Author: Cynthia

Of Life and Lacquer > Articles by: Cynthia

Sunday Fun Day?

Posted on by Cynthia

I am such a polish loser. I keep saying that I need to stop buying so much nail polish, but I fail spectacularly every single time. I know that a strict no-buy doesn’t really work for me because all the pent-up pressure just makes me go on gargantuan binges which pretty much put me back in the negative. Sooo…what should I do? Maybe limit myself to a couple of bottles per week? (Sounds like I’m talking about alcohol!) I think I need an intervention.

This is what I ended up getting at the Walgreens sale. The colors I picked up are: Glass Pink, Winterberry (2), Kissy, Nail Junkie, Let’s Meet, Rain Storm, Ciao Bella, Savage, Blue By You, Slate, Why Not, Leap Flog, San Francisco and Irish Green.  After this purchase, I am awaiting delivery of my first a-england polishes, and I am so excited.  I can’t wait to get them. At this point, I really need to back off the polish purchases. I know this is a lot of unhealthy retail therapy, and I need to find a new outlet and coping mechanism.

Since I spent all morning/afternoon cleaning like a maniac, I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. By the time I finished, it was 4 pm and I was starving. But…polish first! I went to Walgreens to get my polishes and then, as I was driving back home, I saw that a new sandwich place had opened up so I stopped to check it out. Well, I ended up getting this:

This is a philly cheesesteak in all its delicious gooeyness. I could actually feel it coating my arteries as I consumed it. Here’s another thing that I’m going to seriously work on: no more eating out. I really enjoy cooking so I think it would be very beneficial–financially and health-wise–to stop eating out. I’ve been eating way too much junk lately and haven’t been to the gym in weeks…this is NOT good.  This new sandwich place claimed to have authentic philly cheesesteaks. Now, I’ve never been to Philadelphia (airport doesn’t count) so I don’t know how authentic this is, but it sure was yummy with the mushrooms, onions, peppers and cheese. Why is everything that goes directly to my thighs have to taste so good??

I have a few more manicures to share and then I am completely out of backlogged manis. My nails are still painfully short so I haven’t been doing too much with them so I’m probably going to take a little break from the nail posts until my nails grow out. I do have some other stuff I want to share like my make up and polish storage so I may do that. I haven’t really been writing too much personal stuff lately and there is a post that I have had in my drafts for weeks, but I just haven’t posted it because it’s so personal. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever expressed what I wrote in that post to anyone in my life so it makes me nervous even though there is “some” anonymity to this blog still.

Lastly, a friend posted this on Facebook, and I just thought it was the most inappropriately brilliant thing I had ever seen:

I apologize if you find this offensive, but I still think it’s hilarious.

I hope you have had a nice weekend and don’t forget to enter my latest giveaway! It’s over in a few days. 🙂

Under The Sea?

Posted on by Cynthia

Who doesn’t love the little Mermaid? I was so in love with this movie when I was a kid and I still love the music from it. Disney animated movies seriously have the best songs. Anyway, the reason why I was reminded of this song is because the following nail color and stamp combination kind of reminded me of bubbles under the ocean. Maybe you won’t see it, but I totally feel a bubbly aquatic vibe from them.

I started with Sation Miss McTeal as my base color.

What a beautiful color, right?  Then I stamped over it, albeit sloppily.

I like how this looks but I wish the stamping was crisper. What’s the point in having the special Konad polishes if my stamping is still going to look blurry? Ugh! I did this mani about a week ago so I feel like I’m past my stamping low, and I finally got my mojo back.

Earlier in the week I cut my nails down to the nub. In fact, I over cut them in the sense that they actually hurt. There is no white part showing on my nails and they are freaking painful. I don’t know why I did that…it was a moment of short nails frenzy. That means that I haven’t done my nails for most of this week now and I’m ok with that since I’m still trying to nurse my shorties back to health. I do NOT recommend doing this; I doubt anyone is dumb enough except me. Oh, here is a funny story: One time my mom and dad got into an argument (my parents only have two volume settings: loud and LOUDER) so my dad was angry and he had one too many beers that evening. Later that night my mom cut his toe nails as short as she possibly could. I don’t know how she came up with this idea, but it was brilliant! The next day my dad couldn’t figure out why his toes hurt so much when he walked since he couldn’t remember anything happening the night before. My parents are crazy…and then they wonder why I am the way I am. I think my parents have such a unique relationship. They’ve been married 34 years and they fight/bicker every single second of the day yet they can’t live without each other. My dad has the most explosive temper on the planet (thanks Dad for passing that along to me!) and my mom is the queen of the naggers. Can you imagine what that’s like? When they come to visit, it is like they are a 24/7 live comedy show. It no longer bothers me because all I can do is laugh at their antics. Despite their “unique” relationship, they are the most loving parents anyone could ask for. 🙂

Before I forget, I wanted to show you how I finally organized my stamping plates. This was such a pain in the rear to get done. I had to put up little squares of contact liner to place inside each pocket so the plates don’t slide out. I’ve seen quite a few people do this and I thought it was a great idea!

