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Orly Color Blast Bright Blue Neon

Posted on 5 August, 20144 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I feel like I’m the only one who is super excited about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. So many people are already talking smack about the movie, and I am shitting my pants with excitement about it. TMNT is one of those cartoons that I absolutely adored as a kid. I can still clearly remember how it would take me 30 minutes to put on one sock because I was so engrossed in the cartoons. My mom would be so pissed yelling at my brother and I about being late to school, but we just did not want to tear ourselves away from the television. Then the video games came out and I wanted to kill myself every time I couldn’t get through TMNT 2. That game was ridiculously hard but it was so much fun. Did I mention that the first movie I ever saw at a movie theater was TMNT? I still remember the excitement of that day and how fun it was! So now that I’ve rambled about this movie, I can’t wait for this weekend so I can go watch it. So…for today’s post I have a cute little polish to share with you: Orly Color Blast Bright Blue Neon. Have you seen these polishes around? I ran across a big display at on of my nail places and this super bright blue really called out to me.

Since this is a neon, the formula was a bit difficult. It dries really fast so it is prone to overworking. I had to work quickly and had to be careful not to go over the same spot twice while the polish was setting. I applied 3 coats to get a smooth and even finish which is rather normal for neons.

I had to make this baby shiny so I applied one coat of Seche Vite. Do you love this as much as I do? The color plus the shine are an amazing combo.

Let me know what you think of this small but explosive polish. Despite the difficult formula, I am so pleased with the end result. Are you excited about the new TMNT movie? Let me know if you’re planning to see it. Do you remember what the first movie was that you ever saw in a movie theater? Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Essie Dress To Kilt Collection Fall 2014

Posted on 4 August, 201427 September, 2014 by Cynthia

How was your weekend? Mine was really busy, and the weather has been unusually humid here in SoCal which is pretty darn disgusting. It’s not even that hot, but the humidity makes it feel 100 times more horrible. We are at like 90% humidity and it’s 9 pm as I write this! It’s supposed to be in the 70’s later in the week but if the humidity persists, I’m going to be miserable. Doesn’t it seem like I’m always complaining about the weather? Maybe I should move to Siberia or something so I can stop complaining about the heat. Ha! Anyway, this weekend I went to my nail places and they only had one collection that I wanted which I guess is good for my wallet. I feel like Essie’s Fall collection has bee flying under the radar because I hadn’t seen or heard much about it. Essie Dress To Kilt is not really a collection that wowed me when I first saw the colors, but you just never know until you get the colors on your nails. Are you ready to see the swatches?

Essie Fall In Line

Essie The Perfect Cover Up

Essie Style Cartel

Essie Dress To Kilt

Essie Partner In Crime

Essie Take It Outside

Sooo…boring colors? That’s what I thought at first but holy frijoles these polishes are spectacular. The formula was really nice–a little thicker than I’m used to with Essie because I always have to be careful not to flood my cuticles, but these were a little on the goopy side but not unmanageable. These all looked nice with one coat, but I recommend two for that perfectly smooth and glossy look. Did I mention how incredibly shiny and glossy the finish is on all of these?? Personally, I am in love with Style Cartel because it’s so inky and intense with a jelly-type look. My other favorite is Take It Outside. I just love the beautiful taupe-y color and how it looks against my skin tone. It’s so hard to wow polish freaks like myself, but this collection managed to really please me. Even though the colors aren’t revolutionary and I probably have a few dupes, the formula on these is really great and the shine is out of this world. If you don’t have similar colors, I definitely recommend these. What do you think about this collection? Do you see any shades that you must have? Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Stamping Saturdays #30

Posted on 2 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I should have gotten this post done last night, but of course I didn’t. I ended up catching up with a friend and didn’t get home until late. After that I was watching the Robocop remake which wasn’t that good but you know me and action movies. This morning I thought I was going to sleep in but I ended up waking up at 7:30 even though I went to bed around 3 am. Ugh! I went to my nail place early, and they only had ONE new collection I wanted which I’ll be swatching today. Whoever thought i was a good idea to close 3 out of 4 lanes on the main street to get there is a freaking genius considering there is always tons of traffic there no matter what day of the week it is. Can you sense how annoyed I was? haha! I need to chill out and just relax. Let’s move on from my complaining to my Stamping Saturdays mani since that is the main purpose of this post.

I started with 2 coats of Cult Nails Let Me Fly. Don’t let my crazy camera fool you: this polish is a lot more teal than what my pictures show. Still, it’s a gorgeous polish and that shimmer is just perfect.

