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OPI Peanuts Collection Halloween 2014

Posted on 26 August, 2014 by Cynthia

It’s not even September yet and we are already seeing Halloween stuff–and that’s fine by me because I lurve Halloween collections. Since I got out of work a little early today, I went to my nail places and ended up spending my whole polish budget for the next month in 5 minutes. Yeah, polish budget–who am I kidding? I also went to my absolute favorite Vietnamese/French bakery because they have the best baguettes in all of OC, and I wanted to make a killer sandwich for dinner. So when I got there, there was a lady in front of me ordering some stuff. One of the girls behind the counter took my order: 1 baguette and 2 macarons…ok, 3 macarons…I mean 4. Anyway, she placed a baguette on the counter and the lady who was in front of me grabbed it. She was full-on manhandling it with her bare hands on the part that wasn’t covered by the paper sleeve. Since she was speaking Vietnamese, I figured she had ordered one too but then she picks up her bag and leaves the baguette on the counter. Is this real life? Did this lady just touch and squish my baguette with her bare dirty hands????? Even worse, the lady at the register didn’t say squat to her and was acting like nothing happened. I was staring at her and waited for her to give me a new baguette. When she didn’t, I just flat out told her that I needed a new one since that lady had just touched it all over. She looked at me like I was nuts, but she gave me a new one. Am I the only one who thinks that other lady was gross? I mean, if she has no common sense, how do I know what else she has handled with her bare hands? I don’t know why I just told you that long story instead of telling you all about the OPI Peanuts Collection for Halloween 2014. This is such a cute little collection that I bet you will love. Let me show you my swatches first.

OPI Good Grief!

OPI Where’s My Blanket???

OPI WHO ARE YOU CALLING BOSSY?!?

OPI To Be or Not To Beagle

Can I just tell you how much I like this collection and how cute these glitters are??? Good Grief! and WHO ARE YOU CALLING BOSSY?!? are pretty standard cremes that require two coats for full coverage, but it’s the two glitters that really stand out. I love them both and they were very easy to apply as the glitter is plentiful. The lit nerd in me also loves the Hamlet reference in To Be or Not To Beagle. Are you planning to pick any of these up? The OPI Peanuts Collection will be available this September at the usual places. OPI nail polish retails for $9.50/ea for a .5oz bottle, and there will also be a Little Peanuts mini set which you can purchase for $13.95. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Nubar FALLing In Love Collection Fall 2014

Posted on 25 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Well hello there, Monday! So NOT happy to see you, but I hope you understand me when I say that I need my 3 day weekend naow!! I’ve been so lethargic as of late, that I just need more time to veg out and do absolutely nothing. Of course I still have about a million things to swatch, but I’m looking forward to spending some time just painting my nails. Do you find it therapeutic too? I’ve been mostly laying low because I’ve been sad about the loss of my grandmother, but I know she was suffering so part of me is glad that she is no longer in pain. I don’t want to be a drag, so I’ll just leave it at that. I did get quite a bit of swatching done this weekend so I have plenty of things to show you this week. Nubar is a brand that I’ve been using for a few years now because luckily I have easy access to their collections. I think that my favorite collection that they have put out in recent years has been My Sweet Escape just because the cremes were out of this world. It’s no secret that I love Fall collections, so let me show you their Fall offering: the Nubar FALLing In Love Collection.

Nubar Sweet Hue

Nubar Queen

Nubar Passion’s Pain

Nubar Lush

Nubar Affair

Nubar Don’t Russet

Nubar Love American Style

Nubar First Date

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? These don’t scream Fall to me, but they are certainly pretty. They have this really interesting shimmer to them that keeps them from being just standard cremes. The formula on all of these was ok. They were thinner than I’m used to when it comes to Nubar, The two that were problematic for me were Sweet Hue and First Date because they applied so unevenly that I had to apply 3 coats to even out the coverage. The rest of the polishes in this collection needed two coats for full opacity which is pretty normal. Affair is my absolute favorite from this collection with Queen running a close second–they are just stunning and even more gorgeous in person. What do you think of this collection? Any of them stand out to you? Make sure that you follow Nubar on their facebook page for news on new collections. Nubar polishes can be purchased on their website or $8.40 a bottle and this collection should be out soon. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Stamping Saturdays #33

Posted on 23 August, 201423 August, 2014 by Cynthia

This week I lost my last living grandparent. Part of me is angry–angry at myself for not being able to see her before she passed, but I know that she was surrounded by all of her children (all 9 of them!) on her last days including countless great great great grandchildren. You see, my grandmother was 100 years old and she was lucid up until her last day when she fell asleep and didn’t wake up. As sad as our whole family is to have lost her, we know that she lived a long and full life and we are consoled by the idea that she is no longer trapped in a body that just wasn’t able to keep up with her sharp mind.You might think that it’s silly that I am here showing you a manicure after such a sad loss, but nail polish has always been an escape for me: it helps me stay focused, it calms me. When I saw a picture of my grandmother that I took many years ago, I was inspired by the pattern I saw on her dress for my Stamping Saturdays mani.

