Category: Swatches

Of Life and Lacquer > Swatches

Sinful Colors Zeus

Posted on by Cynthia

I finally got around to trying my first Sinful Colors polish. I bought 4 of them a few weeks ago when they were on sale for $1 at Walgreens. I have to say that I absolutely love this color. It’s just what I was in the mood for. The formula left a lot to be desired: it was goopy and runny at the same time and I found it very difficult to apply it evenly. For the second coat, I added a few drops of Seche Restore to the polish and it was perfectly smooth and manageable.

How beautiful is that shimmer?

Today I saw Dr. H for the last time, apparently. He told me that he was going to be working at a new place starting in July. Ugh. I really liked him. He was the one who treated me during my last hospitalization, and I feel really comfortable with him. He’s not my therapist, just my psychiatrist so we mainly focus on my meds and how I’m feeling. We talked about him doing the freaking dog letter again but I guess all those things have to go through the director so Dr. H is supposed to call me back once he talks to her. It really sounded like they’re going to do it now. I won’t hold my breath.

I also didn’t go to the gym today. I was totally not feeling like it today so I’ll  be sure to work extra hard tomorrow. Working out daily has made me feel so much better. I feel like I’ve accomplished something! I need to go buy my mom a gift for mother’s day. She is a perfume lover like me so I was thinking of buying her a nice set. I might hit up Sephora tomorrow to check stuff out.

OH NO THEY DIDN’T!!! I was just finishing up this post as I watched Grey’s Anatomy and all of a sudden there is a plane crash. Ok, I nearly shit myself. I can’t wait till next week.

OPI Designer Series Opulence + Coronation

Posted on by Cynthia

Do you think that the OPI Designer Series polishes are worth the extra cash? I think some of them are like these two. Others are just fancy glitterbombs that I’d rather pass up. I couldn’t really tell how pretty this is until I put it on my nails and went out in the sun. Sooooooo pretty. I used Opulence and only needed 2 coats. It applied effortlessly.

 

I then used Coronation for the diagonal tips.

 

And lastly I used my new dotting tools for the black dots along the tip line.

What do you think of this? I’m already getting bored by it. I wasn’t feeling very inspired today so I just threw this on my nails. I started checking google for nail art ideas and I came across some really weird shit.

I think this is going to give me nightmares tonight. (Source)

 

This is tacky and cool at the same time. (Source)

 

Is this for real? lol I loooove this. I loved playing Super Mario 3 so much when I was a kid. How bad did Super Mario 2 suck??! (Source)

 

And these because our country isn’t quite fat enough yet. (Source)

Ugh…I guess I need to get my lazy butt to the gym now.

Orly Skinny Dip

Posted on by Cynthia

I don’t tend to purchase many Orly polishes and I don’t know why. They are just as easily accessible to me, but it seems that I don’t pay much attention to their collections. Even when I am aware of their upcoming collections, I am not as excited to get my hands on them. Their Summer 2012 Feel The Vibe Collection is full of neons which are super popular right now. However, I wasn’t really feeling the colors. The only one that I was interested in is Skinny Dip: of course it’s a blue that I love, and it had this super pretty light purple microshimmer flash in the bottle. As I have come to expect, the purple pretty much disappears once the nails. It dries satiny so you need a top coat if you want a shiny finish. I applied 3 coats and I felt that it needed all three. It is a sheer polish, but it’s easily buildable.

 

I’ve never really done sponging which I think looks amazing. I wanted to use some glitter (gasp!) to sponge on my tips so I looked through all my glitter polishes. I chose Wet N Wild Believe Me It’s Real which came out for the holidays in 2011. I had such a hard time finding this collection because it was a Walgreens exclusive and it seemed that no one had even heard of it. Since I don’t have Gelous, I had to apply like a million coats of Poshé to smooth out the glitter. This glitter is rough and eats up top coat like a mofo.

I can’t believe I still haven’t cut my nails yet. O_o I think this is the longest they have EVER been even when I wore acrylics. It’s been so weird getting used to the length, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.

I think the people I see regularly at the gym are going to start calling me the crazy nail girl. What do you think of this combo? Not too flashy?

Zoya Breezi

Posted on by Cynthia

I guess there comes a point in every nail polish hoarder collector’s life where you realize that you kind of have all the colors out there.  There will always be slight finish variations, but the base colors will all start to resemble each other. Today I was looking at Zoya Breezi wondering what do do with it. Once I painted my nails with it, I immediately saw OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui. Do I really want the same colors a million times just by different brands? YES!

Ok, maybe not but I am starting to rethink my nail polish purchases. Once the excitement of buying new stuff wears off, I am not that happy that I am so easily duped. Since I haven’t been purchasing nail polish this month, I realize that it’s not really a big deal. I’m not saying I don’t love nail polish anymore. I guess I am saying that I need to be much more practical with my nail polish purchases.

Breezi is such a pretty color. I am just so into these blues. The formula was perfect and I only needed two coats. It dries very glossy, but I still topped it with Poshé.

