Hey! So nice to see you again. Why haven’t you been visiting? Maybe because I barely post regularly, right? Not because you think I’m annoying or boring…right? RIGHT? Well, I have been thinking a lot about my blog and whether I want to continue after 9 years at this. I still love nail polish. I still love the nail community–despite all the gossip and scandals. Have you ever tried to explain the nail polish community to a person who is not this deep into the rabbit hole? They literally think I’m insane. Well, I do want to continue blogging for the pure enjoyment of it. I started looking back at my old posts from 2012 where my pictures sucked and my hands looked like Donald Trump’s face: orange and wrinkled. One thing that struck me is how much fun I had writing my posts, sharing my stories and interacting with all of you. I literally had comment sections longer than my actual posts! Do you want to read some of my favorites? Check these posts out: Continue reading “Project #swatchmystash”
Category: Personal
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good…bye?
Ok, that was a little click bait-y because I’m not really leaving…yet. Last night I was googling swatches of Floam (remember when Nail-Venturous came out with it and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get?) and when I clicked on a picture from The PolishAholic, I got this: Continue reading “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good…bye?”
Happy Thanksgiving
Hello friends. This year I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for because I haven’t had a major health crisis (knock on wood), I enjoy my job, everyone in my family is relatively healthy and I am feeling positive and upbeat. I want to wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Thanksgiving (if you are American and/or celebrate the holiday). I feel like wearing Tom Ford Bitter Bitch has become a Thanksgiving tradition for me so here it is. Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving”
How The Hunger Games Ruined My Night
Ok, that title is a little misleading because I ruined my own night by deciding to try and catch this movie on opening night and thinking there wouldn’t be any ridiculous lines to contend with. Yep, I’m a dumbass. I am a HUGE Hunger Games fan (read the trilogy twice), and I love Jennifer Lawrence so of course I was pumped when the new movie premiered. I made plans with my friend to go watch it Friday night, but we didn’t take into consideration the following facts:
1) Everyone and their grandmother wanted to watch the movie at the same time.
2) If you want a ticket, buy it online or show up early.
3) There will be long lines no matter what time you show up. Long, long lines.
The place we went to was so busy that the parking structure was completely full so we were forced to valet park. Fine, whatever. I was so irritated about the lines (I know, I’m unreasonable), that I decided that we should leave and go to another theater. Notice the lack of logic here. Did I think that another theater would magically not have any lines on opening night? Well, you can pretty much guess what greeted us when we got to the other theater. I was just irritated so I decided that we wouldn’t watch the movie that night so I suggested we go get dinner. Since it was pretty chilly that night, I wanted soup—clam chowder to be exact—which was perfect because I spotted a Boudin. I was so looking forward to an amazing sourdough bread bowl filled with delicious clam chowder, but it wasn’t meant to be as they were out of bread bowls. Out of bread bowls? This is Boudin, right?! I was so freaking disappointed and mad, but I contained my furry and instead ordered a Cobb Salad. Bless my friend for putting up with this clusterfuck of a night. Sometimes I am just nuts and completely unreasonable. Despite these setbacks, we did get to see the movie Saturday morning, and I can say that it was totally worth it.
So I know that I haven’t posted in like a week. It’s not like me to not post for such a long time, and I don’t really have an excuse except that I just really didn’t feel like posting or doing my nails. As I am nearing my 2 year anniversary, I am feeling a little burned out but I know it’s just a temporary thing. It could be that there isn’t anything too exciting being released right now; a lot of the Winter and Holiday collections are out so now we have to wait for Spring Collections to start coming out before I get all excited again. In the meantime, I have still been obsessing over products and have spent way too much on stuff I don’t NEED but desperately wanted. Let me show you a few of the items I picked up recently that have definitely raised my blood pressure a little bit:
LUSH Sexy Peel
LUSH Lemony Flutter
Inglot #992
Tom Ford Black Sugar
Oh and here is a bonus picture of my nephew. Yesterday he was 2 weeks old–man how time flies! OmgIjustwanttoeathimupheissocute! Seriously. I know he’s my nephew so I guess I’m a little biased, but that little face is to die for. He is such a good baby too and likes being in his car seat.
I’ll be talking about the products I posted above in more depth when I review them later on. At this point I’m upset that I spent so much on these items and curse the day I stepped into a Lush store because I now want everything they make—but my wallet disagrees. Other than random purchases, I’ve just been laying low blogwise. I have a bunch of posts lined up…well, at least the pictures are done but I’ve been too lazy to write them up. I’ll probably get a few posts up next week since I’ll have THREE WHOLE DAYS OFF from work because of Thanksgiving. I’m going to live it up!!!
What have you been up to?
