Cynthia, Author at Of Life and Lacquer

Author: Cynthia

Of Life and Lacquer > Articles by: Cynthia

The Beauty Buffs – Holiday Inspired

Posted on 3 December, 20142 December, 2014 by Cynthia

How many of you have put up your holiday decorations at home? To be honest, I don’t think I’m even going to get a Christmas tree this year because I am just not in the mood to go through the process of unpacking everything. Am I a killjoy? Meh. Instead, I will wear extra festive nails which is why I was happy with our prompt for today. The Beauty Buffs are bringing you holiday inspired posts today so let me show you what I decided to do.

For my mani base, I needed a clean white color so I went with OPI Angel With A Leadfoot (press sample.) This crisp and clean white comes from the OPI Mustang Collection from earlier this year. It’s a nice white but the formula is pretty typical: super streaky on the first coat but buildable. I applied 3 coats for my mani to get full opacity.

I am super new to use decals, but I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try them. I decided to use the lights strand decals for my mani. I love that they are red because they look awesome against the white background. You can use these vinyls as decals or as stencils–let your creative juices flow. These particular nail vinyls are from KBShimmer (press sample) and can be purchased here for $5. What a steal for all the awesome designs you get!

The vinyls were super easy to use and I just cut them and applied them where I wanted the design to be. Because I wanted a little more bling, I decided to place some glitter on the bulbs.

I used Shimmer Alice (press sample) for the sparkle in the bulbs and I think it was a perfect choice. I really like how this turned out!

So are you into the holiday season yet or are you grouchy like me and don’t want to make the effort? Well, I hope you liked my holiday mani, and don’t forget to check out the other festive posts from my fellow Beauty Buffs. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talking to you soon.

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China Glaze Twinkle Collection Holiday 2014

Posted on 1 December, 2014 by Cynthia

It’s raining here on an off and I love it. We definitely need the rain because of the severe drought here in California, but sadly the showers don’t last very long. This seems to be ideal cozy weather, but I just want to get outside and jump in puddles. Remember how much fun that was when you were a kid? This morning I was rushing because I woke up late, and I had a doctor’s appointment at 9 am. My appointment went well, but as I had mentioned, I still have a long way to go but I am hopeful since I am moving in the right direction. So for today’s post, I have the China Glaze Twinkle Collection for Holiday 2014. Let me show you the 12 shades that make up the collection, and I’ll let you know what I think at the end.

China Glaze Tip Your Hat

China Glaze Out Like A Light

China Glaze No Peeking!

China Glaze Define Good…

China Glaze December to Remember

China Glaze I’d Melt For You

China Glaze De-light

China Glaze Dancing And Prancing

China Glaze Chillin’ With My Snow-mies

China Glaze Meet Me Under The Stars

China Glaze Feeling Twinkly

China Glaze Pine-ing for Glitter

This collection is the epitome of holiday in my eyes. All of these colors are perfect for the holiday season, but they aren’t terribly unique. I really like the glitters in this collection because they are just so sparkly. Shades like December to Remember are very interesting especially because it changes so much depending on the lighting and angle. These are all very pretty, but you probably already have something similar in your stash. I don’t really have anything negative to say about this collection overall, but it also didn’t wow me. What about you? What do you think about this collection? I’d love to hear what you think, so let me know in the comment below. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays Collection

Posted on 30 November, 20141 December, 2014 by Cynthia

Normally, this is the time when I would start lamenting that tomorrow is Monday and that I have to go to work, but not today because I have Monday off. Woot! Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, I feel like I can now bring out the holiday decorations without thinking that it’s way too early. Can you believe that tomorrow we will be entering the final month of 2014?! This is both exciting and depressing at the same time because I realize that one more year has gone by and I am still stuck in a rut–but hey, at least I’m alive. Anywho, today I’m showing the new Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays Collection which is made up of 6 glitter toppers. I picked some random colors to pair them with to show that they aren’t just for the holidays, so let me show you what they look like.

Pure Ice Bling On The Holidays

Pure Ice Feeling Ornamental

Pure Ice Gold Peppermints

Pure Ice Pure Icicles

Pure Ice Santa Marry Me

Pure Ice Winter Blues

I have to admit that I was a little underwhelmed when I saw this collection because they pretty much all looked the same to me, but I ended up really liking them. The thing about these polishes is that they can look incredibly different depending on what base color you use. Personally I really liked the outcome when I used a dark base–which is probably why Winter Blues is my favorite of them all. These polish are going to pretty much change your base color because the clear base is full of fine shimmer that gives your nails an icy look to them. And you know what the best part is? These retails for just under $2. Yep, you know I love me some expensive polish, but I am not a polish snob in the least. I love Pure Ice for their affordable and quality polish. If you want to get your hands on these, I recommend that you check your local Walmart. My Walmart is usually pretty well stocked when it comes to Pure Ice, but they do go fast. So what do you think about these shades? Will you be picking any of these up? Let me know what you think below. Thanks for the visit today, and I will talk to you soon.