 

I did some konading on top of this, but I just did such a crappy job with it that I didn’t even take pictures. It’s just kind of sloppy and crooked.

To quote one of the funniest teen movies ever:

Tai: Do you think she’s pretty?
Cher: No, she’s a full-on Monet.
Tai: What’s a monet?
Cher: It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess.

So that’s what my nails are like: from a distance they look fine, but up close they look like a mess.

How was your Monday? I still have to drag myself to the gym. I feel gross today. I’m getting cramps. 🙁 Blaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Zoya Charisma

Posted on by Cynthia

Now that I took off yesterday’s ick job, I wanted to try out something super bright. Zoya Charisma to the rescue! I was really surprised that this dried matte; I should have paid more attention to the description on Zoya’s page.

I love how saturated this color is: it’s glowing. I didn’t notice that there is slight vnl, but it doesn’t really bother me. This could be a one-coater if you’re careful enough, but I did two coats to even everything out. I guess I don’t have too much to say about this polish except that it’s pretty!

I should not have taken a freaking nap in the middle of the day…if you can call sleeping for 3 hours a nap. I hope I can fall asleep tonight. Soooo…I am debating about going to the gym tonight. I feel like everything I’ve been posting lately is all about the gym, but I just really have to lose weight for my health. Since I’m feeling motivated lately, I might as well take advantage of it, right? Sorry if all the gym talk is boring!

I hope you had a nice weekend, and thanks for reading.

Sunday Morning

Posted on by Cynthia

Am I the  only one who really really likes this song?

Anyway, happy Sunday to all. Thanks for stopping by! I am kind of exhausted right now. I didn’t get home until around midnight last night and didn’t fall asleep until almost 2 am. Then I woke up at 6 am because my friend and I wanted to go to the beach. It’s been eons since I’ve been to the beach even though it’s literally like 10 minutes from my place. It was so nice to be out that early breathing fresh air and hearing the sound of the waves. I also saw tons of people with their dogs. When can I get my dog, dangit?!

We were there for a long time. We walked along the sand laughing and making fun of each other. See, I’ve known V since we were like 10 years old. We didn’t like each other very much until we were stuck working together on a project for one of our classes in 8th grade. So 20-some years later, we’re still friends and I’m very lucky to have her in my life. I always tell people that my litmus test for friendship is to travel together. Well, we have gone on vacation twice and we had a fantastic time. The first time we went to Hawaii which was freaking awesome…even if we got so hammered we could barely walk up the stairs at the hotel. Ok, maybe that was just me but I  know she was probably pointing and laughing. The next time we took a trip to Europe and went to Paris, Florence and Rome. She reminded me today of how we were freezing in Florence (it was late fall/early winter) but we HAD to have some gelato late at night. So we went to find a place that was open and walked outside eating our gelato and freezing our bums off.

Since V is a true friend, she told me that my nails looked ugly. Haha! Yeah, true biatch. (I still love you, though!) I can’t say that she’s wrong because I didn’t like my nails much so I didn’t even post them yesterday. They just turned out so ugly…kind of ghettoish. I started with Zoya Malia. I don’t have a lot to say about Malia. It just looks like OPI Do You Lilac It? to me. It is a color that I like but not terribly exciting. The formula was great, and it only needed two thin coats.

You can tell by the crappy job that I wasn’t that excited about doing my nails for some reason. I didn’t even do decent clean up! But wait till you see them after konading.

My nails are starting to look wonky to me because they are so long. However, I can’t cut them because I am going to beat Nicole at our imaginary nail competition. I just noticed a hair or fiber that got stuck on my middle nail. Can you spot it? How gross.  Anyway, I need to take these things off asap and try another color.

Last night was really fun as well. I went into a sushicoma with my sil. We both didn’t eat all day so we could fully enjoy our sushi. So this place that we go to is a little neighborhood joint. The sushi is really good, fresh, delicious and reasonably priced. Their service has always been on the slow side which we don’t usually mind because we are slow eaters and talk the whole time. Sometimes it does get a little ridiculous like waiting an hour or more to get our food when they are super busy. Surprisingly, they weren’t busy last night so we were annoyed with attentiveness. We should have counted how many times the waiter came by our table or the busboy peeked to see if we had any empty dishes. It might have been 20 or more times. It was getting beyond annoying. At one point, we thought we were on some hidden camera show to see how much we could take before we told them to fuck off and let us eat in peace. After we were done eating, they brought us the check without even asking if we wanted dessert!!! So of course we had to order some out of spite (and cause who are we kidding? we love our sweets!). We laid a bet to see how many times someone would come to our table to bug us while we ate dessert. My sil said 3 and I said 5. I won. 5 times!!!!!!!!!

After that we watched The Lucky One which was ok. There really wasn’t anything else we could watch and The Avengers was sold out for the rest of the night. Is it just me or does Zac Effron still look like a baby?