I started with two coats of OPI Umpires Come Out At Night (press sample) from the MLB Collection. This is a gorgeous and opaque blue that dries to a shiny finish.

I then used a pattern from Konad M61 and Konad’s special white polish for the flowery design.

That was my grandma. I was able to sneak in this picture since she always hated being photographed. She was never without her rebozo (a type of shawl/scarf hybrid) because she did not like to show her hair. She had the most amazing completely white hair that was so plentiful that she had a hard time managing it. I always loved seeing her brush her hair out before she covered it up. Thank you for all the stories you would tell me, the candies you would sneak into my hands and for being the woman who raised my mother to be a loving and compassionate mother in turn. I’ll miss you, abuelita.

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Zoya Ignite Collection Fall 2014

Posted on 19 August, 201418 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I am such a turd when it comes to scheduling posts. I actually stayed up late on Sunday writing up my post for Monday and accidentally scheduled it to post on Tuesday. hahaha. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the date until I got home and realized my post hadn’t been published. I am being extra careful about this post because I don’t want a dum-dum repeat of yesterday. Yesterday I showed you my swatches of the Zoya Entice Collection so today I have the other half: the Zoya Ignite Collection. Ignite..IGNITE. They got that right because this collection is explosive. I am so surprised by how much I love this half of the collection because I usually prefer the cremes, but how can you resist these? You can’t. Don’t believe me? Let me show you what I’m talking about.

Zoya Remy

Zoya India

Zoya Yuna

Zoya Teigen

Zoya Sansa

Zoya Autumn

Seriously gorgeous on every level. Not only is this the most amazing collection of Fall shimmers that I have ever swatches, but the formula is out of this world. It is so easy to control and applies perfectly. You will need two coats for most of these if you want a completely opaque look. I had a hard time deciding which one was my favorite but I think I finally made my decision: Yuna, come to mama. I don’t think that I have anything quite like this and I just adore the unusual quality of it. Sansa is my second favorite because I just love that dark purple base and of course I’m pretending that it’s a whole Game Of Thrones reference. Don’t burst my bubble, ok?

You know you want these. You know you want them all. I’m just raving about these like a crazy polish hoarder, but I swear you will not be disappointed. I liked the creme half of the Fall collection, but I don’t need all those cremes. I do want, need and love these shimmers. You can purchase the Zoya Ignite Collection on zoya.com where they retail for $9 a bottle. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Zoya Entice Collection Fall 2014

Posted on 18 August, 201418 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Well, well…the Fall collections are out in full force and it’s still sweltering outside. To be honest, this Summer hasn’t been horrible for me which is surprising since I’m the queen of the summer haters. Even though I’ve been feeling kind of physically craptastic lately, a lot of good things have happened to me in the last month or so–namely good work stuff. I made a conscious decision not to talk/complain about work anymore on my blog because I felt that I was carrying around stress from my job all the time so writing about it made it feel even worse. I am not even sure if I mentioned that I left my old job and started a new one a few months ago. Well, it has been a huge change for me and I’m a million times happier because now I feel like I have a more balanced life where I don’t have to constantly stress about work and have a normal work schedule. Now that I’m getting used to my new routine, I think it’s about time that I start incorporating the gym into my life because I think that is going to make me feel better both mentally and physically. Now I just have to actually get started–isn’t the first step always the hardest? Yesterday I mentioned that a major swatchfest occurred this weekend and part of it included the Zoya Entice Collection (the Ignite Collection is coming tomorrow!). This half of the Zoya Fall 2014 Collection is full of yummy and traditional cremes which never disappoint. Let’s take a look at my swatches before I share my thoughts with you.

Zoya Genevieve

Zoya Ryan

Zoya Claire

Zoya Margo

Zoya Veronica

Zoya Nyssa

I had zero application issues with this collection. They are all very creamy and opaque 2 coat polishes. You may think that there isn’t anything super interesting about these polishes and part of me agrees with that, but you know that in my polish heart, I can’t resist a good creme. I love that these have a muted almost smokey feeling to them–especially Genevieve. Since that’s my grandmother’s name, it’s my favorite. My grandmother turned 100 this year and she’s currently not doing very well health-wise, but he is surrounded by family and they are taking good care of her. At first I thought that Ryan looked a lot like Cynthia (yay for my namesake!), but Cynthia is much darker. Out of the whole collection, I think Nyssa is the only one I didn’t like.

