Category: Stamping

Of Life and Lacquer > Stamping

essence Gleam In Blue

Posted on by Cynthia

I think you have seen my recent Ulta polish hauls and how they tend to include tons of these cute little bottles of essence polishes.Today I have a new color that I hadn’t seen at Ulta in the past–probably because it was always out of stock. Behold, Gleam In Blue!

When I first put this color on, I was torn: is it a full on frost, metallic or a combination of the two? Well, I’m sure that you’ve heard me complain about frosts AND metallics. (I’m looking at you, Nicole!) In fact, that combination reminds me of the most horrific creation known to mankind if you are a poultry hater: the turducken! For those of you who may not be familiar with a turducken, it is a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck, stuffed into a de-boned turkey. I am dry heaving over here. Anyway, I was surprisingly happy with this polish. It has a thicker consistency than I am used to from essence polishes, but it was still fairly easy to control. If you’re careful with your application, you could actually get away with one coat! If I had to pick one thing that I didn’t like, it would be that it’s somewhat prone to visible brushstrokes if you overwork the polish; otherwise, the brushstrokes aren’t too visible and a nice topcoat will definitely help.

And just because I feel that every mani gets better with a little stamping action, I used plate BM 312 and Konad special polish in white for this design. Pretty, right? I chose this stamp because it had a sort of whimsical, airy and cloud-like feeling to it that I felt complimented the color of this polish. Anyone else get a sort of bridal feeling from this look?

Gleam In Blue was one of the 10 new colors that were introduced in the Colour & Go line for Spring/Summer 2012. essence products can be purchased at ULTA, HEB, Fred Meyer and Shoppers Drug Mart if you’re in Canada. These polishes still retail for $.99. However, it appears that this line is being re-designed with a new bottle shape and with a price increase to $1.99. I will follow up on this once I start to see the new stock at my local Ulta.

So what do you think of this polish? Too frosty/metallic-y? Do you think the stamping compliments the polish, or was it better on its own? Let me know what you think and thanks for stopping by.

Remember: Enabling = Caring

****This item was sent for review. This in no way influences my review and opinion of the product.****

Zoya Kimmy

Posted on by Cynthia

I really want to get through all my Zoya polishes and swatch them all, but I seem to acquire more bottles than I can keep up with. Last week I bought a few new Zoya babies and this is the first one that I decided to try. Kimmy is such a bright red with gold shimmer and I was instantly attracted to it despite the fact that I don’t usually like metallic-looking colors. You want to know the best part? This is a one-coater!! I used two here, but you can get away with one thickish coat.

Since I was in a MASH plate binge, I decided to use plate 45 for this design with Konad special polish in black.

 

And the last three pictures are just of my latest binge. I can’t wait until I get to play with all of these colors, especially the a-englands!!! I am going on a no polish week and giving my nails a chance to grow and recover…hopefully I will be able to stick to it and not freak out about a whole week sans polish.

So how was your Monday? I think it’s still the most dreaded day of the week for a reason. Thanks for stopping by my lovelies!

Stamping Sunday: Silver, Gold or Bronze As An Accent

Posted on by Cynthia

I seriously feel like I need to tone it down. This is the second week that I create something for the group Adventures In Stamping and it’s a big fat fail again. I don’t know what it is about challenges, but it seems that I come up with the tackiest ideas ever. I don’t even know what I imagined anymore when I came up with this monstrosity, but at least it wasn’t as bad as last week’s look…at least in my opinion.

I started out innocently enough with China Glaze Exotic Encounters. I don’t know how many times I have said this, but the On Safari collection blew me away. I was really excited when the promo pictures came out and after I got them, they were everything I had hoped for and more. Kudos, China Glaze. “Well done. Whoo, whoo, whoo !” à la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

Beautiful color, right?

The next step was taping off my nails in a diamond pattern and I used plate MASH 46 for the design and Wet N Wild I Can’t Stand Up Straight for the stamping polish. I should have taken a picture of that before I went ahead and added the glitter but I spaced out and forgot. It actually looked interesting before I added the glitter. This Dare To Wear glitter called Disco Ball and it is full of different holo glitter shapes. I think it will look very pretty over a dark base.  Once again, I’m not thrilled with this manicure, but I like it a little better than last week’s.

