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Stamping Saturdays #6

Posted on 15 February, 201414 February, 2014 by Cynthia

I’ve gotta be honest: I had a hell of a time coming up with today’s stamping manicure. Not only was I having some serious mani inspiration block, but my camera was giving me a lot of problems and wouldn’t focus. The only way I could get it to focus was to change my hand position which is why today you will see a different angle. Things just weren’t working out for me! When I started thinking about what I wanted to do, I remembered how much I love Butter London Wallis so that is where my mani started. Let’s take a look at this gorgeous polish.

Butter London Wallis is like a perfect combination of gold and green and just looks incredibly rich. A metallic olive gold you say? Yep, perfect description. Here I top coated it with Seche to give it a nice shine.

And here I applied a matte top coat over it. Doesn’t it look even more amazing?

I the picked a design from Bundle Monster plate BM-319 and stamped it with my black special polish. I initially wanted to mattify the whole design, but it just didn’t look as great because there wasn’t that much of a contrast. I much prefer this as a shiny manicure.

So what do you think of this mani? I’ve gotten a lot of questions about stamping and what I use and how, so I was thinking about maybe doing some sort of tutorial? There are a lot of tutorials out there so I don’t want it to just be boring and/or redundant. Would you guys be interested in this? Don’t forget to check out the other Stamping Saturdays manis from the other participants. Thanks so much for the visit today, and I hope you enjoy your weekend.

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Dior Perlé

Posted on 14 February, 201414 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Are you happy that it’s Friday? I should be, but unfortunately I work tomorrow morning at 6 am AND I don’t have President’s Day off…poo! One thing I am super excited about is that House Of Cards Season 2 is on Netflix!!!!! Holy crap I’ve been waiting for this forever, and I anticipate a huge Kevin Spacey binge this weekend. If you haven’t watched House Of Cards, I am going to tell you to watch it–you will love it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Robin Wright in such a splendidly cold role! Some other great news is that my medication stuff got figured out; my doctor changed my meds to something my insurance wouldn’t give me a hard time about so instead of $400 a month, my co-pays total $40. Not bad! I’m lucky to have such a responsive and attentive doctor and she always emails me back quickly which I appreciate. I guess that all in all, things are looking good and now I can start taking my meds and get my big ass to the gym. I was telling my co-workers that I have to lose 65 lbs this year and we were all talking about the changes we are going to make. I’m hopeful that I can get there and can’t wait to share my progress with all of you. Now, let’s get to the polish du jour: Dior Perlé. I’m sure you all know how I feel about Dior (love!), so it was a no brainer when I saw their new spring collection. I managed to control myself and not buy all the polishes in the collection and only picked out Perlé since it seemed so unique. Let’s take a look at it, and I’ll let you know what I thought.

I started out with two delicious coats of OPI I’m Feeling Sashy (press sample). This is such a gorgeous polish!

And this is one coat of Dior Perlé over I’m Feeling Sashy. Ehhh…I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely had to buy this because it’s Dior and limited edition (the most evil words ever), but I am also not that impressed with it. It’s like I want to LOVE it, but I’m still holding my full judgment until I try it over a super dark color. This polish gives your nails a sugary sparkly matte finish which I know a lot of people love–including yours truly.

I am currently stressing about what to do with my nails since tomorrow is Stamping Saturdays! I have a bunch of ideas in my head, but usually when I am this indecisive it just means I’m going to have a major fail on my hands. Let’s hope that’s not the case although it will be difficult to top last weeks awesome design. Well, what do you think about Perlé? Would you pay the $25 price tag or is this a pass for you? Let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Finger Paints Chromatic Creation

Posted on 12 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Today kind of sucked. I have been trying to get my prescriptions filled but every time I check, my pharmacy says they haven’t gotten the script from my doctor. They request it and I call, and nothing happens despite them saying it was sent. Finally I was told by my pharmacy that they received everything so I go to pick it up. Surprise! My meds aren’t covered by my insurance so it will be about $400 a month. Uhm, yeah….that ain’t gonna happen. So now I’m back to the drawing board and will be asking my doctor to prescribe something different. I need to make sure it’s in the stupid formulary for my insurance so I can get it covered. I’m so irritated because this new insurance I got kind of sucks balls. Freaking cheap Blue Shield plan! There isn’t much I can do until I get together with my doctor so hopefully we can find something that won’t cost me an arm and a leg. I also got a call from the lab because apparently they messed up my urine sample and want me to go back in again. Can I get some sort of good health news today? Oh yeah, I also got my blood tests back and my a1c is at 10…which is pretty bad. Fuck my life. I’ll discuss this more after we get to the main point of this post which is Finger Paints Chromatic Creation.

