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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 Beauty Buffs – Holiday Inspired

Posted on 3 December, 20142 December, 2014 by Cynthia

How many of you have put up your holiday decorations at home? To be honest, I don’t think I’m even going to get a Christmas tree this year because I am just not in the mood to go through the process of unpacking everything. Am I a killjoy? Meh. Instead, I will wear extra festive nails which is why I was happy with our prompt for today. The Beauty Buffs are bringing you holiday inspired posts today so let me show you what I decided to do.

For my mani base, I needed a clean white color so I went with OPI Angel With A Leadfoot (press sample.) This crisp and clean white comes from the OPI Mustang Collection from earlier this year. It’s a nice white but the formula is pretty typical: super streaky on the first coat but buildable. I applied 3 coats for my mani to get full opacity.

I am super new to use decals, but I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try them. I decided to use the lights strand decals for my mani. I love that they are red because they look awesome against the white background. You can use these vinyls as decals or as stencils–let your creative juices flow. These particular nail vinyls are from KBShimmer (press sample) and can be purchased here for $5. What a steal for all the awesome designs you get!

The vinyls were super easy to use and I just cut them and applied them where I wanted the design to be. Because I wanted a little more bling, I decided to place some glitter on the bulbs.

I used Shimmer Alice (press sample) for the sparkle in the bulbs and I think it was a perfect choice. I really like how this turned out!

So are you into the holiday season yet or are you grouchy like me and don’t want to make the effort? Well, I hope you liked my holiday mani, and don’t forget to check out the other festive posts from my fellow Beauty Buffs. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talking to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Orange

Posted on 8 May, 20148 May, 2014 by Cynthia

Who would have thought that orange would become my mortal enemy in the span of one day? I remember how excited I was when Tangerine Tango was the Pantone Color of the Year, and I reveled in wearing every single orange polish that Summer and was in love with all of them. Today–not so much. For our very first “official” post, Nicole chose the color Orange and little did I know that this would become the day I officially swore off orange…at least until the next awesome orange polish comes around because we all know what that is like. Before I tell you all about my fails and flails, let me show you the mani I ended up choosing at the least hideous of the bunch.

This is NARS Ethno Run Left–a yellow orange that is super bright and squishy looking. I quite like this color, but it’s a beotch to photograph.

I then had to sparkle it up so I applied one coat of Shimmer Polish Alice to really make the polish shine. I love this glitter so much!

And because I can never leave well enough alone, I used Bourjois Grenadine Tonic to make a jelly sandwich. The bright red orange tint of this polish intensified the orange base color so I kind of liked the end result. It’s super bright, and I can tell you that it looks fantastic out in sunlight.

Now for the ones that didn’t quite make it…the first two are swatches so it’s not like there is anything wrong with them, it’s what happened to them after they were swatched that became the problem.

Bettina Orange

Jessica Sun-kissed Beauty

As I said, the previous two polishes were nice enough, but this is where things started going downhill…very quickly.

Fail #1 was this sloppy and gross water marble. Seriously. It’s disgusting and you can’t even imagine how long it took me do create this monstrosity. I hate it so hard.

Fail #2 was even more difficult to deal with because it took even longer to create than the sloppy water marble. I don’t know what I was thinking, but this looks disgusting too. My nail mojo was off today. Big time. After those two fugly bombs, I was ready to give up…

Puck knows how I was feeling for sure. I am just glad that I was able to put something together that didn’t make me want to stab my eyes out with a glass nail file. The next challenge will be cherry blossoms which I know is going to destroy me since I suck at freehand designs. I kind of hate Nicole right now…lol (I kid! I kid!) Make sure that you check out the other orange inspired looks from the other ladies. Thanks so much for stopping by today and checking in with The Lacquer Ring! I’ll talk to you soon.

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Shimmer Polish Part 1

Posted on 17 May, 2013 by Cynthia

Guess what? I am a total mess because I just finished watching the series finale of The Office. I nearly had a heart attack when Michael showed up an uttered his signature line, “That’s what she said.” I seriously lost it at that point because he uttered it with so much emotion that I felt it touch me. Isn’t it funny how a television show can become a part of your life to the point where you feel like you almost know the characters and you look forward to catching up with them every week? Ok, I don’t want to sound like a total weirdo, but I know there are tons of The Office fans out there so you know how I feel. I felt this was a perfect way to end the show–I’m just say it’s the end of it. (I know Lesley and Amanda are shedding a tear with me right now!) So anyway, as I watched the last episode of The Office I had a bunch of polish out trying to decide what to swatch next so I decided to try some new pretties from Shimmer Polish. Those of you who have known me since the beginning of my blogging days–as if it were that long–know that I was a serious glitter hater. I used to cringe at the idea of wearing glitter polishes and a few people always teased me for it. (I’m looking at you, Nicole!) Then one day, it’s like something in my brain just clicked and I saw the error of my ways. All of a sudden, the more glittery and shiny something was, the more I loved it. Yes, ladies, I am reformed glitter hater.

I had seen so many lovely swatches of Shimmer Polishes all over the place so I am super excited to be sharing these with you today. I don’t normally like to wear glitterbombs on their own so I decided to layer these over a colored base. The formula on all of these polishes can be summed up in one word: delicious. The glitter applies very smoothly and is plentiful; one coat gives you beautiful coverage over a colored base. If you want to wear these sparklers on their own, I do recommend applying one thin coat and then dabbing on a second coat to get even and full coverage. Let me show you these sparkling gems before I talk your ear off.

Shimmer Polish Valerie (Sation Heather)

Shimmer Polish Sarah (Sation RV There Yet?)

Shimmer Polish Kim (Sation Board Girl Blue)

Shimmer Polish Alice (Sation Strumming My Nails)

Aren’t these gorgeous combinations? It pained me to remove them as I moved from swatch to swatch because they were all just so glittery and decadent. What is your preferred method for wearing glitterbombs? Do you layer them on top of colored bases like I did or do you just jump in full force and wear them alone? Do you have a favorite Shimmer Polish? Let me know!

For news on Shimmer Polish and to keep up with all the gorgeous beauties that Cindy creates, don’t forget to follow her on all of her social media sites:

Website: http://www.shimmyshimmer.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShimmerPolish

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShimmerPolish

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShimmerPolish

I’ll be posting a couple more installments of these Shimmer Polishes in the coming weeks so I hope you enjoy the glitter overload. Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a great weekend!