And for Sunday’s food porn, here is my breakfast: a delicious egg and chorizo breakfast burrito. Yes, it was heavenly!

Hope you’re having a nice Sunday! Let me know what you think of my stampicure.

Deborah Lippmann Almost Paradise

Posted on by Cynthia

I finally got around to using another one of my Deborah Lippmann beauties. This is one of the 4 Deborah Lippmann polishes I got on major clearance on HSN, and I love them. Yes, they are expensive but I think the formula is pretty freaking dreamy. I think these would be a perfect splurge for a special occasion like a birthday, Christmas or Saturday night…hee! I don’t see myself splurging too often on DL polishes, but I think I will really be on the lookout for special and unique colors that catch my attention.

The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this polish is key lime pie. Hmmmm…who doesn’t like that?! Just the sound of it sounds decadent with a refreshing citrus punch. Have you ever had key lime cheesecake? Enough food talk; can you tell I’m hungry right now?

This is such a pretty color! I wasn’t sure it would suit my skin tone, but I actually really like it. Since cremes are my favorite polish finish anywhere, this was a no-brainer for me. The first coat was streaky, but I wasn’t expecting any less. The second coat evened it all out perfectly

It’s official: Insta-Dri polishes are awesome for stamping. Doesn’t Blue By! look amazing over Almost Paradise? I used plate MASH 43 for this design.
I think my stamping mojo is 100% back! Let me know what you think of this design.

Hope you’re having a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Thank You!!!

Posted on by Cynthia

When I first started this blog, only about 2 people knew about it and they were my only readers because I was writing mostly personal stuff. I needed to get it out of me so that it could stop torturing me. I started writing about my issues here about 6 months after being released from a psychiatric hospital, and it turned into a cathartic exercise since I was still resisting any kind of therapy. Since then, I have met some of the most caring group of women I could ever hope to meet. Not only do they listen and offer advice, but they share their own experiences and make me feel like I’m not alone.

Once I started blogging about nail polish more regularly, I would get so excited every time I got a new follower or a new person who would comment on my posts. I slowly started to see my readership grow each month and this made me feel like people were actually interested in my opinions and thoughts about nail polish, make up and just random topics. I saw a nice jump in blog visit for the month on June so I told myself that I would LOVE to reach a few milestones for the month of July:

1) Reach 300 published blog posts

2) Reach 100 followers

3) Reach 10,000 views for the month

Well, I managed to reach all of those thanks to all of you who take time out of your day to check up on what craziness is going on in my head.  The most exciting part was that not only did I reach 10,000 blog views in July, but I actually got a little over 16,000! For a little blog such as mine, I feel like that was such a huge accomplishment. Nicole from Polish Me Please! had been encouraging me to use twitter and when I finally did, that’s when I started seeing an increase in traffic.  So thank you Nicole and thanks to all the lovely twitter ladies who always make me laugh!

I was so happy to have hosted 2 giveaways last month for 2 sets of the Wet N Wild Saved By The Nail, Saved By The Bell inspired nail polishes. I would have loved to give out more sets but they became pretty impossible to find as a lot of you noticed. If I randomly find more, I will be sure to add them to my next giveaway. I am planning to hold another giveaway in the near future as a thank you to all of you who have made me feel so welcome in this lovely nail blogging world. Once I figure out what the prize will be, I will let you all know.

I posted last night how I received my MASH plates and how excited I was to try them out today.  I am happy to report that these plates are awesome!! I used a few of the designs to see how well they stamped. I have to say that Wet N Wild I Can’t Stand Up Straight is my favorite silver to stamp with. Look how great the designs turned out!

My brother is taking me out to dinner tonight (for once!) so we’re headed out in a little while. I hope I can control myself and not stop at any place that sells nail polish on the way back home. Uggghhhhh! Wish me luck!

Stamping Sunday: Red & Black

Posted on by Cynthia

A few weeks ago, Jessica from Once Upon A Polish blogged about a facebook group called Adventures In Stamping where everyone votes for a particular look or color scheme and then all the ladies post their manis every Sunday. Well, I thought it sounded really fun so I joined! I really didn’t know what to do so I started looking through my melmers and realized I hadn’t used Layla Flash Black.

    

    

Call me crazy, but I actually don’t really like Flash Black on me.  It just looks so weird on me, and I’m really disappointed…not to mention that Layla holos chip in 5 seconds on me.