I took these pictures out in the sunlight because I wanted to get a good picture of the delicate holo. This isn’t one of those crazy wham bam linear holos that we see so often as it is very subdue and classy. I really like it and especially like the budget price. I picked this one up at the same time I got Rock Hard Lilac so it ended up being free. Pretty holo and free??? Yes, please! The formula was pretty standard so it wasn’t crazy like some holos. Since this polish is part of their core line, it isn’t LE so you don’t really have to rush out to get it. However, I’ve heard that it’s hard to find and sold out all over the place. I got the last bottle at my Sally’s!

So, here is the deal-io. My sugars are too high, my cholesterol is high and so is my blood pressure. I weighed in at 260 lbs last week which means I gained 10 lbs in the last year. I thought I had reached a breaking point last year, but clearly I’m still struggling. Now that I have insurance and that I will be taking medication regularly, I hope that those numbers go down, but that won’t happen unless I also exercise. I refuse to spend the rest of the year hovering at such a horribly unhealthy weight so I am going to take the bull by the horns. I am committing to losing 65 lbs this year and get out of the 200’s. This means that I have 10 months to do this so that’s about 7lbs a month which is totally doable. Slow and steady, right? I had mentioned to my blogger girls that if I don’t manage to do this, I will legit give them all my nail polish. Well, maybe excluding the polishes in my “expensive” drawer of my melmers. hahaha I know they are going to hold me to this so I better get to work unless I want to lose all my polish! Lose the fat, not the polish. Hey! That could be my new hashtag and tagline. While some of you may think this is just TMI, I think that it helps me feel accountable…like you are all helping me stay on track. I’m looking forward to sharing my success with you because there isn’t really an alternative. Thanks for the visit today, and I will talk to you soon!

Finger Paints Rock Hard Lilac

Posted on 11 February, 201411 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Today felt like such a looooooong day. I had all these plans about what I was going to do, but as soon as I got home, I spent 3 hours playing with my nephew who is absolutely scrumptious. Look at that face! I’ve been saying that we have the same hair because that’s what my hair looks like when I get up in the morning except it looks hideously scary on me.

So after my nephew was picked up, my mom, my brother and I went out to dinner and just hung out. I wanted to get my mom out of the house because lately she has been just cooped up with the baby and basically cleaning and cooking. After that she asked me to take her grocery shopping which she is totally clueless about because that is something that my dad has always taken care of. So that was my whole evening and now I’m pooped. However, I’m not pooped enough to show you a polish that I picked up: Finger Paints Rock Hard Lilac.

I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but I think that this polish if gorgeous. Since I rarely go into Sally’s because of the aggravation of employees who don’t know anything, I didn’t even know about the Rock The World Collection which is a collection of 4 chrome textures. CHROME TEXTURE. Now, I know that those two words evoked some PTSD from when I showed you the China Glaze Crinkled Chrome (which no one claimed even though I was giving it away for free–lol), but this collection is everything that the China Glaze one wasn’t. Let me tell you how amazing the formula is on this Finger Paints beauty: as a chrome, it’s super thick and would probably come out looking like brush stroke central, but the texture here saves it. The formula is thick but not goopy so it’s very easy to control. It is also super opaque so you could get away with one coat. I wanted a more uniform and gritty texture so I opted for two coats. The polish dries lightning fast so I didn’t see the need of using a fast drying top coat. Yadi, from Night Swatcher, has some great swatches of this whole collection on her blog so check them out in case you’re interested in picking these up.

