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The Lacquer Ring – Purple

Posted on 12 February, 201511 February, 2015 by Cynthia

I’m kind of grouchy right now. Not just kind of….but rather super pissed. I had typed up this post and was getting ready to schedule it. When I hit schedule, I got an error message from wordpress that said something like “Are you sure you want to do this?” Then when I tried to go back to my post, it was gone…all of it. I wanted to throw my computer across the room because somehow that would make it all better, right? Anyway, let me get over my bitter party of one right now and get back to the main point of this post–it’s all about ME! Yep, me. I got to pick the color for today’s The Lacquer Ring post so of course I had to go with purple because….well, is there any other choice? Let me show you the purple beauty I decided to use today.

This gorgeous polish is Illamasqua Prosperity and has a unique rubber finish. It’s not quite satin not matte…it really is rubber-like! I absolutely adore Illamasqua, but ever since Sephora stopped carrying the brand, there really is nowhere to get it locally and I refuse to pay for shipping. I’m cheap like that. When Amy told me that Illamasqua was back on Hautelook, I freaked the efff out and headed over there to see what they had. Six polishes later and 10 minutes of cursing Amy for tempting me this way, I got my hands on a few polishes that I had been kicking myself for missing. Ok, I didn’t really curse Amy but dangit she is such an enabler! The only thing I hate about Hautelook is that the shipping takes freaking eons so I should expect to get my polishes by…2017?

Since I’m all about the bling, bout the bling, no treble…oh wait, no. I had to make everything sparkly so I applied a coat of Delush Polish Nue Girl (press sample) just cause I love it and cause I love sparkles. You guys…I am dying about the upcoming spring collection that Delush has for us. Like seriously dying over how gorgeous it is. Ok, I’ll stop gushing.

Well, I hope that you like this gorgeous purple as much as me. Do you have any purple polish recommendations for me? I’m always excited to find new purples so let me know below! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Splatter

Posted on 22 January, 201521 January, 2015 by Cynthia

I need to tone it down a little today because I’m almost roid raging over a freaking nail. So here I am all happy with being able to use my swatching hand again, and I was all showing off my new nail shape and all…and BAM! My pink nail split lengthwise. How does that even happen? I’ve never had that happen before so I was like…WTF nail? I managed to file it down enough to where the split ended, but now I’m just waiting for the next nail catastrophe. Oh, and I also have a nail starting to peel/break on my non-swatching hand. Of course this happens when I have about 30 polishes to swatch because the universe hates me. Let me get off this rant for now so I can actually show you what I’m supposed to be talking about today: The Lacquer Ring! Yep, we are at it again with a new prompt which was chosen by Amanda. She chose splatter nails, and of course I had to take the easiest way out because, at Sweet Brown says, Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!

I started off with a simple black base using Jessica Velvets & Pearls (press sample) which is a pretty standard black creme. It has a great formula so no complaints here.

I then used Jessica Standing Ovation (press sample) to stamp this splatter image from Konad Plate M70. I thought the contrast would be better, but I kind of like how this looks. I should have left well enough alone but nooooooooooooo…

I then used my Nicole by OPI Matte Top Coat (press sample) to mattify the whole mani and basically ruined it. I do not like how this looks matte. I should have used a different stamping color to make it stand out more when I mattified it.

Welp, I’m sorry I brought you this craptacular mani today. I just gave up. I had a long day and just didn’t have it in me to do anything different after this fail. Hopefully I’ll do better next month. Womp womp. Check out the links below to see what the other ladies from The Lacquer Ring came up with–it sure can’t get worse than this. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Cobalt

Posted on 9 January, 20158 January, 2015 by Cynthia

I am sooooooo glad that it’s Friday. This week has felt really long so I’m looking forward to being lazy all weekend. I feel like I say that every Friday and then I end up feeling guilty when I do spend some totally lazy time. Major props to moms out there who NEVER get a day off–I don’t know how you do it. I had some drama with this post because I accidentally completely deleted it off my drafts and then it wasn’t in my deleted items either so it fell into the blog Bermuda Triangle. It seems pretty par for the course for me as of late, but I’m still pretty darn happy even if I have been kind of emotional lately. I could blame PMS, but I think I’m just weird overall. Today, The Lacquer Ring is featuring Cobalt. Can we all scream every time we see or hear the word cobalt they way they did in Peewee’s Playhouse? How rando was that show? I tried watching it with my brother a bit ago and it almost seemed creepy. Maybe it was the whole masturbating in public thing….Anyway, let me show you the polish I used.