How do you store your plates? Speaking about plates, I only have a bunch of Konad plates and the newest Bundle Monster plates so I was wondering if anyone has any other plate recommendations. Let me know! I’d love to hear about your favorite plates.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

P.S. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway for a second chance to win the WnW Saved By The Bell nail polish collection.

 

Round 2: Wet N Wild Saved By The Bell Polish Collection Giveaway!

Posted on by Cynthia

Edit 7/26/2012: GIVEAWAY CLOSED & WINNER ANNOUNCED HERE

Because of the positive response to my first giveaway, I decided to hunt down another set of polishes for a second giveaway. It was way harder this time because most of the CVS stores I went to had just a couple of colors left. Thankfully, I did get a complete set! Since I decided to make my first giveaway US only, I am opening this up to US and Canada residents.

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I hope I see some entries from my lovely Canadian polish sisters! Please click on the link below to enter via Rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway starts today and will close on 7/27/2012 at 12:01 am EST. It’s a bummer to hear that so many people are having a hard time finding this collection so I’m happy to get this for one of you. Good luck everyone!

YOU WON!!!! WNW SBTB Collection Giveaway

Posted on by Cynthia

Kirsten K. come on down…you are about to compete in The Price Is…wait…no…You won the 6 piece Wet N Wild Saved By The Bell Collection!

  

 

I have sent Kirsten an email and have asked her to contact me before Sunday to claim the prize. If I don’t hear back from her, I will pick a new winner.

I want to thank all the lovely ladies who entered. It has been a blast getting to know some of you through your own blogs. I love it and hate it because now I am seeing even more polishes to drool over!!! I hope you will all continue to visit every now and then–you will always be welcome!

–Cynthia

American Classic California Copper

Posted on by Cynthia

Never in a million years did I think I would actually like this color, but I do because it’s so rich and pretty! If you’ve read my previous posts about American Classic, you know that I am still trying to figure out where this phantom brand comes from. I haven’t given up, but I’ve just been too preoccupied with other things to really put in the time into making phone calls and such. Oh well…I choose to just enjoy the nail polish for now and worry about its origins later. The brush for this bottle was way wonky. Actually, it was the plastic stick that hold the brush that was deformed and somewhat bent. It didn’t really interfere with the application of the polish so it’s not a big deal.

Does this qualify as a frost? Normally I am not a big fan of frost finishes and rarely purchase them, but this one looked so different from anything else I own that I couldn’t resist. It almost makes me think of molten magma…I said almost, okay?

 

Here I used plate BM 313 with the black special polish. I have been a little annoyed lately because I have been messing up my stamping a lot. I don’t get it! I hate it when it gets all smudged. Since my nails aren’t too curved, I’m going to stop rolling the stamper and just stamp the crap out of my nail by just pressing down. Hopefully that works better.
It was so hot today. Ugh! My brother and I went to Red Robin for dinner (Yum!) and I got a grilled chicken caesar salad wrap…it was so good. I hadn’t had a wrap in a long time. and it really hit the spot.

 

The giveaway is ending in less than an hour…I can’t wait to see who will win. 🙂

OPI DS Signature

Posted on by Cynthia

What is it with the weather? It was so humid today that I didn’t even attempt to do anything with my hair despite the fact that I had to go grocery shopping. I am a brunette Annie today! I really want to let my hair grow out, but days like this make me want to cave and get my usual pixie/faux-hawk/pompadour cut.  Do you even know how easy it is to manipulate short hair? My hair is wavy and easily holds a curl with the right product or straightens out nicely if I put in the effort. However, my hair, in this humid weather, looks something like this:

     

Just shorter.  Ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Anyway, since the weather wasn’t cooperating I wasn’t feeling good at all so I did what I love to do when I’m feeling crap-o-licious: I cleaned and I did a few loads of laundry. I am a meticulous laundry folder (thank you Martha Stewart for teaching me how to fold fitted sheets properly!) so I had “fun” folding all my clothes, rolling up my underwear…yes, I have a system of rolling my panties and arrange them by categories I have devised. No, I won’t go into that because you might run away screaming.

Enough of my idiosyncrasies and on to the polish du jour!

Isn’t she purdy? The pictures above were taken in a light box so it was really hard to capture all the holo magic. Below, I took three more pictures in direct sunlight.

The last picture here is blurry because I felt you could see the holo a little better. The linear holo on this polish is nowhere near as crazy amazing as the Layla holos produce, but this is still really pretty. I wasn’t that into nail polish when the original OPI DS line came out so I never thought I’d own these  without having to pay crazy eBay prices (which I refuse to do). You can’t even imagine how psyched I was when I found a few bottles of these at one of my dusties. I got this one and DS Sapphire which I will be trying in the near future, but I can already tell that I will love it. After I purchased these, I went back and picked up two more bottles to use for a giveaway. 🙂 Since I’m so lucky to have such amazing dusty luck, I want to spread the luck and love!

How have things been in your corner of the world? I can barely wait for fall and not just for the nail polish collections. By the way, can you tell me what show “Jeannie Bad Perm Victim” appeared on? (Hint: Show within a Show…no, not Hamlet.)

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. 🙂