So my final words on this polish? IN YO FACE, CHINA GLAZE! This is what you could have had on your hands: an awesome chrome texture but you had to go ahead and add those hideous bars to create your satanic abomination. Oh well. If you want to get these polishes, now would be the perfect time since they are buy one, get one free. Yep, now that’s worth a trip to Sally’s! Let me know what you think of this–yay or nay? Thanks for the visit, and I will talk to you soon.

Gradient Success?

Posted on 10 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Hi everyone. I’ve got some news today: I’m a challenge loser. I was supposed to join a Valentine’s Day Challenge, and I was all pumped and even completed 3 of my 5 manis this weekend…and then I ruined my SD card and lost them all. I am so sad about this and feel kind of defeated, but I hope that tomorrow I will have some time to recreate the manis I lost. Sadly I will be missing the first day but hope that I can get back on track because it’s only a 5 day challenge! Since I didn’t want to NOT post today, I decided to share with you a gradient I did. If you follow me on facebook, you may recall my posts (here and here) asking for advice on how to do a gradient because I’m such a gradient loser. A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting to a few friends how ugly my gradients are and how I always hope my gradients would turn out like Sarah’s from Chalkboard Nails. Sadly, they always end up looking like I did them with my toes. One of my friends told me to stop comparing my gradients to hers because she’s not human. lol Seriously, though–how amazing are her gradients? I was drooling over her black and white Leather Gradient and thought that maybe I would be able to do something similar. Let’s take a look at what I feel is my first semi-successful gradient:

I started off with 2 coats of OPI This Gown Needs A Crown. I love this polish!

I then used OPI 4 In The Morning which is a black satin polish from the Gwen Stefani collection to sponge on the gradient. I used a rough and porous latex sponge and applied the two polishes directly on it and sponged the polishes on twice to get them to blend well.

I think that you can see the gradient effect a lot more clearly in this picture. I’m kind of proud of myself right now because I have struggled with so many of these techniques forever so it feel like I just conquered my second Everest (water marbling being my first).

Is it pathetic to be all excited about a manicure? Hey, it’s the little things that make me happy, ok? So what do you think of my gradient? Win or fail? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Jessica Coral Symphony Collection Spring 2014

Posted on 9 February, 2014 by Cynthia

This weekend has just flown by. I guess it doesn’t help that I only have one weekend day off, but I feel like it has just gone by in a blur. I’ve been super lazy all day today and only cleaned my room and organized some of my melmers. I’ve also been watching all the Twilight movies at the same time–don’t judge. I’m not a fan, per se, but I just felt like watching them. Last night I watched that new Kate Winslet/Josh Brolin movie, Labor Day, and it was pretty bad. I love the actors, but the movie was just so damn lame that I had a hard time enjoying it. I have been meaning to post my swatches for this collection, but I just had a bunch of stuff queued up already and decided to just jump ahead and post it tonight. Starting tomorrow, I will be doing Valentine’s Day Challenge so I have those manis to post for the next 5 days. Yes, you read that right: Valentine’s Day. If you know me well, you’re probably laughing because I am not a hearts and flowers type of girl, but I figured that I should to a challenge where I am not really a fan of the holiday inspiration just so that I can push myself. Also, it was organized by Jessica and she’s pretty awesome so I jumped right on it. So, the collection I have for you today is the Jessica Coral Symphony Collection for Spring 2014. Are you tired of all the Spring Collections yet? Well, bear with me because this is a really nice one!

Jessica Starfish Glow

Jessica Conch Shell

Jessica Ocean Bloom

Jessica Tropical Sunset

Jessica Monsoon Melon

Jessica Sharktooth

Jessica is one of my favorite brands because they always do the most amazing cremes out there so I get giddy any time they put out all-creme polish collections. All of the polishes in the Coral Symphony collections are dreamy: smooth, pigemented, self-leveling and opaque. All of them required two coats for full opacity–even Sharktooth. You know I love me some white polishes, and this one is great. I can see myself using it often as a nail art base color. Overall, I am really happy with this collection because of the beautiful colors and the glorious formula. I would say that the colors aren’t super exciting as there are a lot of similar colors being released for Spring so I am sure that you may have dupes. However, if you want a perfect creme, you may want to check these out.

