m trying really hard to get into blogging again because I am not going to start April with this slump so I decided to participate in today’s prompt for The Lacquer Ring. Nicole chose negative as her design prompt and you know I was moaning and groaning because negative space is totally not something I normally like. I guess one of the awesome things about doing these prompts is that we try new things or things we don’t usually want to try. Let me show you what I decided to do:

This beautiful polish is Illamasqua Dedicate. Have I told you how much I love Illamasqua? I used stripping tape and nail vinyls to create the negative space designs. It’s a very basic mani–almost too basic, but I wasn’t really feeling the inspiration to do anything too complicated.

Anywho, I’m keeping this post short but have tons of things in the works. I’m really pushing myself to get worked up of April so wish me luck. How do you feel about negative space manis? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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Where Have You Been?

Posted on 15 March, 2015 by Cynthia

A few people asked me why I haven’t been blogging or posting on IG and Facebook lately so I figured I’d say something since I am still around. I’ve decided to take a little break. At first it was a forced break because my nails were so damaged that swatching sessions were out of the question, but now I’m feeling ok about giving myself some time to recharge. Slowly all the damage is growing out on my swatching hand so I think it will take another couple of months before I see all the buffing damage gone. Additionally, I went on a no-buy for Lent so I haven’t purchased any polish since early February and won’t until early April. My brother made fun of me since I am still technically getting some polish via press samples, but it’s nowhere near the amount I normally purchase on my own. There have been a few moments of painful uncertainty and I have almost broken my no-buy twice, but now I am 100% sure that I will stick it out.

For the next few weeks I won’t be posting regularly, but I do have a few draft posts that I’ll be publishing this coming week. Other than that, I will enjoy my break and I hope to see you guys when I’m back. I do have some items that I need to swatch, so I’ll get to it as soon as my nails begin to cooperate again. It’s been crazy hot here–like in the mid 90’s–so I’m kind of in a pissy mood altogether. It’s March for God’s sake–not freaking August! Sometimes I really hate California weather.

Anyway, thanks for still coming by even when I’m being a bad blogger. You guys are the best. See you around and I’ll be back soon with a more regular blogging schedule!

The Lacquer Ring – Green

Posted on 12 March, 201511 March, 2015 by Cynthia

I am super lucky that I’ve had this post in my drafts for a few weeks because I might have crapped out otherwise. I’ve been sucking big time at blogging lately because I’ve just had so many things going on that blogging/doing my nails was just not that important to me. I’ve just felt out of it, but slowly I am getting back on my feet and hope to get back on a more regular schedule. I really do miss posting, but you can’t force yourself when you’re not feeling up to it. So today I am back with another edition of The Lacquer Ring and today Nicole has chosen the color green. How appropriate with Saint Patrick’s Day and all! You know what I’ll be doing this weekend? Have 5 million Guinness Milkshakes. Yep. Anyway, let me show you the green I decided to use. Dermelect Renegade 1 This is Dermelect Renegade which I also picked up at Ulta a while back for like $0.40…haha! I know, right? It’s a really pretty jade green which a pretty nice formula. It’s easily opaque at two coats and it is sooooo shiny! Dermelect Renegade 3 I then used Illamasqua Scorch to add some blobs all over my nails. This ended up looking very prehistoric egg-like to me and then Amy said they looked like Yoshi nails so there you go…Yoshi nails!

Anyway, I hope your doing well and that you excuse my random posting. I really hope I can get back in the swing of things soon. I’ve just been feeling way too dumpy, sensitive and just tired. I’m sure I’ll get through this slump soon so thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for stopping by, and I will talk to you soon.

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Winners Announced – 3 Year Blogiversary Giveaway

Posted on 11 March, 2015 by Cynthia

Hi everyone! This is just a quick post to announce the winners of my 3 year Blogiversary Giveaway. Thank you so much to all the people who entered and thank you for being patient. I really haven’t had much time or desire to do much blog related things as of late but I really hope this slump is just temporary. I did have a lot of things going on and unfortunately blogging had to take a back seat. Anyway, I’m very happy to announce the winners now. The 5 lucky ladies are…….
a Rafflecopter giveaway

They have all been emailed and I am just now waiting for their responses. Congratulations!

Just as a side note: if you have followed me for a while, you know that I tend to do a fair share of giveaways because I really enjoy giving back to you guys. A lot of the times I buy the prizes with my own money and sometimes they are donated by some of the awesome brands I am lucky enough to work with. I appreciate all of the support I receive and I really enjoy interacting with all of you. I tend to be fairly quick with announcing winners and getting prizes sent out, so I apologize for taking about a week and a half to announce winners. It just wasn’t a good time for me and I haven’t been doing much blogging lately. So anyway, I just want to thank those of you where patient.

If you didn’t win one of the prizes, I’m sorry–but you now what? There’s always another giveaway! Once I get my act together and get a change to swatch the Hawaii Collection, I have an extra set that will be up for grabs so be on the lookout for that.

Thank you for making this a great three years, and I hope to annoy you all for another 3 with more of my nail polish shenanigans. 🙂