This is Inglot 992 which I haven’t worn in a really long time. Initially it looked cobalt to me, but it’s actually more of a blurple. This polish has a beautiful purple sheen in the bottle that pretty much disappears on the nail. Still, I think it’s lose enough to cobalt where I don’t feel too bad for messing up.

Since I wanted to keep things simple, I just applied a coat of Shimmer Liana (press sample) over my base color to jazz it up. I really love all of the Shimmer Polish glitters that I have ever used because they are so pretty and interesting. I can always count on them to bling out my manicures.

So what do you think? Is cobalt a color that you like to wear on your nails? What is your favorite cobalt polish? To be honest, I think mine is Nails Inc. Baker Street which I probably should have used today but I’ve used it so many times that I just wanted to mix it up a little. Anywho, don’t forget to check out the other cobalt manis below. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and don’t forget to joins us tomorrow for Stamping Saturdays. Talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Stars

Posted on 18 December, 201417 December, 2014 by Cynthia

Ello gov’nor! I’ve been wanting to answer the phone at work that way for a long time, but I don’t think that is going to fly. What do you think? I’m feeling kind of silly today and have no idea why. I think that it may be the funky weather, the holidays or PMS…ok, tmi so let’s move right along. It’s that time again when The Lacquer Ring is ready to wow you with our most awesome designs! See? I told you I was feeling silly. Today’s prompt, courtesy of Lesley, is all about stars. At first I wanted to use some stamping plates but then I remembered that I had some nail decals that I hadn’t used so BAM…it all came together.

The items I have used for today’s mani are KBShimmer Stonewashed (press sample), Max Factor Fantasy Fire (gift) and Salon Perfect Star Struck Nail Decal Kit (press sample).

I know that I talk about KBShimmer. I can’t help it–just look at this polish!!!! Stonewashed is such a perfect opaque creme. This is two smooth coats, and it really doesn’t get any better than this.

If I could topcoat everything with Max Factor Fantasy Fire I probably would. I just had an image of my car being topcoated with Fantasy Fire…is that weird? I applied a super thin coat of Fantasy Fire over Stonewashed just to give it that lit from within look.

And finally here are the stars. I have to work a little more on my decal placement but overall I give this mani a meh. I thought it was going to reach polish boner territory due to the awesome base, but I think it just became too much and now it’s just a semi.

So what do you think about this mani? Did the decals ruin it for you? Regardless, I strongly recommend that you check out KBShimmer Stonewashed cause it’s just divine. Anywho, don’t forget to check out the other stellar designs from my girls. My girls as in the other members of the Lacquer Ring, not my boobs. Just thought that I should clear that up just in case. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Fuchsia

Posted on 4 December, 20143 December, 2014 by Cynthia

You guys, I am so happy that I got a chance to post today. As you may have heard, Southern California is in the midst of rainmaggeddon and all hell has broken loose. The state is going down in flames–er, water? Yes, I’m kidding. We’ve had sporadic showers in the last two days, but people act like it’s the new biblical deluge. Everyone forgets how to drive, which causes tons of accidents, people fight each other Hunger Games style for parking spots close to the entrance of the store and it’s just general mayhem all around. I sit back in my car wondering what would happen if we had real horrible weather like some places back east–I guess we would all die instantly. For reals. So today The Lacquer Ring is bringing you the color fuchsia per Lesley’s choice. I pretty much love the color so I am very happy with Lesley’s choice. When it came to deciding which polish to use, I went with the obvious: Sation Fan The Flames Fuchsia.

Sation Fan the Flames Fuchsia is a super vibrant neon that dries to a satin finish. I adore this polish because he formula is perfection. Even though it dries kinda of satiny, it’s not difficult to apply, and it’s super opaque. I’ve been wondering what happened to Sation/Miss Professional Nail because I haven’t seen a collection from them in over a year and their FB page basically has no activity. I loved their collections so I’m sad that they fell off the face of the earth.