This collection should be available now in cause you’re interested. You can follow Jessica Cosmetics on their website and facebook page for all their latest news. Let me know what you think of this collection. Thanks so much for stopping by, and I will talk to you soon.

Stamping Saturdays #5

Posted on 8 February, 20147 February, 2014 by Cynthia

It has been 5 Saturdays since I started up Stamping Saturdays and I think today we have most of the girls participating so I’m super excited. When I say the girls, I am talking about my girls (no, not those!). The girls are Amy, Siobhan, Frosso, Nicole, Amanda, Jessica and Lesley. While I have only met one of these amazing ladies in person so far (Southern California is still not over the polish destruction that Lesley and I caused), I spend so much time emailing back and forth with them about EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. Stamping Saturdays was just an idea for all of us to do something together without the pressure of a challenge. We’re all pretty relaxed about it, and we post when we can. It’s only fitting that today I have my favorite stamping mani ever. Maybe I’m biased, but I absolutely love how this turned out, so I hope that you all love it too. Let’s take a look at my pictures below so you can be the judge.

I started out with the delicious OPI Ink Suede. Absolutely breathtaking polish. There are no more words.

I used Konad M64 and my white special polish to stamp this design. I know that there are a lot of polishes out there that work for stamping, but nothing really beats the white special polish. I find that it stamps so cleanly and crisply that it’s definitely worth the expense. I usually buy my konad polishes on amazon and have always been happy with my purchases.

So what do you think about this design? Do you like it as much as I do? For other awesome designs, make sure to check out the links below, Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you enjoy your weekend.

Jade Déjà Vu

Posted on 7 February, 2014 by Cynthia

I’m having a good day today. You know those days when everything flows just right, work is fine and you’re just in a lighthearted mood? Yep, that’s me today. I wish I had more of these days because I feel so much better and optimistic about things. Even though I am back to working Saturdays, I hope it’s a nice…at least I get to sleep in until 5 am. LUCKY ME!! Since I’m in such a fantastic mood, I decided to show you a polish that is just as bright and cheery. Just when you thought you were on holo overload, Jade Déjà Vu swoops in to sweep you off your feet. Don’t believe me? Check it out below.

Jade Déjà Vu is a hot pink holo from the Holográfico line. Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous? The holo isn’t as crazy linear as other holos, but it is still rather breathtaking–especially because I love pink polish. This awesome polish was a gift from the awesome Amy who sadly doesn’t blog much anymore and whose posts always cracked me up. The formula on these Jade holographic polishes is awesome because they are super opaque and don’t apply like regular holos. They dry shiny and glossy which I love!

I hope that you stop by tomorrow because we are going to have some awesome manis for Stamping Saturday. I have probably my favorite stamping mani EVER to share with you tomorrow so I hope that you end up liking it as much as I do. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope you have awesome weekend plans. Talk to you soon!

L.A. Girl 3D Effects Teal Dimension

Posted on 4 February, 20144 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Yesterday I went for my follow up with my primary care doctor so we could go over all my medications. Since I’ve basically let my health go to pot ever since I lost my job and health insurance, we had a lot to go over. Since I am not back on track on the job and insurance front, she ordered a bunch of blood tests to see where I am. I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I am a medical mess with my PCOS and diabetes so I was super worried about what she would say. Thankfully she didn’t make me feel even worse by scolding me, but she did stress to me how important it is to monitor my sugars and such. Because of my PCOS and insulin resistance, I always danced a fine line between full blown diabetes and pre-diabetes so it was only a matter of time before I became a diabetic. I was making great strides with my physical health at one point, but sadly my mental health fell by the wayside and that’s when everything went to pot. Now I feel very ready to take on this big challenge which is why I went to see my doctor before I throw myself into an exercise routine. I got a flu shot (for the first time ever!) and she also checked my sugars at the office. It wasn’t as bad as she was expecting since I haven’t been taking metformin, but she said it was a little higher than she would like to see. I guess I won’t know much until the results of my tests come back, but I’m glad to be getting back into a healthier path. I know that if I lose weight, it will help regulate so many things and maybe I won’t have to be on meds anymore!

