Category: Random

Of Life and Lacquer > Random

Sally Hansen Virgin

Posted on by Cynthia

Ok, I admit that I have never tried any Sally Hansen nail polishes. I use a lot of their other nail products like my holy grail of cuticle removers: Problem Cuticle Remover with aloe vera. It’s fantastic and cleans up my gross cuticles instantly.  Today I was perusing through all the cosmetics at Rite-Aid (no, I was not looking at the Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters…no!) and I saw that a lot of their Sally Hansen nail polishes were on sale…most at 75% off! Well, who am I to say no to a sale especially when nail polish is involved?  So I gravitated to the HD polishes display and ended up picking up 4 of those and 1 of the Diamond Strength polishes.

Oooooohhhhh shinny…..ooooohhhhh pretty! The three middle shades are duochrome so I can’t wait to try them out. The formula seems a little sheer so I don’t know how that’s going to work out.  It might be interesting to layer them over other colors. I want to swatch them now but I don’t want to take off my Konadicure from yesterday. I’m still in love with it.

I ended up paying under $10 for all of these so for the price, I will make them work! I’ll swatch them soon so check back.

Growing Out My Nails

Posted on by Cynthia

Let me get this out before I continue: I HATE long nails.  Rather, I hate the feeling of long nails. I certainly admire long nails (not the talon kind because those give me the heebie jeebies) on other women but I just don’t have the patience to grow mine out. I dread that feeling of bumping my nail on something and feeling it bend back; that’s as bad as nails on a chalkboard. Recently I decided to grow out my nails and see how long I could stand it. Well, this is what just happened earlier today:

Freaking A! What do I do? First I used some nail glue and I brushed it on the nail where it’s broken. That seems to work until I start doing some dishes. I went online and I found some stuff called Clear Liquid Bandage by Nail-Aid. Since I didn’t want to go around hunting this stuff down, I went to Rite-Aid to see if I could find anything else.

By the way, if you have tried this liquid bandage stuff, please let me know how you like it. I hate buying stuff randomly. I mean, it’s not that expensive or anything but hearing some opinions always helps.

So I ended up purchasing some stuff from Sally Hansen.

This does not seem to be a fix for a broken nail but I already applied it and it became a hard coat over my broken nail. I guess I will have to wait and see what happens after a day or so of showers and dishes. I really hope this helps otherwise I’m cutting my nails pronto. I have  long nailbeds so I’m lucky that even when I cut them short, they look somewhat long once they are polished.

Here’s to growing out long nails! (not the talon kind, please!!!!)

Konad!

Posted on by Cynthia

I love getting stuff in the mail. I love ripping open packages. Earlier in the week, I ordered some Konad plates and some Seche Restore from a seller on Amazon. They arrived today!

These are plates M66, S6, M79 and M64.

And as an extra surprise I received this plate from Born Pretty. They were actually giving these away for free so I jumped right on it.

I am still pretty loyal to Konad plates because they are not crazy sharp like some of the other non-Konad plates. I am going to have to be extra careful with this plate so I don’t slice my fingers. But since I got it for free, who’s complaining?!

I can’t wait to try some of these out.

 

Zoya Promotion

Posted on by Cynthia

If you stumble upon my blog early enough today, Zoya is running a promotion:

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Will You Be Our Valentine?

Roses are red,
Such a romantic hue,
With over 50 perfect reds,
We have one just for you!

We want you to be our Valentine this year! Now through 2/15/2012 11:59PM EST you will receive one bottle of Red Zoya Nail Polish in the shade of your choice (picked from our Red Nail Polish Page FREE + FREE Shipping with any purchase* at zoya.com.

Zoya has over 50 shades of red nail polish colors in metallic, cream, pearl, matte and dual chrome finishes that are available in cool, warm and neutral tones to perfectly compliment your skin tone and personal fashion style. We suggest Zoya Valentina, Zoya Sarah, and Zoya Carmen.

How it works:

1. Add any non-spoon item to your cart along with your favorite red nail polish choice from this page.
2. Enter WELUVU into the promotion code field in the shopping cart and press the “Apply Code” button
3. Complete Check-Out Process & Submit Order

*Excludes Zoya Color Spoons & NYFW Custom Color Box Trios

Terms & Conditions
This promotion is valid online only at www.zoya.com, www.qtica.com & www.artofbeauty.com. Continental USA only (shipping and processing charges apply). Void where prohibited.  Limit one promotion per account and household. Orders with promotion codes are not eligible for returns or exchanges. We are not responsible for incorrect addresses and credit card entry errors.  Please allow up to 4 weeks for shipping if volume warrants it.  Not valid with any other coupons, codes or promotions.

Free polish?! Yes please. Honestly, Zoya runs the best promotions. I just ordered Lotus from the True Collection and Diana all for $8 and free shipping. Woot! If you’ve never tried Zoya before, jump on this deal.