Stamping Saturdays #45

Posted on 29 November, 2014 by Cynthia

Aaahhh this weekend is turning out pretty darn deliciously lazy. I haven’t really been sleeping in because I don’t want to completely throw off my schedule, but I have been lazying around pretty much all day. In fact, yesterday I didn’t change out of my pajama until I took a shower and put on a new pair before bedtime. hahaha! I haven’t done much today but I do have to go babysit the Peanut Brat tonight, so that will force me to at least shower, get dressed and comb my hair. I did manage to get my Stamping Saturdays mani done early last night, but I got lazy when it came to putting the post together–story of my life. So I ended up using an oldie: Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid.

Do you remember how people went bananas when Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid came out? I think this is a gorgeous polish that looks so classy and flattering. The formula on this baby is great and it only needed two coats for full opacity.

Since I wanted to keep the overall felling very delicate, I used Born Pretty plate BP-21 for this design along with Essie Nothing Else Metals for my stamping polish. I think this came out just the way I wanted it to. I am super pleased with all of the Born Pretty plates that I have used!

So what are you up to today? It’s pretty warm here like in the low 80’s but it’s really windy and sunny so I think it’s a lovely day. Well, I hope you’re enjoying your weekend, and I will talk to you soon!

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Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on 28 November, 2014 by Cynthia

Hey, how are you doing today? Since it was Thanksgiving here in the US yesterday, I hope all of my US readers had a very wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving. I know that there are many times when we complain (I complain a lot!) about work, finances, family, etc, but ultimately we are very fortunate. Sometimes I feel like I get bogged down by many things, and I just feel like I’m down in the pits. There are days when I sit here, wondering why the hell things have to be so hard and why my life resembles a Rube Goldberg machine of dysfunction. Lately I have been struggling a lot with my health issues so that tend to bring me down a lot. I had a blood test earlier in the week and I brought my a1c down two points in one month, so I know I am headed in the right direction, but I still have a long way to go before I know I am “good.” I think my biggest hurdle will be just getting back into exercising. I know that starting to exercise will help me immensley but since I’m usually feeling so physically and mentally exhausted, I have found it so incredibly hard to just get started. I am really hoping that this mini vacation I am taking right now (I’m off for 6 days!) will recharge me. Today I’m just being totally lazy and am waching tons of stuff on Netflix. I am currently obsessed with the 30 for 30 series on Netflix which is an ESPN series focusing on major athletes, teams and events. I totally recommend this series! I also felt like doing my nails so I went back to a polish that broke my heart: Tom Ford Bitter Bitch.

Isn’t the bottle sexy? I have this thing about Tom Ford: I love him and I hate him. When I first got my hands on Bitter Bitch, I was excited because 1) It was Tom Ford 2) It was Tom Ford 3) Bitter Bitch. Enough said. Well, the polish ended up being a huge disappointment.

Tom Ford Bitter Bitch was a polish I had been obsessing over so when I finally got my hands on it, I was expecting it to be amazing. When you pay $30 for a bottle of polish (now $32), you want a good formula. Well, that did not happen here. The formula is super streaky. I had to apply 4 coats for it to be fully opaque and to cover up sheer bald spots. Despite my initial disappointment, I don’t regret purchasing it because it was one of those pure lust purchases and the color is just like melted dark chocolate on my nails.

Since brown and gold is one of my favorite nail combinations, I applied one coat of Delush Polish Gilded Diva (press sample) over Bitter Bich and absolutely loved the results. I think Gilded Diva is such a beautiful gold polish and it’s such a unique combination of gold circle and hexes as well as blue and green glitter. I just love how all the colors pop against the dark base!

So what do you have planned for this long weekend? I’m not doing much except just hanging out. Tomorrow night I’m going to babysit my little Peanut so I’m looking forward to that. Well, I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and that you aren’t getting into too much shopping mayhem. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Delush Polish The Nue Collection

Posted on 24 November, 2014 by Cynthia

Let me tell you that I had a very interesting Sunday because the power went out at around 8ish in the morning and ended up not coming back on until like 7:30. It’s crazy how much we depend on electricity, right? Apparently the power company was upgrading some equipment and a notice had gone out last week, but I never got it. The power was supposed to be down from 8-4 but that wasn’t good enough so they tacked n another 3.5 hours just for shits and giggles. Ugh!!! Anyway, the one thing I learned was that I need to be better prepared with things like flashlights and candle in case there is ever a real emergency and the power is out for an extended period of time. I am glad that I got a lot of swatching done on Saturday because Sunday was pretty much lost. I went out to run some errand but considering it starts getting dark by 4:30, it was useless being home. So besides power outages, I do have some polish to share with you. I am excited to be sharing these with you because this is the first time I try Delush Polish. Big shocker, right? I feel like there are so many amazing brands out there that I just haven’t had a chance to try so I can cross Delush off that list now. Delush Polish The Nue Collection is a collaboration between Delush and Nue Magazine which is a fashion-focused publication. When I first saw the colors, I have to admit I wasn’t that excited but once I started swatching them, it was like they came alive. Let me show you my swatches before I tell you what I think of them.