I have used this image from Konad M64 many times, but I never get tired of it. I used my new Mentality Opaque White stamping polish for the design. I’ll be reviewing the two stamping polishes I recently purchased soon so watch out for that.

So how is your Saturday going? I hope it’s relaxing and fun. Let me know what you think of this mani cause I always love to read what you think. Thank you for stopping by today!

P.S. A little update on my blog sale grab bags: For this weekend only, they are $22 instead of $26!

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The Lacquer Ring – Geometric

Posted on 1 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Aww man, I feel like such a loser. After postponing this post last week, I still managed to post this late. I sort of have an excuse because I had a really stressful day, and I just didn’t have it in me to write up this post. I’m sorry for being a total flake for my fellow ladies in The Lacquer Ring. I promise I won’t be a flake this month. Can you believe it’s August already? WTF? Where did time go? Where have all the cowboys gone? Anyway, the theme we were working with is geometric. I have to admit I suck big time at freehanding anything especially when it has to be precise so I knew I had to do some stamping. Let me show you what I did.

I started with my two favorite polishes from the OPI Nordic Collection: OPI My Dogsled Is A Hybrid (press sample) and OPI Suzi Has A Swede Tooth (press sample). These are such gorgeous colors and the apply like butta.

Since I’m newly obsessed with China Glaze Fairy Dust (press sample), I applied one coat to really get this to sparkle.

I picked out a design I’ve used before from my MoYou London Pro Collection 18 plate(press sample.)

So what do you think about this end design? I’m happy with it because it is geometric and I love the colors.

I’m cutting this short because I am soooo running late right now to meet up with one of my besties. We have a lot to catch up on! Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for Stamping Saturdays. I have tons of ideas right now and I just hope that I can execute them.

Talk to you later!

The Beauty Buffs – Nautical

Posted on 30 July, 201429 July, 2014 by Cynthia

After hiatus, I am back with a new post with my fellow Beauty Buffs! To be honest, I have been feeling kind of blah about blogging lately. It’s not that I’ve stopped loving nail polish, it’s just that it became like a chore for me. Once I took a step back and relaxed my posting schedule, I fell a lot better and I actually started looking forward to posting again. Although my posting has been sporadic at best, I think I am starting to find a happy medium and hope to have a more regular posting schedule starting in August. So are you ready to see what The Beauty Buffs have for you today? Yep, nautical inspired nails! Well, the theme was nautical and/or beachy so I went with Nautical. Let’s take a look.

I used three polishes from the Salon Perfect Paint The Town Red, White and Blue Collection: Paint The Town Red, Salon Perfect Blue Ribbon, Salon Perfect Sugar Cube. I also used some striping tape to help me create some stripes.

At first I was only going to use red and white. Salon Perfect Paint The Town Red is such an awesome red crelly. It reminds me of my favorite red of all time: OPI Vodka & Caviar. It applied flawlessly with two coats. The white, however, was very streaky. I applied 2 thin coats and one thick 3rd coat to get Sugar Cube to look decent.

I decided to apply one coat of Blue Ribbon on my pointer finger over the white because I wanted a little more blue in my manicure. I then used striping tape for the lines on my pinky and pointer finger. Since I wanted to make the whole thing even more “nautical,” I stamped the anchors (CH 36) and wheels (CH 49) using my Cheeky plates and voilà!

What do you think of my little nautical interpretation? Don’t forget to check below for all the other nautical/beachy posts from my fellow Beauty Buffs. Thanks for stopping by today!

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Salon Perfect Neon Pop! Collection

Posted on 29 July, 201428 July, 2014 by Cynthia

Is it hot in your neck of the woods? I know it’s supposed to be really hot here in Southern California, but to tell you the truth, I think it is unseasonably cool. Maybe I’m just on crack or something because it was in the low 90’s here today, but it did not feel that gross. Since it’s really starting to warm up, the collection I have for you today is perfect. The Salon Perfect Neon Pop! Collection is made up of 12 bright colors to sear your retinas. I have 9 of the 12 polishes to share with you today so let’s take a look at the colors first.

Salon Perfect Flamingo Flair

Salon Perfect Fired Up Fuchsia

Salon Perfect Haute Pink (don’t ask me why this looks so orange…my camera took a dump on me)

Salon Perfect Plum Sorbet

Salon Perfect Tickled Pink

This is Loopy Lime, Bermuda Baby, Yowza Yellow and Traffic Cone sponged over a white base of sugar cube. I wasn’t being very careful about my sponging as you can tell by the extreme sloppiness and the muddled outcome. I wasn’t too concerned about it since I was planning to stamp over it anyway.