I don’t know what to do right now. I want to change my nails, but I really want to take a nap. Wow, a nap sounds so good…………………

Illamasqua Nomad

Posted on by Cynthia

First of all, I would like to tell you about my disappointment when I removed Zoya Zuza, and I gazed at my blue fingers and nails. Zuza is stainorrific. Granted it’s not as bad OPI Fly, but there was still staining. I forgive you, Zuza. I’ll still wear you because you’re pretty.

I was super excited to try this new nail polish by Illamasqua. I haven’t purchased anything by Illamasqua before (make-up or nails) so I didn’t know what to expect. I am glad to report that I was not disappointed. The formula was creamy, highly pigmented and easy to work with.

When I first put this on, I immediately thought of China Glaze Four Leaf Clover. It really isn’t the same because Nomad is a more bright jade color while Four Leaf Clover is more teal based. My one complaint would be the cap. I find it so awkward to hold when I’m applying the polish. It’s just too big to feel comfortable in my had for precise application. The brush was nice except that it had one wonky bristle.

I am very pleased with my first Illamasqua purchase and will purchase more products from their nail line in the future. Future meaning June. Hee!

Tomorrow is Cinco de Drinko. Are you going out to get hammered?

Orly Mysterious Curse

Posted on by Cynthia

This nail polish is like the first born, blonde, blue eyed male child of my nail polish collection right now. Don’t get all judgmental on me; this is something we used to joke about at my previous job: that my department was the red-headed stepchild of the company and that I would make them into the first born, blonde, blue eyed male child if it killed me…which it nearly did. But that’s another story…

I can’t remember the last time I was completely blown away by a nail polish so I am giddy right now. I don’t know what it is about it that just mesmerizes me. It’s purple and blue. It’s dark and shimmery. It’s just so gorgeous I can’t stand it. Of course there was basically no sunlight today so I had to make do with indoor lighting and flash. I really would have liked to photograph this baby in direct sunlight but I didn’t want to wait since it’s been cold and overcast here for the last 3 days.

Don’t tell me that you don’t love it as much as I do because I will have to hunt you down and destroy you.

In other news, I’m going to the gym tonight just as soon as I finish watching The Office. I need to get my ipod out and update it with a few new songs. I was listening to the Gotye  song “Somebody That I Used To Know” and I thought: When did The Police record a new song? Just an FYI…I am the biggest The Police fan. I love them. Can you remember swooning over Sting in “Don’t Stand So Close To Me?” No? Well, you must either be way young or just insane.

Raaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwrrrr! I totally had a major thing for my college American Literature professor and I blame this video. Why does it seem that everything is more intense when you’re 17? I never missed his class even though it was at 8 am.

So what other songs should I download? Are there songs that you enjoy when you hit the gym? And, oh yeah…what do you think about Mysterious Curse?

Jessica Show Stopper

Posted on by Cynthia

Here is another polish to add to my Baby Poop Color Chronicles. Granted it’s no China Glaze Trendsetter but it has that weird quality that always makes me think of baby poo as soon as I look at my nails. Yeah, totally not a good image. I got some random stranger compliments on this polish so I guess it looks more interesting than I thought. These pictures make it super obvious that I don’t wrap my tips and this polish really needed it!

The shimmer is very noticeable on my nails and I wasn’t expecting it because the bottle color just looks dark and without shimmer. I also think that the polish did not react well with my topcoat. Once I put Poshé on it, it started to look streaky which was really weird! I do like this polish I don’t see too many of these dirty olive colors, but they are certainly cropping up more often in random collections.

Do you have any similar colors in your collection? What do you think of this color?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a great weekend.

SpaRitual Meditate On This

Posted on by Cynthia

I made it through wearing my last manicure for a few days. I was really itching to take it off and try one of my new babies so I picked the SpaRitual shade I recently picked up at Sephora. Now, before I talk about the new nail polish, let me show you the aftermath of OPI Fly.

This was the staining left behind. What.A.Nightmare. This was AFTER I used pure acetone too! I had to break out the baking soda, whitening toothpaste and toothbrush to get rid of all the staining. As much as I love Fly, I am in no hurry to deal with this any time soon.

Back to the new nail polish! I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with this nail polish because it looked so amazing in the bottle but lost most of that purple tone on my nails. It’s so hard to see the duochrome effect on my nails, and the duochrome was the main reason why I wanted to get it in the first place. Look at a bottle shot:

This is a pretty sheer polish so I think maybe next time I will wear a dark base. I applied 3 thick coats and still had some VNL.

As you can tell from my pictures, you can’t see any of the purple in direct sunlight. It’s only visible in the following pictures that I took in the shade.

Is this a pretty polish? Absolutely. Was I expecting more? YES! I will be trying other SpaRitual polishes for sure but will make sure to try cremes next. That is my test of an awesome polish brand: if they make an awesome creme, they go on my favorites list.

What do you think of this polish? Have you tried SpaRitual?