Tag: China Glaze

Of Life and Lacquer > China Glaze

Emerald Konadicure

Posted on by Cynthia

Emerald Fitzgerald. How awesome is that name? I know I’m not the only one who thought of the cover of The Great Gatsby? What an iconic cover, right? I remember the first time I read The Great Gatsby, I was struck by how much Jay Gatsby idealized Daisy despite her being a vacuous specimen. Beautiful, yes, but so empty of real humanity. Anyway….back to nail polish.

Emerald Fitzgerald is part of the Vintage Vixen Collection from Fall 2010. I’ve seen this polish photograph kind of blue, but I don’t really see it in person; it’s actually a deep and shimmery emerald green and maybe the tiniest hint of blue. Really tiny. The formula was perfect and only needed two coats.

And here is the polka dot stamp from Konad plate M79.

If you are a green polish lover, this is a must. Let me know what you think.

China Glaze Mahoganie

Posted on by Cynthia

I don’t even know what to say about this nail polish. It’s glitter. I have issues with glitter. I love THIS glitter.  DOES NOT COMPUTE!

I think this glitter was part of the specialty glitter shades that were released by China Glaze a few years ago. It’s a chocolate pink base with glitter that dries very, very gritty so it will need a thick topcoat. The nice part about this glitter is that it only needs two coats! Hallelujah to baby Jesus on rollerskates! I found this at a beauty supply store that I go to once in a while. They still sell China Glaze for $2.50 but I have to wear a protective mask when I wander in there because the dust in that place is so thick that you can feel it in your lungs. Gross, I know…but they have $2.50 China Glaze!!! Enjoy the swatches!

So what do you think of my new beautiful little baby, Mahoganie?

Saint Patrick’s Day Nail Looks

Posted on by Cynthia

I wasn’t really planning to do any Saint Patrick’s Day nails on myself, but after I did my sister-in-law’s nails I felt inspired. She went to a SPD party so she wanted something fun. This is how her nails turned out:

Cute, right?

I obviously also went the green route. I started off with China Glaze Gaga For Green as my base color.

Then I used Color Club Holiday Splendor for the chevron design on my tips.

I should have left it at that, but then I decided to add a shamrock sticker and rhinestones.

Then I thought to myself that the rhinestones looked pretty tacky so I pried them off. Unfortunately, this left a ding on my nails.

And because it bothered me that I could still see where the rhinestones used to be, I then tried to cover it up with glitter.

So by this point, I thought that my nails looked pretty gross and just took everything off and started all over.

This was my final look. I used OPI Mermaid Tears as the base color and Color Club Holiday Splendor for the chevron tips. I used only one design on my accent nail and I was pleased with the way they turned out.

I had a nice SPD after all! I went to dinner with two friends whom I have known since we were kids. After we stuffed ourselves as Lucille’s BBQ, we went to a karaoke lounge and sang all the embarrassing songs that we could think of. Ahhh…it was a lot of fun.

How did you spend SPD? Did you sport any fun and festive nail designs?

 

Quelle Monstruosité!

Posted on by Cynthia

What do you do when you’re bored? Do you read? Watch TV? Read nail polish blogs (maybe that’s just me)? Well, I do all three of those AND I start doing crazy things with my nails. I was watching American Idol (yawnfest) and I started playing with my nail polishes. I am going to do my sister-in-law’s nails for a St. Patrick’s Day party that she is going to so I took out all of my green polishes to get ready. I am going to use one of my image plates that has a shamrock on it and stamp it white on top of a green base and maybe add some glitter. Who knows?

After I got all my stuff together I thought that I would play around with some of my rhinestones so I took out a few colors. I wanted to use CG Gothic Lolita from their recent Electropop Collection. Now, if you know anything at all about me, it’s that I love purple. PURPLE EVERYTHING. At one point I had purple curtains. (I only kept them for a week because I realized how ridiculous my room looked…especially since I’m 32!!!! And it wasn’t a mature purple…it was crazy Barney purple.) So it started out with such a beautiful purple. Oh, Gothic Lolita:  Gothic Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Gothic Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.  Gothic Lo. Lee. Ta.

I’m pretty sure that Nabokov is turning over in his grave right now. How dare I blaspheme his work by using it to wax poetic about nail polish? Well, nail polish can be art too so back off lit snobs. But just look at this purple:

 

So how did that beautiful purple become this:

 

 

Yes, my dear readers, this is the kind of stuff that nightmares are made of.  I can’t even call this ghetto fabulous…it’s just so foul. I have removed this monstrosity and promise to never do this again.

Is It Time To Grow Up?