Delush Polish Eat Sleep Chic

Delush Polish Gilded Diva

Delush Polish Trendsetter

Delush Polish Nue Girl

Delush Polish Glam Squad

Delush Polish In Nude We Trust

Here I was just playing around with three of the shades for this dotticure. I love dots so I just went for it!

This being my first experience with Delush, I have to tell you that I loved the quality of the polishes. The formula on all of them was perfection. The only one that gave me a slight problem was Eat Sleep Chic because I got some slight bubbling, but that was totally my fault because I overworked it a bit. All of these polish have a satiny finish and I decided not to top coat them because I loved the finish.

The collection will be launching together with Delush’s Holidaze Winter Collection on Wednesday 26th November at Noon est time along with the Black Friday sales! Full sizes will be available individually for $8.95 each or save with ordering the entire collection at the discounted price of $48. Minis will be available in small quantities.

Are you ready for some Delush promotions?

– Free Shipping for all orders over $50 on DelushPolish.com No code required, applies to U.S. Domestic orders only. Runs from 11/26 -12/31

– Two Free Full Size Polishes with a $60+ Purchase! Just leave a note with your color choices in your order. Order must reach $60 total after all promotional codes have been applied, does not include shipping. All other scratch your heart out promotions are suspended during this time. Runs from 11/26 -12/1

– Free Snowflake Glitter! The first 50 orders will receive a small bag of snowflake glitters to be able to use with their winter nail art!

Don’t miss out on this collection and all the promos! What do you think about this collection? Let me know in the comments what you think! Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

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Stamping Saturdays #44

Posted on 22 November, 2014 by Cynthia

I’m a little disappointed that I technically missed posting last week’s Stamping Saturdays mani on my blog. I was totally planning on doing it, but my friend came over and I made him wait like an hour while I did my mani. Then he was starving so I just forgot about writing up my post and we went out to eat. As I write this, it is around 2:30 am and I’m watching a JFK documentary on Neflix. Why? I have no idea. I love documentaries and apparently I can’t sleep tonight. Earlier in the evening I was out with two of my best girlfriends and I was almost falling asleep because I was so tired and now all of a sudden I can’t even sleep. It’s like when you were a kid and you’d be falling asleep in the living room and your parents would force you to go to bed. Then as soon as you got into bed, your eyes were wide open. My mom always makes fun of me because she says that my thing when I was a kid was that I would tell her: “Mom, I need to rest my eyes a little bit. I’ll be right back so we can watch TV.” And that little rest would last until the next day. I clearly remember thinking in my head that I would rest while the commercials were on and be back for the show or movie. I was probably 4 when I used to do this and my mom still jokes about it. Ahhh…kids! I don’t now why I went off on this tangent–maybe I really am tired and I’m delirious now. Hey, that could make for a super fun post…maybe. So, for today’s Stamping Saturdays I started out with a gorgeous base. Let me show you!

Kiko 389 Mint Milk is beeeeeuuuutiful. I recently heard that there are a few Kiko stores back east so that was exciting because hopefully we will get some here in California. LA, please. OC would be better. Just saying. Maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t have easy access to this brand because I can already predict some major craziness.

For my stamping design, I used one of my new Born Pretty plates BP-13. It’s a cute design and I think it goes great in black over this gorgeous minty blue. I am super impressed with the quality of these plates! I haven’t reviewed the full set I got yet, but that will be coming up soon.

So what do you think of this mani? I am really pleased with it! If you decided to join us for Stamping Saturdays, don’t forget to link up your blog post below or tag your posts with #stampingsaturdays so I can find you! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Beauty Buffs – Metallic

Posted on 19 November, 201419 November, 2014 by Cynthia

I’ll be the first one to tell you that I am not really excited by metallics. I have never been a fan of metallic nail polishes, but when I got China Glaze I’d Melt For You (press sample) I knew that it would be perfect for this prompt. Today The Beauty Buffs bring you everything metallic. Of course I am showing you a metallic–or chrome–polish because this is a nail blog, after all…at least I think it is. Let me show you the polish before I get into the finer details.