To finish everything off, I did a sort of sloppy glitter gradient with Shimmer Polish Alice (press sample) which is probably my favorite Shimmer beauty. I top coated the whole thing which gave my whole mani some shine–I kind of miss the satin look of the polish so maybe next time I’ll use a matte top coat.

What do you think of this mani? Is it to blinged out for you? I personally love it even though I wish I had done a better job with my glitter gradient. Don’t forget to check out the other fuchsia manis below. Our next prompt is all about stars so I need to start figuring out what I will do. Anyway, I hope you liked today’s post, and I will talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Teal

Posted on 6 November, 20145 November, 2014 by Cynthia

Thursday! Yeah!!!!!!! I am so glad that this week is almost over because work has been very “challenging” this week so I am really looking forward to the weekend. Saturday is my Peanut’s 1st birthday party so this crazy auntie is getting ready to spoil the bejeezus out him. Additionally, I will have him next Tuesday for the whole day since I don’t work on Veterans day. Yay to Peanut time! I was planning to skip today’s The Lacquer Ring post because I just haven’t really been in the mood to blog, but I changed my mind after Lesley told me she was going to work on hers. Since Amy picked teal (big surprise!), I went searching through my melmers and decided to use China Glaze Custom Kicks.

Yes, China Glaze Custom Kicks really is teal but two thing happened: 1) I think that my bottle changed color slightly because it was very badly separated and it had some white in it which was weird 2) My lighting and camera LOVE to make everything more blue. In real life, this color really is more green, I swear! This polish also has the most beautiful golden shimmer that just makes it look a million times more interesting. It can be hard to see the shimmer on the nail, but when the light catches it–hot diggity! I was planning to do some nail art on this mani, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s so beautiful in its simplicity that I just wanted to leave it untouched–that, and I got kinda lazy but let’s forget I just wrote that and admire the polish, ok?

So how has your week been so far? The other night I had a spectacular dream about quitting my job in the most outrageous way. I don’t really want to quit my job because I really do like it even though it can be really exhausting on certain days. I have just come to the conclusion that I don’t like working and I will never like working because it involves me waking up early in the morning. Can you tell I’m not a morning person? But hey, at least I don’t work at 5 am anymore which really killed my soul. Don’t forget to check out the other teal manis below! Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Inspired By Frosso

Posted on 23 October, 201422 October, 2014 by Cynthia

I had totally forgotten about today’s The Lacquer Ring post. I am such a spaz that I didn’t even realize that we are almost at the end of the month, so when Amy mentioned it last night, I had to scramble. At first I was going to pass on the post, but today we are posting manis inspired by Frosso. In case you don’t know her (duh!), she is the hands behind the now retired Lacquer Me Silly. Now, I am still refusing to acknowledge that she officially retired from blogging because she is one of the first bloggers I became friends with. It’s like the end of an era! She will still be around on IG so it’s not like she stopped liking nail polish, blogging just wasn’t a priority in her life anymore and I totally get that. There are days when I want to shut it all down because I think there are a million blogs out there that are better or have more followers or blah blah blah. But you know what? I am unique…uniquely crazy. There is no one out there like me so I will continue to hoard my polishes and hopefully entertain anyone who stops by. Since Frosso is the queen of gunmetal, I took out Zoya Marina. Is this considered gunmetal? Maybe. Kinda. It didn’t matter because I wanted to use it since it’s my mom’s namesake polish and I was thinking of calling her today to bug her for a recipe. Anyway, let me show you what I did for my mani.

This is three coats of Zoya Marina. It was a little thinner than I am used to with Zoya polishes, so I ended up applying three coats to cover up bald spots. This is almost frosty, but I think they color saves it for me. I was going to stop there because I was just going to keep it simple and classy, but I had to bling it up.

As an accent, I used OPI Muppets World Tour. I lurve this. Seriously. LOVE. I think it’s such a pretty glitter and it goes great with this color.