Bipolar California Weather

Posted on by Cynthia

Happy Valentines day…blah, blah, blah. I’m not a person who is big on celebrating Valentines Day or any holiday for that matter. The only thing I like about holidays is the food. Yes, that’s it. Oh, and maybe and excuse to do my nails with some holiday theme.  I am really getting tired of the weather here in Southern California. It was raining yesterday and today it’s super sunny and warm. Yes, I know that we don’t really have winters with blizzards and all that but I have one word for you: earthquakes.

So, I went to my nail polish Mecca also known as Little Saigon in Orange County. This is the area that usually gets me into a crapload of trouble because I buy so much stuff. The prices are so good that I really can’t help myself. I visited two new stores today and when to two others to check out if they had any new stuff to covet. Well, I ended up with this:

China Glaze: Shower Together, Dorothy Who?, Fifth Avenue, Tempest, Four Leaf Clover, Jitterbug

3 Nail art bottles

Essie: Navigate Her, Sew Psyched

OPI: Rome and Joliet

Nicole by OPI: Prized Possession Purple, The Right Thing

As a side note, I almost didn’t get Prized Possession Purple because it’s one of those Justin Beiber collaboration polishes. Justin Bieber and nail polish????? WTF? I told myself that it’s not the beautiful purple polish’s fault that it was associated with the Beibster.

I will NOT be going to Little Saigon again until the China Glaze Hunger Games polishes come out. I’m going to try sooooooo hard. Wish me luck.

New Polish

Posted on by Cynthia

Sorry for this crappy iphone picture but I wanted to share the new polishes I acquired recently. The 4 at the front are from new collections for Spring 2012: Nubar Jellybeans and Essie Navigate Her. My usual nail polish place had the whole Jellybeans collection but I only got three of them because I wanted to try the formula first. If I like it, there are a few other colors that I will probably pick up.

The other polishes in the back are older colors from China Glaze and OPI’s Do You Lilac It? How could I not have this color yet?????

Nubar: Blue Rasberry, Kiwi, Toasted Marshmallow; Essie: Orange, It’s Obvious!

OPI: Do You Lilac It?; China Glaze: Fuchsia Fanatic, Papaya Punch, Italian Red, Paper Chasing, The Ten Man

Is it weird that I had a dream about nail polish? I swear I was having dreams about swimming in bottles of nail polish à la Uncle Scrooge:

(Go to the :18 mark)

Unfortunately, this is probably what would happen to me instead:

 

C’mon! I wasn’t the only one who watched Duck Tales religiously…and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers…and Tale Spin. Ok, I’m a geek. So back to nail polish.

I also wanted to share this video that I recently came across on youtube. Her youtube name is PlasmaSpeedo and she does really cool nail designs.

If you are a nail polish afficionado, you know that you have uttered many or all of these phrases…repeatedly.

Thanks for stopping by and reading all my incoherent ramblings.

Bisous mes chéris et à bientôt!

R.I.P. Camera

Posted on by Cynthia

I think that my ancient digital camera is on its last leg…errrr, lens. The camera that I currently use to take pictures of my nail polish swatches was purchased in 2004, and it is a Kodak model that looks  ridiculously big compared to new models. It is also a 3 megapixel camera. Can you say upgrade? You might have noticed that my last post, Essie Sunday, has blurry pictures. For whatever reason, my camera refuses to focus. I took pictures of the swatches I did today, and they all looked really bad. Sooooo, I have decided to not upload anymore swatch pictures until I can get a better camera. I appreciate all the visitors I get looking for swatches–especially for the China Glaze Magnetix Collection and the OPI Holland Collection. I hope  to be able to get a camera in the next month or so. There are so many collections coming up that I’m drooling over so I’m going to get right on it.

This could actually be a good thing because this will give me a chance to write more about other things. That could be a good or bad thing.

So thanks again to all of you, my lovely nail polish fanatics from all over the world. I will be back to swatching soon!

China Glaze Magnetix Collection – The Rundown

Posted on by Cynthia

Yes, I got them. Sadly, I am missing one. I looked through the display and I only saw 5 different colors and grabbed one of each and now that I got home I noticed that I am missing the dark silver one. Poo. 🙁 I can always get it some other time.

If you have ever used the nails inc magnetic polishes, these are pretty much the same. You have to buy the magnet separately but the magnet comes with 3 designs.

The actual directions are very simple so I don’t see people having any problems applying the polishes or using the magnets.

It has been raining on and off here most of the morning so I don’t have the best light for swatching. Who am I kidding? I can’t help myself. I’m going to start swatching these and will post some pictures. Check back soon! 🙂

Countdown To The China Glaze Magnetix Collection

Posted on by Cynthia

I am dying to get my hands on this collection. I am counting down the weeks. My nail supply store usually gets things 3 weeks before the general release date so I’m going to start stalking them next week. Since they sell regular China Glaze at a deep discount, I wonder how much they will sell these magnetic polishes for.

Feast your eyes on this:

 

 

Are you excited about this collection as well?