Of Life and Lacquer

One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater

Posted on 7 June, 2012 by Cynthia

When I was in 8th grade, my choir teacher had us perform this song during one of our assemblies. I remember that she had one kid run up and down the aisles of the auditorium pretending to be the monster. It was kind of ridiculous but really fun. I was a choir geek from elementary school through high school so maybe that’s why I love singing so much. Believe it or not, that was the first thing that came to mind when I used Power To The Purple.

This color is in the same vein as OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, Zoya Tru, Jessica Witchy Wisteria…except that I think this version is way brighter and more re-toned. I am in love with this purple because it has that smoldering quality to it. The formula was perfect and I only needed two coats. Sorry about the cut on my middle finger; apparently I wasn’t careful enough with the cuticle clippers. 🙁

I did a quick design on my nails afterwards. I wasn’t super careful so you can see where the dotting could be cleaner but I still like it. Most people don’t grab your hands and hold them up to inspect your nails–notice that I said most because this has happened to me quite a few times. I like that people are curious and compliment my nails, but get your hands off me, please. kthanks.

This nail polish is a big winner in my book because it’s purple and because it’s so vibrant. Purple is my favorite color and yes I have worn purple shoes, clothes, glasses and make-up…all at once. It was my Barney Chic phase. Are you a purple lover too?

****These items were sent for review. This in no way influences my review and opinion of the product.****

Cool Summer

Posted on 6 June, 2012 by Cynthia

When I was a kid, I thought this song was called cool summer and not cruel summer. I was born in 1979 so I wasn’t fully aware of pop culture in my childhood years during the 80’s so it always makes me laugh when I remember snippets of stuff like this song. Granted I am more into the Ace of Base version…and I’ll move on because then I’ll start talking about my obsession with Ace of Base and ABBA and that ALWAYS ends poorly.

Although it’s technically not summer yet, it’s usually pretty warm here in Southern California in early June. Surprisingly, the weather has been very mild lately. I’m a little shocked but also happy because I hate the summer heat. HATE IT. I am definitely NOT looking forward to this summer. The one thing I do love about summer are all the summer nail polish collections! I haven’t had the time or energy to go to my nail polish mecca lately so I haven’t seen all the pretty new polishes in person–just drooled over them online.

Today I have another three awesome summery colors from Miss Professional Nail’s Sation Line. I had a difficult time getting good pictures of these colors because they are neons and my camera was going crazy. Other than that, I love these colors! I love the shimmer in the first two and love the creaminess of the darker one. I always find that neons/mattes are kind of a pain to work with but these were not too bad! The formula is a tad too thick for my liking but it’s not a huge deal if you apply the polish carefully.

Shock Me Twice Pink is just that: an electric pink. This is a staple neon color for summer so it’s not terribly unique but it sure is gorgeous. It’s such a beautiful glowing color. I just got flashbacks of eating cubes of Bubble Yum or stuffing my mouth full of Big League Chew. Don’t lie…you know you did it too.

Show Off Your Navel Orange seems like more of a cantaloupe color to me. It’s a nice color, but I don’t feel that it really flatters my skin tone. Again, this color is super bright and has that great shimmer that so many neons seem to have lately.

Fan the Flames Fuchsia is my favorite of the three. It’s a creamy color that doesn’t dry satin/matte like a traditional neon but it’s super bright and saturated. This one had the best formula of the three as well.

How do you feel about neons? Are you feeling the trend or do you think it’s just getting annoying like crackle and magnetic polish? I love to wear these bright colors on my nails since I tend to purchase mostly neutral colors for my wardrobe. Let me know what you think!

****These items were sent for review. This in no way influences my review and opinion of the product.****

Sation Board Girl Blue

Posted on 2 June, 2012 by Cynthia

Since Alfie has pretty much taken over my life in the last week, I haven’t had a chance to even do anything with my nails. Picking up dog poop doesn’t really lend itself to me wanting to do something pretty with my nails. So in order to get back to some sense of normalcy, I decided to try out a new color that I received from Miss Professional Nail. When I first saw this color, I immediately thought of the Kate Bosworth movie Blue Crush. It’s funny how colors will sometimes elicit such vivid memories and images.

If you’ve read some of my other posts, you probably already know how much I love blue. And purple. And red. And…well, I might as well admit that there are very few nail polish colors that I don’t enjoy. However, I’ve really been on a blue/green/teal/turquoise kick so Board Girl Blue was definitely up my alley. I thought that maybe I had other similar colors but so far it seems to be a lot brighter and less smoky than other polishes I thought could be dupes.

I wanted to konad the life out of this nail polish, but sometimes you just have to stay simple and clean. I really loved this color and the formula was great. I probably could have gotten away with one coat if I had been really careful, but I applied two to even out the color. One of the things I like the most about this nail polish is the really wide brush. I have wide nail beds so the brush applies the polish perfectly. When I saw how bright and saturated this color is, I was afraid that it would stain my nails. Thankfully, that did not happen. This creme polish is part of the new California Gleamin’ Collection. For more information, you can visit the Miss Professional Nail website at http://www.misspn.com and you can also shop their colors here.