Guess who’s having a girl…
Nicole from Polish Me, Please! is! Yes, you heard right. After tons of speculation about the sex of her baby who refused to cooperate during her ultrasounds, she finally got confirmation that she will be having a girl. Awww! I am so very happy for Nicole and her husband (and Minnie and Bubba too!) because their life is going to be turned upside down in the most wonderful of ways. I am excited about joining this gender reveal extravaganza with some of the loveliest ladies I have had the honor to get to know. Since we had to wait so long to find out if Nicole is going to have a boy or a girl, we’ve been joking with her that she is actually having a Unicorn who is now affectionately known as Helleborine Bonny Rump. Here is the mani I created to celebrate the fact that Helleborine finally cooperated!
I started by painting my nails with the following China Glaze polishes from left to right: Dance Baby, Pink-ie Promise, Something Sweet and Light As Air.
I then used a dotting took to place some dots on 3 of my nails. I absolutely love dotticures so this is the first thing I thought of. On my middle finger, I stamped a unicorn image using Winstonia plate W117.
So there you have it ladies! Please join us in congratulating Nicole for finally finding out that she will be having a girl.
You can check out some other gender reveal manis here:
Nicole from Polish Me, Please!
Lesley from Twitter and Instagram
Frosso from Lacquer Me Silly
Siobhan from For The Love Of Nail Art
Amy from The Fancy Side
Jessica from Once Upon A Polish
Amanda from Mae’s Beauty
Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you’re enjoying your Saturday.
Just Some Ramblings
Ok, I can’t sleep which is not a big deal since I don’t have to work on Sunday–thank God! So to entertain myself, I was responding to comments and reading some of my favorite blogs just to see what everyone was up to. I was reading this really cool post on Luchessa’s blog about traveling and suddenly I got super sad about the fact that I never get to go anywhere anymore. I don’t think I’ve taken a proper vacation since like 2003. How sad is that? This is especially sad to me because I spent my early 20’s basically living as a nomad. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you have probably read my stories about all my traveling misadventures: spending my junior year of college in Paris, getting my wallet stolen on a train from Florence to Aix-en-Provence, almost getting killed in a drive-by in NYC, buying tickets on Priceline to Rome while drunk…do I really need to keep going?
I know I was always complaining about Paris while I was living there because I just found the adjustment to be really difficult. I lived in this pretty tiny chambre de bonne which was basically where servants used to live. This place was tiny but, it had almost everything that I needed: a bed, storage, a hot plate, a fridge, a radio, phone, heating and a shower…but no toilet. Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Well, the toilet was actually outside, down the hall and it was a shared toilet. AND it was a turkish toilet to boot. WTF? I remember when I first saw it, and I couldn’t believe my eyes…is this Paris, or what? I ended up getting used to it, but there was another thing I couldn’t never get used to: my psychopath neighbor. She was this older lady whom I assumed had some issues because she didn’t seem to have any friends or family and tortured the hell out of me complaining about every single noise I made. I couldn’t talk on the phone at night because she would start banging on the wall–and this sucked because my friends and family were all back in California–and she even complained that I was walking around too loudly…huh? The sound of my footsteps was too loud for this hag? I tried to spend as little time as possible in my tiny studio so I didn’t have to deal with her. But who would want to stay in when you’re in PARIS??
I have a bagillion stories about my misadventures in Paris: having to move 3 separate times, babysitting and then realizing the building was on fire, accidentally going to a porn movie theater by myself AT NIGHT (and yes, this was an accident and I don’t think I should be recounting the full story here). Seriously, you can’t even imagine how much trouble one stupid American girl can get into. In my defense, I was 19 and had never been to Europe so cut me some slack! Despite all the dumb things I did there and all the horrible situations that I managed to get myself into, I had such an amazing time! I got to travel all over France and wound up going to Italy like 5 separate times during my stay. Then when I came back home, I got a job with an airline so my traveling adventures continued for at least a few more years. I got to fulfill my dream of going to Morocco and Tunisia (I’ve got plenty of stories about those trips as well, especially about Tunisia since I went there alone–real smart).
So what is my point with all of this? I don’t think I have one so I guess the title of this post is pretty accurate–this is just me rambling! Oh, wait…I do have a point. Get out there and travel! The world is so big and beautiful. It’s really something to get to see a different way of living and experience a new culture. I can’t imagine what I would be like today without those eye-opening experiences. So tell me: if you could go to one place, anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Dior Lucky
Ever since yesterday morning when I was offered a job, I’ve been walking on sunshine. I know I mentioned it already, but not only did I get a job but I also won a giveaway–my head was about to explode like Austin Powers’ Femmebots.