    

    

I then stamped over Flash Black with Konad special polish in red and plate BM 322. I then used a dotting tool to add the black dots with China Glaze Liquid Leather. One word: barf. I hate how this turned out but not all manis are going to be winners, and you have to embrace the good with the bad. I have no idea why I thought that stamping over Flash Black would be a good idea. It just looks dingy and grey…not interesting at all. I’m annoyed that I spent so much time on this mani and ended up not even liking it; hey, at least now I know Flash Black isn’t what I thought it would be.

So I think my first Stamping Sunday Challenge is a big fat fail. Hopefully I will do better next week. Voting has already started and our three choices are:

  • Fun In The Sun
  • Olympics
  • Using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color

I voted for using silver, gold or bronze as a base, accent or stamping color. So far this choice is in the lead, and I hope it stays that way! Check out the look Jessica created here. I am in love with it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Essence You Belong To Me

Posted on by Cynthia

I don’t know about you, but when you buy as much polish as your average nail polish fanatic, you are constantly on the lookout for sales. Just look at the great success of Nouveau Cheap! I love that blog because it fills me in on all the affordable cosmetics and drugstore sales. I know a lot of people stocked up on Sinful Colors despite the PR nightmare that ensued when they were caught using bloggers’ photos without their permission. Taking it one step further, they manipulated the images onto their models and incorrectly described the process of achieving the look. I find it rather tasteless on their part, and hope that they do right by the affected bloggers.

On my cheap polish quest, I found myself at Ulta a couple of times this week…and by a couple I mean I visited 3 Ultas in my area trying to find good deals. I had noticed that Essence polishes were being put on clearance and that the images of their bottles were different on the website so I figured they were trying to get rid of old stock. Well, tickle me cheap…I was all over that. I ended up purchasing all the colors I could get my hands on and they ended up being around $.79 each. Score! Today I found a few Zoyas on clearance including one of the flaky topcoats, Chloe. Woot! Major score. One of the polishes I purchased today is You Belong To Me which I decided to wear as soon as I got home.

    

While it’s not very noticeable in the bottle nor in my pictures, You Belong To Me has the faintest shimmer which makes it look so beautiful. The formula was ok…not really problematic but I needed a third coat to smooth it out.

    

I really like how delicate my nails look with this stamp design. I used BM 314 and my favorite WNW Silver for stamping called I Can’t Stand Up Straight. Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap silver that stamps really well? Upon closer inspection, I think this design looks arachnid-like and it’s kind of freaking me out.

I was feeling really lazy tonight so I didn’t feel like cooking dinner. Instead, I made my special tuna sandwich: tuna, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, swiss cheese and slices of hard-boiled egg. Egg?!? Yes, egg. You have no idea how delicious it tastes. The creaminess and richness of the egg adds a whole new level of yumminess to this sandwich.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve talked about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on this blog, but I’m going to do it again because I have a major girl crush on Noomi Rapace. She is such a crazy badass in these movies. If you have Netflix, the full Swedish trilogy is online and it has like 2 extra hours of content that was edited out when they were released in the US. And yes, I’ve been watching the movies all over again. lol

I hope you’ve had a good and relaxing Saturday! Thanks for the visit and let me know what you think of my “spider nails.” hehehe

P.S. Do you have a preference for the picture size on my blog? I’ve made the images smaller for this post instead of using the full-sized images. What do you think?

Dear Nails, Please Grow Faster

Posted on by Cynthia

My hair has grown enough that it is now refusing to cooperate. I had some real craziness going on today with my hair; so much so that L. was laughing at the state of my hair. It was like an out of control, curly, frizzy and lopsided pompadour. I just wish my nails grew as fast as my cray hair. :/ I really miss having longer nails to work with when I do stamping so I haven’t been playing with any of my plates for almost 2 weeks!!! The following is a mani that I did a while back but hadn’t gotten around to posting. I started with a couple of coats of Essence Black is Black.

Doesn’t this seriously look like patent leather? I think this is my favorite black nail polish.

I used plate BM 320 for this design along with Konad special polish in yellow.  I really wish that the yellow polish had been more opaque. Maybe it looks like that because it was stamped over black?

I’m not feeling particularly talky tonight so I’ll leave it at that. What do you think of this mani?

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.

 

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. 🙂