What do you think of this color? Is it something you would wear? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

****These items were sent for review. This in no way influences my review and opinion of the product.****

Empty Boxes & The Wheaten Greetin’

Posted on 1 June, 2012 by Cynthia

Today I received my second SpaRitual delivery from Beauty.com. You may recall that I ordered the SpaRitual Holiday Duo about two weeks ago during their Friends & Family Sale. I am a sucker for a sale, so I couldn’t resist getting this set at such a great price. Well, that was a major letdown when my package arrived and the actual box set was empty. I called them up and they re-ordered the set and sent it out to me. I’ve been waiting for these polishes for almost 2 weeks! I really want to try them out since I only have one other glittery SpaRitual polish, and the ones I ordered are cremes–my favorite finish. So this is take two:

Yay pretty box again! 🙂

Uhm, empty box…again?!?!?!?!?!?

You have got to be kidding me, right? Is someone playing a joke on me? I called Beauty.com again and the CSR told me that they are going to “investigate” the issue with the warehouse and that I will get a call back the next day. They offered to refund my money, but I’d rather wait and see what happens. I really want my nail polish, dammit!

And on the Alfie front, he is really coming into his own. If you don’t know much about wheatens, I suggest you watch this video:

I’m nearing a week that he has been here and he is starting to let his wheaten personality come out. Today he realized that he is a prodigious jumper which was just his stepping stone to the wheaten greetin’. He jumped up on a couple of people today to say hello. I know this is something that people try to train them out of doing, but I love that about them. I’m sure a lot of people would hate it if some random wheaten jumped up on them so I don’t know how I’m going to handle it yet. He jumped on some kids that we ran across on one of his potty breaks and then completely lost it once I got him back inside. He was running around like a bat out of hell. At one point he was running across the room towards his crate but he missed it and crashed into me since I was sitting near the crate and putting some of his toys away. I now have a huge bruise on my leg thanks to Alfs. He has also completely mastered going up and down the stairs, and now I just have to train him not to go so fast. Here are some Alfie pictures. I took these after he wore himself out horsing around like a lunatic.

The best part of my whole day was when Alfie licked my cheek and wagged his tail. He hadn’t done that to me yet so I am confident that he is making a lot of progress. I hope he continues to grow into the wheaten playfulness. I love my stinky little pup.

My Last Orders Came In & Puppy News

Posted on 24 May, 2012 by Cynthia

I was anxiously waiting for my last couple of orders to come in from Cult Nails and from the Beauty.com friends and family sale. Finally, I got everything and I couldn’t wait to try my new polishes. Look how pretty everything is:

I purchased these three during the last Cult Nails sale. Woo hoo for sales. The colors are: Iconic, Hypnotize Me and Let Me Fly.

This is my first RGB polish so I am excited to see what the formula and wear are like. This shade is Haze.

This SpaRitual Holiday set is really pretty. Just look at the pretty gold box. I am a sucker for packaging so I really loved this set.

Until I opened up the box….

Where are the polishes?????? Hahaha…this was such a wah wah moment that I wish you could have seen my face. Since I was in a crazy good mood for reasons I will go into shortly, I wasn’t super annoyed. I called up Beauty.com and explained to them that I received an empty box. The CSR sounded a little incredulous but he didn’t give me any grief about it or anything. He just re-ordered the set for me. Hopefully the polishes will be in the box this time.

So for my puppy news: I was going to put down a deposit for my pup pup and the breeder informed me that he was no longer available. Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! My heart sank. Then she told me that she did have an older puppy that had been on hold for a buyer who later changed his mind. So this is the pup that I’m going to go meet this weekend!!!! He’s 4.5 months old and absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to meet him.

And just for reference, this is a picture of the puppy’s dad so I can get an idea of what my pup will look like when he’s older.

I am sure that I won’t be able to sleep for the next couple of days until I get to go see my little Alfie. It’s finally happening. I’m getting my first dog at the ripe old age of 32. Wish me luck. 🙂

Sation Periwinkle Princess

Posted on 23 May, 2012 by Cynthia

My fellow nail polish addict Nicole has really been diggin’ glitter lately judging by her recent posts. Of course I had to give her a hard time because I am so not a glitter person. Despite how many times I have written those words here, I continue to buy glitter nail polish sporadically. Why? That is the nature of a true nail polish addict. I had previously posted about the re-vamped Sation polishes and had also teased Nicole about the awesome glitter I had purchased. I couldn’t decide what base color to use so I just went with a safe color by Essie: Nice Is Nice.

I then applied a couple of coats of Periwinkle Princess.

The main thing that attracted me to this polish was the bar glitter because I don’t have many bar glitter polishes. I found that the bar glitter was a little difficult to manipulate and there doesn’t seem to be that much of it in the polish. However, I did like the effect once I got it on my nails. It’s hard to capture how this looks in person but it really is pretty. Here is my one glitter comment: it was not a pain to remove! I was in shock. Never thought you’d hear that from me, right? Well, now you heard it.