I even went and bought some lotto tickets because you just never know! I am on a roll here and wouldn’t that be kick-me-in-the-crotch fantastic? Before I get into the fun that has been going on since yesterday morning, I wanted to share the one polish I bought to celebrate. While this might surprise certain people *cough* Frosso *cough*, I only bought one celebratory polish, and I decided to go all out: Dior Lucky.
Normally, I would never consider purchasing a polish for $23, especially when it’s only .33oz! Besides loving the color, of course I loved the name because I am definitely a lucky girl to have so many things start to fall into place after such a putrid year and a half. Dior Lucky is a “hot pink coral” as described by Dior, but I find that it leans red in certain lights. I am a huge fan of these neon-leaning shades even if we are in the middle of winter.
Since this is my first “luxury” brand polish, I was very curious about the brush. Well, let me tell you that I am in absolute love with this brush. It’s wide and has a rounded tip and it fans out PERFECTLY to apply an even coat of polish. I think this brush might just replace my favorite OPI pro-wide brush!
Look at Dior Lucky in all it’s glory. The formula was perfection. It’s buttery, thin but not runny, highly pigmented and opaque at two coats. The formula seems to dry rather quickly which I appreciate. I did not notice this, but I saw the faintest hint of shimmer once it was under direct light. This color is so bright that it photographs like a neon. I am definitely happy with my first Dior polish purchase, but I do find them waaaaaaaaaaay too pricey and I don’t see myself spending this much on polish unless it’s because of a special occasion…like any day ending in “day.” Just kidding…sort of.
Yesterday I ended up going out with one of my best friends to celebrate: we went out for a yummy dinner and cocktails and then ended up karaoke-ing our silly hearts out. Can you imagine how silly we looked doing a duet to ABBA’s Dancing Queen? Not only did we look like a couple of weirdos, but we also tried to do a little dance a la Muriel’s Wedding.
It was freaking awesome! We would have stayed out all night but she had to work the next morning so we wrapped it up at a decent hour.
Today, I spent the day with one of my other best friends. We decided to have a sushicoma day which looks exactly like this:
Yes, we are complete sushi pigs. I am in total love with this sushi place so it’s one of the only places I will go to when I’m craving sushi. Every time we walk in, the sushi chefs behind the bar yell out something in Japanese which I have now determined means “Prepare the sushi boats!” when they seem us walk in. Our waitress is consistently amazed at how much sushi we eat but she stays polite. I am sure she’s thinking we’re disgusting. Anyway, during our sushicoma lunch, I was telling my friend about my future plans for my blog and then I began to chastise him for not reading my blog. Our conversation went something like this:
Cynthia: “I can’t believe you don’t even read my blog! You’re one of my best friends and you don’t even follow my blog!”
Daniel: “Yes I do! I do read it…”
Cynthia: “Ok, well what was the last post that you read?”
Daniel: “Uhm, you mean like the title of the post??? I don’t know!!!”
Cynthia: “Ok, then…what was the post about?”
Daniel: “Uhm…..nails?”
Enough said! After sushi, we went to the mall where I purchased some goodies including my bottle of Dior Lucky and other fun stuff. I really really wanted to ride the carrousel and get a balloon but people are so judgy!
After that, we ended up going to the beach to catch the sunset. There really were a lot of people out there despite the cool weather. There were a lot of surfers out in the water so I guess the waves were good!
So that’s what I’ve been doing since I found out I got a job! There are so many awesome comments that I’ve started to read and I promise to start responding soon. Also, don’t forget to enter my giveaway for the awesome Sation polishes here. I love you all and I can’t tell you enough how much all your encouragement has helped me stay positive through this craptacular period of my life. Thanks for checking in with me today, and I will talk to you soon!
Guess What?
I GOT HIRED ON THE SPOT. I start in 2 weeks. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Well, pending my drug test results and my background check but it’s not like I have anything bad to hide except maybe my polish obsession.)
I guess my special skills resume and Cynthia Trivia really impressed them. 😉
Thank you everyone for all the encouragement and kind words–they really helped me feel more confident in my skills and what I have to offer.
Mavala Rose Dust
Today is the big day–interview time! I am sure going to feel dumb for making a big deal out of this if I completely bomb out, but I think it’s important to be excited, positive and hopeful for my first legit interview in a long time. I know times are tough right now and there are millions of people looking for work, so I feel fortunate to even get an interview right now. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how qualified you are–there just aren’t that many jobs out there. I know I’ve been stressing about finding work lately, but I just know that the right job will come along–it has to! Since I like to be super prepared, I already have my outfit laid out, copies of my resume, application completed and the last thing I had to decide on are my nails. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t made a big deal out of my nail polish choice for this occasion. My dear friend Julie, from Un Brin de Julie, completely spoils me by sending me goodies from France that aren’t easily found here in the states. She is such a sweetheart, and I am so fortunate to have met her. This Christmas, she surprised me with a bunch of Mavala and Bourjois polishes that were perfect! I decided to wear Mavala Rose Dust for my interview today since it is a beautiful rose tinged nude with a delicate pearlescent finish.