Anyway, enough of all my health woes because I know you’re here to see the polish, right? hehe The polish I’m featuring today is one that I bought a long time ago but never swatched. Now that I have tried it out, I’m kicking myself for not buying all the other colors in this collection because it is breathtaking. Let’s take a look at L.A. Girl 3D Effects Teal Dimension.

First of all, these pictures make the polish look more blue than it is. It’s definitely teal in person, but my camera loves to make everything look blue. The lighting I used doesn’t let the holographic particles really stand out, but man this looks awesome in sunlight. It’s a strange kind of holographic finish as it is kind of chunky but feels very smooth on the nail. The formula is so amazing as it is a little on the thick side but not goopy. It has great coverage so you only need two coats for full opacity. I approve of this beauty!

Well, I hope you’re having a nice day today. I’m planning on going on a small dusty hunt after work today so maybe I’ll show up with some crazy old polishes on my facebook page. I love how many of you visit me there and keep the discussions fun. Have you checked out my facebook page? You can visit here if you’re interested. Hope to see you there, and I will talk to you soon!

OPI Brazil Collection Spring/Summer 2014

Posted on 3 February, 201426 February, 2019 by Cynthia

******** COME CHECK OUT MY BLOG SALE********

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been patiently waiting to get my hands on the OPI Brazil Collection ever since I started seeing promo pictures and random swatches online. When the box of polish joy showed up, I was bursting with excitement when I realized this collection is mostly cremes. Don’t gorgeous cremes make you ridiculously happy? Am I the only one whose mouth waters just looking a beautiful and buttery cremes? Ok, I guess I’m just weird, but it’s the truth.This 12 piece collection also includes a collection of mini Liquid Sands, Beach Sandies, that really are like the cherry on top of this luscious grouping. Let’s start by taking a look at the 4 Beach Sandies.

OPI What’s A Little Rain Forest?OPI You’re So Flippy Floppy

OPI Samba-dy Loves Purple

OPI I’m Brazil Nuts Over You

These 4 textured polishes all apply beautifully. They all need two coats for full opacity and dry lightning fast. If you are not a lover of textured polishes because of the rough feeling, these are surprisingly smooth. Obviously they still have a textured feeling, but they feel very fine and definitely not chunky at all. These are super shimmery and just look fantastic out in sunlight. You know what my beef with these is? They only come in mini-size!!! WHAAAAAAAAATTTT???? I would kill for a full size of these–especially that blue–so I’m feeling kinda sad about that. Now let’s move on to the main collection so get ready for some awesomeness.

OPI Where Did Suzi’s Man-go?

OPI Toucan Do It If You Try

OPI Live. Love. Carnaval

OPI Kiss Me I’m Brazilian

OPI Red Hot Rio

OPI Scores A Goal

OPI Next Stop…The Bikini Zone

OPI Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around

OPI Taupe-less Beach

OPI I Sao Paulo Over There

OPI Amazon…Amazoff

OPI I Just Can’t Cope-acabana

I didn’t get into describing each polish individually because the formula on all of them is nearly identical: they are luscious cremes, highly pigmented, smooth, buttery and glossy. Application on all of them was flawless. and they were all perfect with two coats. In fact, many of these could be one coaters if you’re careful with your application. The most surprising polish was the yellow as this too, is almost a one-coater!!! I found the variety of brights and neutrals in one collection pretty refreshing. I am so happy with this collection and loved every single polish. What do you think of this collection? Is it what you were expecting?

Brazil by OPI will be available in both nail lacquer and GelColor formulas beginning February 5, 2014. Nail lacquers will retail for $9.00 ($10.95 CAN) each at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, jcp Salons, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, ULTA and ulta.com. Beach Sandies Liquid Sand mini pack will retail for $12.95 ($14.95 CAN). For more information, please call 800-341-9999 or visit www.opi.com. Follow OPI on Twitter @OPI_PRODUCTS and become a Facebook fan!