So what do you think of this glitter? Does it look like something you’d wear? How would you wear it differently?

Sation Miss McTeal

Posted on 22 May, 2012 by Cynthia

The other day I was checking out my usual nail places for new stuff and I came across a huge display of Sation. If you’re familiar with this line from Miss Professional Nail, they have completely revamped their line: new formula, new bottle and most importantly…NEW BRUSH! Their older polishes really needed some help when it came to the brush. To tell you the truth, I was pleasantly surprised.

This color is a lot more green than the way it photographed. It has a really pretty blue shimmer in the teal/green base that flashes only at certain angles. I am liking this polish so far so I’m going to keep up with their releases. Have you tried any Sation polishes?

Deborah Lippmann Let’s Hear It For The Boy

Posted on 21 May, 2012 by Cynthia

Today I got to try my first Deborah Lippmann polish: Let’s Hear It For The Boy. It’s one of the 4 polishes I got on super-sale-clearance on HSN. Considering how much people rave about this brand, I thought that angels would sing and a ray of divine light would illuminate me when I opened the bottle. (That only happens when it’s Vodka) The first thing I noticed is that I do not like the handle on the brush. It’s too small for me. *That’s what she said*

Despite how awkward the handle felt in my hand, I absolutely loved the brush. It was so easy to apply the polish in a very precise manner so I basically had no clean up. The formula was pretty good but I don’t know about $16-good. Something weird happened with my top coat. I think that it has thickened up so it did not apply evenly. As you can see, the tips of my nails look like the top coat shrunk a bit. Weird…

I’ve really been into using my dotting tools lately so I did this simple pattern as an accent nail. I like how it turned out.

I have an update on my puppy quest! I spoke with my landlady today and she let me know that the pet deposit would be $450 which I can make payments on if I want to. I thought that was really nice of her. I am so happy that I got the ok from everyone involved in this process so that when I am financially ready to get my Alfie, I don’t have to do anymore paperwork. Of course I’d love to go out and get him right this second, but I’m trying to be responsible and make sure that I have enough money saved up to anticipate some extra expenses.

Last week I was going to write a post about people invading your personal space in public but forgot about it until today. I was waiting in line at the supermarket and some guy got behind me and placed his stuff on the conveyor belt even though there was no space left: he just pushed my stuff. Just like that. Not cool. I didn’t want to seem uptight so I didn’t say anything but then I could feel that he was way too close to me. Sorry buddy: if I can feel your breath on the back of my neck and smell your disgusting breath, then yes you are invading my space. So what did I do? I turned around and stood there facing him. Was it awkward? A little bit in the beginning but I love that he took a couple of steps back and looked away. It reminded me of the time that my sociology professor in college asked us to do an experiment as part of our homework. She told us to get on an elevator and stand facing the people who were already there instead of walking in and turning around to face the doors like everyone else. It was kind of comical to see how uncomfortable it made people! They were trying to look away, fiddle with their phones…they looked nervous. Anyway, back to Mr. Stank Ass Breath. When the line moved forward, he once again was up on my back…what the hell was his problem? He was literally standing right over me when I was trying to enter my PIN on the card reader so I asked him: “Do you mind?” He seemed confused which made me think that he just did not understand the concept of having a space bubble. Either that or he was just an asshole who was trying to get my pin.

I am totally sad that House is ending tonight. 🙁 The last episode is going to start in a few minutes so I can’t wait to see how it all ends. What are some of your favorite shows right now?

Nubar Prize

Posted on 19 May, 2012 by Cynthia

Last night I went to L’s house and we watched The Vow. I don’t usually watch sappy movies by choice, but I wanted to see this one cause I like Rachel McAdams. It was alright…not super impressed by it. I was petting L’s cat a lot yesterday and all of a sudden my eye got so red and irritated. It felt like I had something stuck in it so we tried flushing it out but nothing seemed to help. By the time I left, my eye was swollen shut. That was fun on the drive back home. I do not recommend driving with only one eye at night. I figured that it was probably some kind of allergic reaction to Tigger. Here is the little fur ball:

He is a super shy cat and always runs away to hide when someone comes to the door. He’s no longer scared of me so after a minute, he comes back out and lets me pet him. He’s cute, right?

A while ago I had purchased two polishes from the Prisms Collection that Nubar released in 2010. I just love holos even if they are not linear. I can’t believe I hadn’t tried this yet considering how pretty it is. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that it dries so incredibly gritty and rough so you have to use a thick top coat if it bothers you.

Since I haven’t been using my Konad as much lately, I used stamp M73 for this design.

So what do you have going on this weekend? Anything fun? I am feeling super crappy right now because I have monstrous cramps so I’m just laying low. I hope I feel better tomorrow so I can actually do something fun.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 🙂