Posted on by Cynthia

People always comment on my nail polish. Some older women but mostly younger women. The younger girls seem to comment more whenever I have a glitter explosion on my nails or I am sporting an in your face Konad design. After a teenage girl made a comment on my nails today, I wondered to myself if it is time to grow up…nail polish-wise. At 32 years of age, is it time to move away from the crazy designs I sometimes wear? Should I be moving towards the taupe/beige/mauve office appropriate colors?

Hell-to-the-no. If I get to be old, I am going to be the old lady with crazy nails…and purple eyeshadow. Yeah, all the craziness minus the cats.

So here I am again using another color from the Up & Away Collection. Bubblegum pink? Oh yes, the perfect bubblegum pink.  Sugar High was a dream to apply: smooth, saturated and shiny. I love this color for spring and summer!

 

Konad plate M66 is very Japanese inspired and I tried one of the designs. I think I should have picked a more muted pink for this design…something along the lines of OPI’s Japanese Rose Garden would have looked better.

 

So what do you think about this color? Do you think there is an age where elaborate and colorful nails start to seem tacky?

I’m In Love…

Posted on by Cynthia

In love with nail polish, that is. I just about crapped my pants when I saw this color. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but I got really excited. This is another beauty from the Up & Away Collection that I had forgotten about. I think that these blue/teal/green/turquoise polishes are replacing my obsession for purple polishes. Can that even happen? The formula was dreamy and 2 thin coats was all I needed. If you don’t have Flyin’ High in your collection yet, you are really missing out.

Yes, I cut my nails SUPER short again. They had grown out a little and were driving me nuts. After I finished painting my nails,  I layered this gorgeous glitter called Blue Hawaiian and now I have shiny ball syndrome. I can’t stop looking at it. I don’t care that it’s going to be a pain to remove. I. Cant. Stop. Looking. At. It.

 

I can’t wait to see this in the bright sunlight tomorrow.

 

Heli-Yum + Konad = Love

Posted on by Cynthia

So here is another polish from China Glaze’s Up & Away Collection. I can get over how gorgeous this shade is: bright, creamy, smooth, raspberry pink. The formula is opaque and smooth enough that you only really need one thick coat. I prefer always applying two thin coats, though. I never looked this up, but was the Up & Away Collection associated with the movie Up?

                           

 

I guess it’s just me. Anyway, I am going to look for more colors from this collection because I don’t have them all. Here are a couple swatches of Heli-Yum.

I almost didn’t stamp over this color. I mean, look how beautiful it is. I ended up using a design from plate S6.

Do you have any favorites from the Up & Away Collection?

 

Purple, Purple, Purple!!!!!

Posted on by Cynthia

I know I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it again: I love purple. China Glaze’s Grape Pop is really one of my favorite classic purples. It’s such a rich and saturated color that applies like a dream. I really love wearing this color. After I painted my nails, I wanted to use one of Essie’s flaky Luxeffects topcoats but I didn’t want to completely cover up the purple goodness so I decided to paint a triangle of flaky delight.

Beejus! Didn’t I tell you this color was amazing?! And that’s just two thin coats.

You can’t really see the triangle with the flash but wait for the low light….

Purty, right? Anyway, it’s been super windy and dry here in So Cal so my skin has been acting crazy: it’s so dry in certain areas that it hurts. I’ve been having to use extra hand cream on my hands as well. Thank you L’Occitane for your amazing hand creams.

Well, I’ve been watching The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy on Netflix for the last 5 hours!!! I watched the movies when they first came out in the theaters and re-watched them on Netflix a few times. Now they have come out with a Special Extended Edition that has 2 extra hours that were cut out of the movies that were shown in US theaters. The trilogy was originally shown on TV in Sweden so they did end up cutting stuff for the theater edition. If you’ve never seen these movies, I highly recommend them. Noomi Rapace is amazing as Lisbeth Salander. I haven’t watched the American adaptation yet, but I hear it’s pretty good as well.

I hope you all had a nice weekend and thanks for stopping by.

China Glaze & Hunger Games: Colours From The Capitol Swatches

Posted on by Cynthia

I think it is abundantly clear how much I was anticipating this collection: I was drooling like Pavlov’s dogs whenever I heard China Glaze and Hunger Games used in the same sentence. When I finally got the whole collection, I was so excited to start playing with all the colors. Without further ado…here are the swatches. Enjoy!

Agro is a dark olive green. It’s shimmery and absolutely gorgeous.  This is the kind of color that I need in my collection because how many purples can a person possibly need? A MILLION!!!!! I can’t wait to do some crazy stuff with this color.