So what do you think about today’s mani? I know it’s simple, but I just really like it. Don’t forget to check the other manis linked below. Thanks for the visit, and I will talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Vampy

Posted on 9 October, 20149 October, 2014 by Cynthia

I know I’m super late for The Lacquer Ring post today, but I wasn’t in the mood to do my nails last night and then tonight I was having issues with my camera so it took me a long time to get it to work. The camera did not want to turn on and then it would shut off by itself. I think that it is finally time to get a new one. I’ve bought 2 cameras lately and returned both because they just didn’t work out for me. I use a point and shoot camera that was under $150 a couple of years ago so I’m not looking for anything crazy fancy or expensive. I have my eye on a Nikon that is $100 so I’m going to go check it out at Best Buy this weekend. I’m excited about going camera shopping! Today’s prompt is vampy, and I received the perfect polish today.

OPI Sleigh Parking Only is a new polish from the Gwen Stefani Holiday Collection. I am a little surprised by how much darker this polish looks on the nail. It’s a beautiful dark raisin polish with a great formula. I applied two coats for my swatches above and it covered perfectly. It dries incredibly shiny which you know I love when it comes to cremes.

I could not leave my mani nice and simple so I applied one coat of OPI Snowflakes In The Air. I adore this glitter and love how it pops against the dark base.

I am watching Grey’s Anatomy right now and am patiently waiting for Scandal. I love that show! I have a crapton of polishes to swatch this weekend, and I have no idea how I’m going to get through them all, but I’m going to give it my best shot. Aren’t you happy that tomorrow is Friday? I’m looking forward to the weekend laziness for sure. Don’t forget to check out the other manicures for today’s The Lacquer Ring posts. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Supernatural

Posted on 25 September, 201424 September, 2014 by Cynthia

I’m going to say this up front: I do not like how my mani turned out today. You know when you imagine a mani and it looks so awesome in your mind but then when you actually execute it, it falls short…way short? That was me last night. I really thought that this was going to look awesome but somehow it just didn’t quite work out. Today’s The Lacquer Ring prompt was Siobhan’s choice and she chose “Supernatural” which includes mythical creatures and of course I gravitated towards mermaids. Let me show you how this manicure started out…

For my mani base, I used two polishes from the Disney Ariel Collection Whatcha-Nail-Callit Mini Set which was a gift from Amy. The first one is Devotin’ To Floatin’ and the second one is called Ariel.

Sephora X Devotin’ To Floatin’ is prettier than I thought from the bottle shot. It’s a little too frosty for my linking, but the formula is nice. I used two coats for my swatches above.

Sephora X Ariel is a green tinged clear polish base with tons of glitter. This made the polish look a lot more green in real life, but the curse of my camera continued to make this look more blue.

I then used Layla Flash Black and plate MASH 39 to simulate scales.

Do you see what I mean? This just does not look good. It looks very muddled. I’m sad about this mani fail but hey–you can’t win them all. Hopefully you’ll forget about this mani once I show you the beautiful polish I have lined up for tomorrow. hehe

Anyway, don’t forget to check out all the awesome submission from the other ladies who make up The Lacquer Ring. Thanks for stopping by today and I will talk to you soon!

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The Lacquer Ring – Gold

Posted on 11 September, 201411 September, 2014 by Cynthia

Today’s post is full of my most hated color: gold. I hate gold everything. I hate gold jewelry, I hate gold nails…I just hate gold period. Yep, I’m a gold hater. Every time I think of gold, this is all I can see in my head:

I pity the fool who doesn’t wear enough gold to feed a small country! However, this is Siobhan’s month to choose the color and design for The Lacquer Ring so I must respect the gold masta. I’ve probably mentioned before that despite hating gold in every incarnation, I actually really like OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby from the Gwen Stefani Collection. I think that the satin finish won me over as well as the fact that it’s not an obnoxious yellow gold. In any case, let me show you this pretty polish.

This is two smooth coats of OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby. Pretty, eh?

Since I just couldn’t leave well enough alone, I stamped an image from MoYou London Back To The 70’s plate 3 with my black Konad polish. I think this turned out great! It’s such a grooooooovy design, right? I just love how it pops against the gold.

Well, what do you think? Do you like the design I ended up with? How do you feel about gold? Don’t forget to check out the other designs below. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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