This is what my mani ended up looking like after stamping it up with an image from Bundle Monster BM 319. I kind of like the grungy end result!

Now, let’s talk formula. These were typical neons but some had better formulas than others. All of the polishes I swatched on their own were rather opaque, and I did not need to use white undies. They dried to a satin finish so I applied a clear top coat to give them some shine. They dried really quickly so you can’t overwork the polish because you will have a major mess on your hands. Loopy Lime, Bermuda Baby, Yowza Yellow and Traffic Cone were a lot thinner so I recommend using a white base to get the most out of them because otherwise you might be applying 5 million coats and still see VNL. If you don’t have similar color, I can recommend these. My absolute favorites are: Plum Sorbet an Fired Up Fuchsia. If you’re interested in purchasing these, you can find them at Wal-Mart where they retail for $3.98 each. My Wal-Mart still had a great selection of these, but they are limited edition so get them while you can.

How do you feel about neons? Strictly for summer or do you rock them year-round? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

China Glaze Pop Top Collection

Posted on 28 July, 201427 July, 2014 by Cynthia

Ugh, the dreaded Mondays. Why is it that the weekend goes by in a blur but the workweek goes by so darn slow? I feel like I barely got anything done this weekend and here I am ready for another week at work. Welp, I am not going to dwell too much on it, and I’ll just focus on getting to my next weekend. haha! For today’s post, I have collection of repromotes…I know, I know…you don’t like repromotes. I usually don’t either mainly because I buy everything when it first comes out. Like everything. For those who didn’t get the items initially, repromotes can give you a new opportunity to pick up something that you missed out on or just didn’t see when it first came out. The China Glaze Pop Top Collection is a collection of eight polishes:

Heart of Africa: Shimmering deep red
White on White: Crisp white crème
Pizzazz: Twinkling multi-dimensional glitter blend
Fairy Dust: Delicate silver sparkle overcoat
Luxe & Lush: A high octane flaky overcoat
Your Present Required: Multi-sized and multi-colored glitter
I Pink I Can: Multi-sized pink glitter
Techno: Glitter confetti polish

I used Heart of Africa and White on White as my base colors and used the glitters to top them off. Let’s take a look:

China Glaze Heart of Africa

Fairy Dust – Pizzazz – Luxe & Lush – Your Present Required

Your Present Required – Luxe & Lush – Pizzazz – Fairy Dust

China Glaze White on White

Luxe & Lush – Techno – I Pink I Can – Fairy Dust

Fairy Dust – I Pink I Can – Techno – Luxe & Lush

So what do you think? Do you have these already? You will be able to purchase these separately or in 2 sets:

China Glaze® Pop Top will be available in August 2014 along with the two four-piece box collections, “Glisten Up” and “Feeling Sparkly”. Individual polishes will retail for $7.50 MSRP and the four-piece box collections retail for $19.95 each. China Glaze® Pop Top will be available at fine salons and beauty supply stores nationwide; the four-piece kits will be available exclusively at Ulta.

To be honest, I had not used Fairy Dust before and I quite liked it. I can see myself using it as sparkly finishing touch over so many different manicures. White on White is one of my staple whites and have gone through two bottles in the last 2 years so this is definitely one that I am a fan on. All in all, these are nice polishes to have. Do you have a favorite glitter from this collection?

Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Stamping Saturdays #29

Posted on 26 July, 2014 by Cynthia

So this morning I went to see Lucy. I was super excited about watching it because I love Scarlett Johansson and I love Luc Besson (hello The Professional!), but it was kind of a let down. It seemed like it was trying to be a little serious but only came off as being silly. I figured a movie with both Scarlett and Morgan Freeman couldn’t be too bad, but I was wrong. I should have seen Hercules instead because then I could at least stare at The Rock for an hour and a half. Anyway, after the movie I went to my nail places and they literally had NOTHING new which was a big disappointment. I headed to Sephora to buy my favorite concealer (Kat Von D), and then went to Sally’s to buy some acetone. They had a buy 2 get 1 free sale on Finger Paints, and I almost bought some but I refrained. I’m so responsible now! I was working on my Stamping Saturdays mani last night and I had 2 total disasticures. It was so frustrating because everything I did came out looking horrible so I just ended up going with this last mani.

I really loved the color of Salon Perfect Plum Sorbet (press sample), but it dried so much darker than the bottle color. Even though this is a neon from the Neon Pop! Collection, I did not need to use a white base for this polish. Two coats were enough for full opacity, and it dries to a satiny finish so you need a good top coat if you need a shiny finish. Of course I Seche’d it up.