First off, I would like to explain that my nails look weird because I did some damage to my nail beds with some overzealous buffing and filing a few weeks ago. I accidentally made some grooves on the sides of my nails so now they look kind of warped. It’s not normally this noticeable, but this polish is a metallic/chrome which means that it shows EVER SINGLE IMPERFECTION on you nails. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the best polish choice but hey–my nails aren’t perfect and here is the proof. China Glaze I’d Melt For You (press sample) is one of the polishes from the Twinkle Holiday Collection that I will be reviewing soon. It’s a very opaque silver chrome

In order to jazz this up, I used a design from a new plate that I bought from Born Pretty. The design comes from plate BP-13. No you can really see how badly damaged my nail is because the stamp didn’t even transfer there. Boo! I am not going to buff it anymore and hopefully it will just grow out.

I should have had this post up early this morning but I was so tired last night that I literally passed out with my computer open on my bed. I woke up like 30 minutes late and barely got to work on time this morning–womp, womp. I was super happy to read your guys’ comments when I got home today so that made me want to post again and again and again. I have a few new collections to swatch so that’s going to keep me busy this weekend. Additionally, I have like 5 days off for Thanksgiving so that will give me a bunch of time to do nail stuff. I’m excited about that.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by today and don’t forget to check out all of the posts from my fellow Beauty Buffs below. Talk to you soon!

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Dollish Polish The Angels Have The Phone Box

Posted on 18 November, 2014 by Cynthia

It seems that every time I post I make a half-ass apology so today I’m just gonna say that I haven’t posted cause I just haven’t been in the mood. So simple! But, I do want to get back into the swing of things because I just realized that next month will be 3 year anniversary of starting this blog. Woah. That is quite an accomplishment for me because I am the queen of the quitters, so I definitely want to start posting regularly. A few weeks ago I got this gorgeous polish for my birthday from Frosso. I’m still mad at Frosso for retiring from blogging (not really, ok, yes…), but since we still pretty much message every day I am not completely distressed. Here is Dollish Polish The Angels Have The Phone Box.

Even with indoor lighting, this polish looks gorgeous. The formula seems a little thin at first but it builds up nicely.

And look how it comes alive in this lighting. It’s so pretty!!!! Blue. Scattered Holo. Doctor Who. I didn’t have a chance. Yes, I love this polish. I love it so hard.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, Frosso for the awesome gift. I have the most generous friends with the best taste in polish, don’t I? Tomorrow I have another post lined up for my return to The Beauty Buffs. I hope you come back to check it out. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Color Club Cloud Nine

Posted on 12 November, 2014 by Cynthia

I feel so very bad about my lack of posting lately. I’ve been feeling dumpy so my energy level has been at -10 so I haven’t even had the desire to sit down and write up a post. I had hoped that by this time I would feel better with all my new meds and all, but I’m still just feeling so lethargic. Since I didn’t have to work yesterday, I spent the day with Peanut and he wore me out! He doesn’t even walk yet, but he goes bonkers with the crawling so I spent all morning chasing him around and keeping him out of mischief. Today’s polish is one that I can’t believe I hadn’t picked up yet: Color Club Cloud Nine.

Color Club Cloud Nine is a beautiful addition to the Halo Hues Collections that basically blew everyone away. This polish may not look that awesome in indoor lighting, but look what happens to it in the sun or more direct lighting:

Bam! Look at the rainbow! Not only is this polish gorgeous, but the formula is also absolutely perfect. Please come out with another holo collection, Color Club!!! I will buy every single one!

I really hope that I start feeling better soon because I just miss being excited about blogging. I wish I had some energy to just feel good swatching and talking polish with you guys. I am trying to stay more active on Facebook because I love talking with all you guys. I am also going to start being a lot more active on Instagram now that I got my brand new phone which I am totally loving. Follow me on Instagram for nail stuff, Peanut updates and just general shenanigans. Here is a video of Peanut for your viewing pleasure:

http://instagram.com/p/vRL-hrIBBM/?modal=true

Isn’t he so precious? I took him to IHOP where he proceeded to eat half of my scrambled eggs and half a pancake. I love this little guy so much and he is such a good boy. In the video he was clapping because the staff had just finished singing happy birthday to another patron.

I also wanted to remind you about my blog sale. I’ve added tons of new items and I also brought back the grab bags.

I am selling grab bags for $25 shipped which will consist of:

2 full size indie polishes
4 full size salon brand polishes
1 drugstore polish
1 mini indie polish

Pretty good deal, I think. So please take a look if you’re interested by checking out my blog sale page here. I hope that I’ll start posting more regularly next month so thank you for continuing to visit despite my sporadic posting. Thank you stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.