First of all, I want to say that I did a craptacular job with this polish job. In my defense, it was late at night and I didn’t realize how bad my clean up was until I loaded the pictures. I am pretty good about being neat and not getting polish on my cuticles, but apparently doing your nails in low light is not a good idea. lol I hate uploading pics of sloppy manicures so I’m sorry!! Now, onto the polish: as far as I know, Mavala is a Swiss brand that is sold in certain countries in Europe. I have never seen this brand in a retail setting here in California so I’m guessing it’s not sold here. Mavala Rose Dust is such a pretty and delicate color that gives just the right amount of color to seem conservative yet not boring. I am always very careful with my make-up and clothing choices when it comes to job interviews because this is not the time to be edgy and experiment (unless you’re applying for a job that calls for that, of course). I have plenty of stories of interviewing people who came in wearing flip flops (I know we’re in California, but come on!) or wore outrageous false eyelashes that were so distracting that I couldn’t concentrate. It really makes you wonder what goes through people’s heads sometimes…
I think I’ve mentioned most of my memorable experiences with interviewing clueless people, but I don’t know if I have shared all my weird experiences as the interviewee. One of the grosser stories involved an agency that will remain nameless who sent me on an assignment to what appeared to be a deserted complex. No one was there when I showed up on time. Eventually people started trickling in and the owner showed up. He put me to work on organizing a mess of a database and I ended up stumbling onto hardcore pornography in the files and folders I was trying to arrange. Yeah, I didn’t stay there past lunch and I freaked out the agency by telling them that they had sent me to a job that had caused emotional distress. hahaha! The worst part of it all was that the keyboard I was using was mysteriously sticky and gross…
I’d better stop talking about BAD experiences so I can go into this interview full of positivity. Wow…me…positive. That’s new! Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts and for all the well-wishes. You’ll be the first to know about how it goes. 😉
Bourjois Violine Chic
I seriously haven’t done my nails in over a week which feels super strange. Because I’ve been feeling dumpy, as I have previously discussed, I guess doing my nails hasn’t been on my list of priorities. Well, you know what? Fuck feeling in the dumps. I’ve been keeping myself super busy so I don’t have time to wallow in self-pity. Since I suddenly felt like doing my nails, I wanted to dig into my untrieds stash and pick one of those polishes. I ended up choosing Bourjois Violine Chic which is a polish that Sabrina sent to me a while back. (Sabrina has a great blog called Polish In Paris so check it out!)
Bourjois Violine Chic is one of those super vampy shades that I love wearing when I have super short nails. This particular line of Bourjois polishes has vinyl in the formula and it’s supposed to last 7 days. I can’t verify the claims of longevity since I just applied this polish today, but I do have to say that I was a little confused by the formula. The color seemed deceptively thin when I applied it yet the formula is kind of goopy at the same time. So strange! I ended up applying 3 coats to cover up the streakiness and random bald spots. One thing I learned is that it is essential to let the layers dry between each coat or else you will end up with a mess.
This lovely glitter is Silly Lily Halloween 2012. I bought this a few months ago and never got around to using it until today. Let me just say that I am in freaking love with all the colors in this polish and I love how it looks over Bourjois Violine Chic. As with most glitter explosion polishes, I had to work with it by dabbing the glitter so I could get even distribution. Even though this is technically a Halloween polish, I wouldn’t hesitate to wear it year round! You should head on over to Lily’s Etsy shop so you can see all the unique and interesting items she sells. In fact, she has a big clearance section right now and has a promo where you can get a freebie when you make a purchase of $15 or more. One of the things a lot of you suggested when I asked what you would like to see more on my blog was more indie/glitter polishes so here is a start! I plan on doing more indie polish posts next year because there are so many amazing and unique creations out there AAANNND I think it’s important to support the little guys!
Thanks to so many of you who came and checked out my blog sale! I have sold around 60 bottles of polish in the last few days which kept me super busy with answering emails and wrapping all my babies to go to their new homes. I hope no one thought I was being whiney and was trying to guilt you into buying my polish!!! That was the last thing I wanted to convey. Thank you for all your purchases and for all the wonderful messages of support that I received–they all helped to lift my spirits!
I hope that you are all doing well and that you are excited about welcoming the new year. What are your plans for new year’s eve?