Are you ready for all the Fall colors? I quite enjoy the darker/richer colors that have been released lately. While I liked this half of the collection, I think that the second part really blew me away. I’ll have that review up tomorrow if you want to check in. You can purchase the Zoya Entice Collection on zoya.com where they retail for $9 a bottle. Let me know if you have a favorite. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Zoya Naturel Deux Collection

Posted on 17 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I’m really annoyed right now because I had all these plans to write up all my posts for the upcoming week today. Want to guess if that happened? Well, I made a mess today in the kitchen so I was in there all day cleaning stuff out and then I finished the last 6 episodes of Orange Is The New Black (OMG OMG OMG the van!!!!) Since I managed to swatch about 30 polishes Friday and Saturday, I am not behind on swatching but I am behind on editing photos and writing up my posts. Once I get home from work, I get so lazy about that stuff. One thing I’m going to try really hard to do, is plan my posts in advance so that I actually have time to not only respond to comments (I am being such a turd about this lately–I’m sorry!), but to also visit and comment on all my favorite blogs. One of the collections that I finally swatched is the Zoya Naturel Deux Collection which I will be showing you today. I realize you’ve probably already seen a billion swatches of this collection, but maybe not so much on girls with my darker skin tone. Let’s take a look at my swatches…

Zoya Madeline

Zoya Aubrey

Zoya Marnie

Zoya Spencer

Zoya Chanelle

Zoya Emilia

I don’t know if I really love these. I mean, on me. The colors are really nice and of course the formula on all of them is spectacular which is something I can count on when it comes to Zoya’s opaque cremes. Out of all of these, Spencer and Madeline are my two favorites and will totally be using them to death. I don’t know if it’s the two browns that are throwing me off, but I just don’t feel like I enjoyed this collection as much. I think that maybe I’m just still in a very summery bright polish mindset so this was kind of a shock to my system even though this was meant to be a transitional collection. I’m just all over the place today, huh? Still, if you’re looking for creamy, glossy and opaque cremes, you can’t go wrong with this collection. All of my swatches show 2 coats of polish and 1 coat of Seche.

So what do you think about this collection? Did you get any of these polishes? They are available now at zoya.com and retail for $9 each. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you had a nice weekend.

Stamping Saturdays #32

Posted on 16 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Last night I stayed up until like 4 am binge watching Orange Is The New Black so I didn’t get up this morning until like 9 am. I had so much cleaning to do today since my brother is a pig and rarely helps out with any of the house cleaning which pisses me off but I feel like I waste more energy bugging him about helping more than to just freaking clean everything myself. Even when he does help, he does such a half-assed job that I end up being pissed and cleaning everything again. Maybe that’s his strategy? Ugh, whatever. I also couldn’t find my gloves so my hands and nails took a beating after I got through the kitchen stuff. Fortunately, I was able to do my Stamping Saturdays mani last night before all of the abuse happened. Last week I showed you an awesome glitter by Kiara Sky, and today I have a lovely creme for you. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

Holy mother of God! Kiara Sky Blue-letproof Vest is one of those perfect blue cremes that make your heart skip a beat. This polish is seriously perfection in a bottle. What you see here is ONE coat of polish and one coat of Seche Vite. I was obsessed with the color, the formula and the shine. You all know how I feel about cremes so this polish made me super happy.

I then used a geometric pattern from plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 for my stamped design.

I knew it was going to be hard to center this pattern and while the pattern didn’t come out *perfectly*, I’m not too annoyed by it. There is nothing better than Konad’s black stamping polish for a big design like this because it transfers so crisply.

So what are you up to this weekend? I was thinking about going to watch The Giver or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but maybe I will just spend my whole weekend swatching. I have so much polish to get through, but I’m excited because there are so seriously gorgeous polishes in the mix. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Green

Posted on 14 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I totally flaked out on getting this post up on time. Womp womp. Even worse, this was my month to choose the color and theme…triple womp. I really have to learn to schedule things better because I keep falling behind on so much stuff. I’ve been trying to swatch the last Zoya collection for like 2 weeks now and something always comes up that derails my plans. I finally got a chance to swatch the whole collection last night while I was watching So You Think You Can Dance. I was really impressed with the whole Michael Jackson theme—did you happen to watch it? Anyway, this month I chose green as my color. I love green nail polish so much! I know I say that about pretty much every color when it comes to nail polish (except maybe orange and gold), but I just love how green nails look…unless they’re green because of fungal growth, but I digress… It was difficult to pick one green polish, so I ended up using two of them, but I did go with my #1 favorite green: Color Club Holiday Splendor.