 

 

Dress Me Up is a very soft and demure color. It makes me think of how Cinna dressed up Katniss to be super girlie and pretty. This is a pretty, creamy color that I am sure I will use often. It’s work appropriate for sure.

 

 

Electrify is just a gold and red glitter. There’s not much to say about this. Personally I am not a big fan of glitter. It has to be really unique in order for me to like it so I don’t find this exciting at all. I only applied 2 coats and I’m sure it would take another 2 coats to completely coat my nails. I can see myself layering this on top of another color instead of wearing it on its own. This is kinda like Twinkle Lights minus the green.

 

 

Fast Track is pretty…kind of like Classic Camel. This looks great in direct sunlight. Wearing it would make me feel like I’m age appropriate unlike other glitter explosions. Again, the formula was great.

 

 

I hate Foie Gras…not the polish, but the food. I really find it gross. There really isn’t anything that excites me about this color. It’s slightly purple and brown in the vein of Metro Chic. I like those dusty brown/purple polishes but haven’t we had enough of them already?

 

 

Harvest Moon  is one of the polishes I was excited about when I first saw the promo pictures. It’s a coppery shimmer dream that glides onto the nail. I like it. I like it a lot. I know you were thinking of this when you read that:

Oh, you weren’t? Well, whatever. The color is awesome and I don’t care what you think!

 

 

Hook And Line is what Color Club Boho Mojo could have been. This was definitely not as difficult to apply as Boho Mojo but it’s still frosty…Frosty…FROSTY! I kind of hate frosty colors but sometimes wear them anyway because I’m psycho that way. I can deal with this color and it might even grow on me after a while. It was freaky streaky when I first applied it but it looked better once it started to dry.

 

 

Luxe And Lush is made to be a topcoat. I don’t have anything that looks like this so I’ll definitely be experimenting with it. I kind of like the way it looks on it’s own. It remind me of broken glass…feels just like I’m walking on broken glass. Ah, Annie Lennox you evil bitch. Every time I think of her album Diva I just want to jump off a bridge. That song and Why? just wreck me. Anyway, yeah…me likey the polish.

 

 

I don’t really know how I feel about Mahogany Magic. It’s another one of those colors that I call inspired by baby poop. It’s just kinda gross but it could grow on me. I meant the polish, not the baby turds. The formula was divine on this one as well.

 

 

Riveting! Hello, goygeous! I freaking love this one so hard. First of all, I’m all into oranges this season and this one does not disappoint. I don’t know why I keep thinking of Orange Jell-o when I look at this. It had a perfect formula as well.

 

 

Smoke And Ashes is such a dark color that looks green, blue and black all at once. I had one heck of a time taking a decent picture of this color so it was super annoying. I like how cold this color seems…if that makes sense.

 

 

Stone Cold is a matter dream. I have a few matte polishes and they are always so incredibly hard to work with. You have to work super fast or else it gets goopy and then your nails look like a hot mess. This looked perfect with one coat. I will not defile this polish by adding a coat of Seche Vite.

 

So what do I think about this collection? I like it. I’m not gonna lie and say that my love of  The Hunger Games didn’t make me obsess about getting my hands on this collection. Overall, there are some colors that I would pass on such as: Mahogany Magic, Hook and Line, Foie Gras and Electrify. If you have similar colors, I would also pass on Dress Me up and Luxe and Lush. The other six polishes are right up my alley, and I love them. Why do so many collections have to keep popping ? Damn you, China Glaze! So what do you think? What colors are you going to get, if any? Let me know! It makes my day to hear about what other nail polish freaks want to get. Sad, right?

I’ve Hit The Motherload!

Posted on by Cynthia

Not satisfied with my Sally Hansen loot, I decided to call up my go-to beauty supply store to hound them again about when they are going to get the China Glaze Hunger Games Collection. They know my voice by now…oh yes, they do. They hear it in their nightmares ever since I bugged them about the Nicki Minaj and Holland collections. Well, guess what?

I wanted to steal the display. I was so excited that I was sweating like a whore in church…or maybe that was just my blood sugar? Anyway, I was super happy when they told me they had just received the collection. I jumped in my car and confronted rush hour traffic.

How awesome is the model on the display? She’s wearing some of those paper eyelashes that I was tempted to try but I couldn’t swallow the price…for paper eyelashes! Maybe I can start dressing like Effie Trinket in every day life. How about that?

Now I am itching to wear all these colors and I want to re-read the three books even though I just finished them. Are you looking forward to The Hunger Games movie? I am!!!!!

Which color grabs your attention the most? Oh, and please rest assured, my beauty supply store friends. You won’t hear from me for a while or until the next “can’t wait to get my hands on collection.”  So I’ll call you next week.