I then used an image from Mash plate Mash 40 and Essie Good As Gold for this swirly design. I ended up applying a matte top coat to finish off the mani. This is totally…MEH. I neither like it nor hate it. I feel like I’ve been off my stamping game lately. I hope that I start feeling inspired again because I feel like a total stamping bore right now.

So what are you up to this weekend? I don’t have much planed yet so I’m sure I’m just going to bum around which is fine by me. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Stamping Saturdays #28

Posted on 19 July, 201419 July, 2014 by Cynthia

A few year ago, I was a Sephwhora. What is a Sephwhora, you ask? Well, it’s someone who basically lives a Sephora. I loved going every week and blowing at least $100 each trip–ahhh the joys of having disposable income. Oh how times have changed! However, I find myself much happier today even if my income isn’t where it once was. I also find that I am not as interested in buying tons of cosmetics anymore since I basically just wear concealer, blush and lip gloss…and let’s not forget the eyebrow products! I finally took the plunge and decided to try out the Anastasia Dipbrow pomade so I’m super excited to see if it’s as good as everyone says it is. While I was at Sephora, I also picked up a new polish: Formula X Pedal To The Metal.

Sephora Formula X Pedal To The Metal is such gorgeous red leaning purple that is shimmery and metallic in finish. The formula was nice, but I did find that it dried very quickly so it was easy to overwork the polish. It is fairly opaque so you only need two coats.

And then I used one of my MASH plates, Mash 46, for this busy design. I wasn’t too convinced that I liked this but it has grown on me.

So what do you think? I’m liking the mani overall even if the design does cover up most of the polish. I’m going to cut it a little short today because I need to hurry up and get ready because I’m going to the fair today with my bro, sil and little peanut. I bet he’s going to really enjoy it and hopefully I’ll have a funny picture of him to share. Thanks for stopping by, and I will talk to you soon!

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OPI Nordic Collection

Posted on 14 July, 201412 August, 2014 by Cynthia

When the press release for the OPI Nordic Collection first came out, was I the only one wondering what was up with all the tan poopy shades? I never made it to he Nordic countries while I was living in Europe which is one thing that I always kick myself for, but hopefully I will make it to that part of the world again in the near future. I have to admit that I’m a bit confused about this collection. Maybe it’s that I don’t have too much knowledge about the countries that are being represented in this collection, but how do these colors fit? I don’t know! I decided to just sit down and swatch this collection instead of dwelling to much on it and let the polishes do the talking!

OPI How Great Is Your Dane?

OPI Ice-bergers & Fries

OPI Going My Way Or Norway?

OPI With A Nice Finn-ish

OPI Can’t Afjord Not To

OPI Suzi Has A Swede Tooth

OPI My Dogsled Is A Hybrid

OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?

OPI Thank Glogg It’s Friday

OPI Viking In A Vinter Vonderland

OPI Skating On Thin Ice-land

OPI My Voice Is A Little Norse

The formula on all of these was pretty identical across the board: creamy, easy to control and opaque at two coats. One thing I do want to stress is that I felt the polishes took a bit longer to dry so make sure that you leave plenty of time between coats. Now I’m realizing that maybe it’s the crappy weather that slowed down the drying time on the polishes. So what do I think about this collection? I am always delighted with consistency, and all of these polishes are consistently good because they applied flawlessly. I am still not entirely convinced about the actual colors and how they work together because the color palette seems a little random to me. I’d be interested in hearing from ladies from the Nordic countries these polishes are supposed to be inspired by since I’m still wondering if there really is a connection besides the pun-y names.

I really like Going My Way Or Norway? because it works as a great neutral for my skin tone. As you may have guessed, my least favorite is OPI With A Nice Finn-ish because it’s yellow gold and yellow gold is just ICK in my book. This one was a lot better than the gold from the Ford Mustang collection so at least the formula sort of saved it a bit. I was also really looking forward to playing with My Voice Is A Little Norse, and I was definitely not disappointed because it creates a really beautiful effect. As for the rest of the colors, they are very nice but nothing revolutionary. Still, there are some really amazeballs cremes here so if you don’t have similar colors, they are definitely worth picking up. What are your thoughts? Will you be purchasing any of these? The OPI Nordic Collection will be widely available in August so get your list ready! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

This collection has an official release date of August 6, 2014 so go get it now! You can purchase the OPI Nordic Collection at the usual places that carry OPI and each polish retails for $9.50 ($11.50 CAN). For my Canadian readers, you will also be able to purchase this collection at Nail Polish Canada. Fun times! Happy shopping.