Holy crap, this is a gorgeous polish. It has such an amazing holo sparkle that gives it incredible depth. I’m completely in love with it! If you want a sheer jelly finish, you can get away with one coat. I prefer to apply two coats so that it’s fully opaque. You should see this baby out in the sun! It sparkles like a mofo. It is a little bit of a pain to remove but totally worth it. I’d also like to mention that it dries to a minor rough finish so load up on your top coat if you want a super smooth finish.

I received some of these decals/nail vinyls from KBShimmer (press sample), and I finally got around to using them. They’re pretty much idiot-proof which is why I was able to use them without much trouble.

This is the first time that I do chevrons like this and I quite enjoy the loo. The pretty creamy green that you see here is nails inc. Queen Victoria Street. I love this green as well!

So what do you think of these dreamy greens? I am super happy with these two gorgeous colors and how they turned out. Don’t forget to check out the other manis presented to you by the other ladies of The Lacquer Ring!

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Leesha’s Lacquer Re-pin Rewind

Posted on 11 August, 201410 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Hey you! How’s your Monday going so far? I had a busy weekend so I kind of feel like I didn’t get to relax too much. Unfortunately, swatching fell by the wayside so now I’m super behind on everything. I hope to get a lot done little by little this week, but it’s so hard to do nail stuff when I get home from work because I feel mentally exhausted. I’m having a hard time finding the motivation to start going to the gym after work as well so I feel stuck at the moment. You know what helps when I feel stuck? Pretty, shiny polish. Yep, glitter is the magical panacea to my ennui.

This is Leesha’s Lacquer Re-pin Rewind from The Pinterest Collection. This is an explosion of pink and purple glitter in a clear base.

If you want to use Re-pin Rewind as a glitter topper, you will only need one coat because you get a lot of glitter on the brush. However, if you want to use it on its own, you will need 2-3 coats depending on your application technique. I dabbed the glitter on for my second coat so I was able to get away with 2 coats. You are going to to want to use a good top coat to smooth out the finish–I’ve used Seche Vite for my swatches. For my first experience with Leesha’s Lacquer, I think this is a lovely glitter that is sure to satisfy your need for shiny, sparkly nails. Removal can be a beast as with any glitters of this type so I recommend using a peelable glue base if you have it or just be ready to use acetone and a bit of elbow grease.

If you’re interested in purchasing this baby, you can find it here for $3.50/mini or $7.00/full size–pretty good prices if you ask me. Makes sure to follow Leesha’s Lacquer on her social media sites for news on new collections, sales and giveaways (she has one now on Facebook!) :

Etsy – Facebook – Blog – Twitter

So what do you think? I think this hit the spot for me this weekend. I’ll have another polish from this maker later in the week so don’t forget to check back with me. Thanks for stopping by today, and have a nice Monday.

Stamping Saturdays #31

Posted on 9 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I am super late today with my Stamping Saturdays post but better late than never, right? This morning I was supposed to go watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I totally overslept and ended up going to my nail places. It was a total waste of time because two of my favorite stores were closed. The only good thing was the coffee macaron I had at this awesome Vietnamese-French bakery I like to go to. Anyway, once I got home I started planning my mani. I decided to use Deborah Lippmann Let’s Hear It For The Boy.

Deborah Lippmann Let’s Hear It For The Boy is a streaky nightmare, but it sure is pretty. If I had paid full price for this, I would be pissed but I got it on clearance on HSN so it’s ok. This is three coats and it’s still kind of streaky.

Have you heard of the brand Kiara Sky? I had not until I saw a huge shiny new display today. I picked up one glitter and two cremes to try the brand out. This is Kiara Sky Serene Sky.

This is two coats of Kiara Sky Serene Sky over Deborah Lippmann Let’s Hear It For The Boys. The polish is full of glitter and is very easy to apply. Isn’t it pretty?

I then used an image from Konad M51 to stamp with Mentality Black Opaque. I just recently purchased this polish for my stamping needs and it’s a decent stamping black. I noticed that this polish dries a lot quicker than the Konad black so you have to work fast before the image dries on the stamper. The image on my pointer finger did not transfer nicely because I waited too long to stamp it. Once thing I like is that the polish isn’t a huge pain to clean up. If you get the konad black on your skin, it is a PITA to clean up because it’s so incredibly pigmented. I will have a more in depth review of the two Mentality stamping polishes that I purchased in a later post.

So what do you do think of this mani? I’m not in love with it, but it’s ok. I can’t wait to try the other two cremes I bought from the new Kiara Sky line so I’ll let you know how they work out next week. Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.