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31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 23: Nails Inspired By Nature

Posted on by Cynthia

I had absolutely no idea what to do for today’s challenge. I mean, nails inspired by nature? I am a city girl through and through and the closest I get to “nature” is the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. Nicole and I were talking about this challenge yesterday and she mentioned that she thought of not painting her nails at all and showing us her “natural” nails and calling that her interpretation of nature. hahaha! I got so annoyed with today’s challenge that I waited until the last possible second to do them. Unfortunately, my nails ended up looking craptastic for various reasons. First of all, let me show you the polish I used as my base color:

Jessica Brown Sugar Swatch

Jessica Brown Sugar is from their Spicy Dream Fall Collection. It’s a red-based brown with a very distinct shimmer. I don’t really wear these types of browns because I don’t think they look to good on my skin tone, but I do like this polish because it’s just so different!

Then I decided to do some stamping and that is when it all went downhill.

First of all, I should have used a different polish to do the stamping because Essie The Cove Copper does not show up too well. I think this is a pretty old discontinued polish because the label looks different and it definitely smells different as well. I placed some red microbeads where the leaves appeared to have little bead shapes, but it just ended up looking weird. I was so annoyed with this overall mani that I took it off right away.

Now, in order to make up for such an atrocious manicure, I am sharing with you something that I made for our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow….

These are not just your ordinary deviled eggs; they are BACON CHEDDAR deviled eggs. These are so delicious that I defy anyone to have one and not have a foodgasm. They are basically traditional deviled eggs with some crumbled bacon and shredded sharp cheddar blended into the egg yolk/mayo mix. Whenever I make these, they literally disappear instantly. Yes, they are that good. I can’t wait until tomorrow so I can eat some of these babies up.The recipe is pretty standard but I know someone who hasn’t made deviled eggs would want to know. To tell you the truth, I eyeball all of the amounts so this is an approximation.

  • 12 hard-boiled eggs
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 4 bacon strips- cooked and crumbled
  • 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

After you cook the eggs and peel them, cut them lengthwise and remove the yolks. Place all the yolks in a bowl and mash them up. Add the mayo and mustard until the mixture is creamy and well blended. Then mix in the cheese, crumbled bacon and black pepper. After this, I usually use a pastry bag to pipe the mixture back into the egg whites. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you an always just use a plastic bag and cut off a corner to make a small hole. Lastly, sprinkle the deviled eggs with paprika and bask in the glory of rave reviews that your dish will get.

Can we please just ignore my nails and focus on the food? That would make me happy. Do you have any special Thanksgiving plans for tomorrow?

Jessica Cosmetics Spicy Dream Collection Fall 2012

Posted on by Cynthia

It seems that last week I was saying how summer has been pretty mild here in Southern California, and now I am roasting in my own sweat. It is so hot here that I can barely function. Whenever it gets this hot, I tend to be in a foul mood so I’m sorry if you’ve been unlucky enough to be the recipient of that. I’ve been saying that I am so ready for fall ever since May and it’s not just because it gets cooler, but also because of the drool-worthy nail polish fall collections. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Jessica Cosmetics Spicy Dream collection, and I couldn’t wait to swatch it for all of you.

When I first saw these colors, I was immediately reminded of being in France. Let me elaborate: Back in 1999, D. and I were studying in Paris together (Paris X – Woo hoo!) and one of his friends was supposed to take us to his family’s house in Normandy for the weekend. Well, that weekend was an utter catastrophe because there was a terrible storm that leveled forests, ruined roads…it was a nightmare. But, we ended up taking off anyway and spent the weekend touring  different areas…Pont-l’Évêque (which has an amazing cheese), Honfleur, Deauville…ahhh…it was a nice weekend. This was also the weekend when D. created his infamous Sopa Castellana (Castillian Soup). I have no idea what he put in it, but I just remember eggs and chorizo…it was delish. So the reason why I am talking about all this is because we drank a lot of Calvados which is an apple brandy. Calvados is such a pretty color, and I was instantly transported back there when I saw these rich fall colors from the Spicy Dream collection. These colors also remind me of the spice souks that I loved so much when I was in Tunisia and Morocco. Can you tell I miss traveling?

Let’s move on to some swatches:

    

CHAMPAGNE BUBBLES:  This was my least favorite polish of the collection. I just don’t like the way it looks on me. China Glaze also has a polish called Champagne Bubbles but it is very yellow while this is much lighter and has a more delicate feel to it. Whenever I swatch, I always use Seche Vite as my topcoat and something weird happened when I applied it: it dragged and the polish got a wrinkled look to it so I had to remove it and reapply.

    

PUMPKIN DELIGHT:  This is my absolutely favorite polish of this collection. I love how rich it looks. It’s just breathtaking.

    

GINGERSNAP:  This is one is a pretty color as well. It’s obviously not as intense as Pumpkin delight, but it’s still pretty. Oh, and I am a gingersnap freak…I love them so much!

    

CINNAMON KISS:  This polish looks like something I’ve seen many times before, but I see how it fits into this collection. I always love these type of polishes that have a glowing quality to them

    

CRIMSON TATTOO:  Don’t laugh but this color made me think of Kat Von D. I wouldn’t say that I am a huge fan, but I love what she does with make up.I love how bloody this color looks and it’s probably the color I would wear the most year-round.

    

BROWN SUGAR:  I think this is the most unique polish in this whole collection. In my opinion, it’s one of those ugly pretty colors that you can’t really nail down. It has the strangest shimmer in the bottle: it looks a bit blue to me but it’s almost like some marbling. You can barely see it on the nail, but you can definitely tell that it’s not a flat creme.

Overall, I do like this collection despite the fact that I don’t think some of these colors compliment my skin tone very well. I can’t really fault them for that because I’m sure others can really rock these colors. I can already see some of these colors as an awesome base for Thanksgiving nail art. The main thing that I didn’t like was that the first three colors were very difficult to remove. There was shimmer/glitter all over my fingers, my nails and embedded in my cuticles so I had to use pure acetone for removal. No one ever said beauty would be painless. The second part of the collection, which is intensely pigmented, surprised me because none of the polishes stained at all. I figured that Crimson Tattoo would be the biggest staining nightmare because of the pigmentation, but it removed effortlessly. I only had to use two coats for all of these polishes and some of them could do with one coat if you apply it carefully.

Are you ready for Fall? I think that we can start getting into the Fall mood with the lovely polish collections that will start to crop up even if the weather refuses to cooperate. Let me know what you think of this collection. Will you be picking up any of these colors? Do you have a favorite? Are you a Jessica fan? I am!!!!! They released my favorite collection of 2012 so far: Gelato Mio! Check out my swatches here if you haven’t gotten your hands on any of those beauties. The Spicy Dream collection will be out this month at www.jessicacosmetics.com and at salons and spas internationally.

Thanks for stopping by and remember: enabling = caring.

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