Tag: Clinique

Of Life and Lacquer > Clinique
Clinique Really Rio

Clinique Really Rio

Posted on by Cynthia

PurchasedMyself

 

 

I really wish I wasn’t feeling SO DAMN lazy today because I need to run some errands but I am sitting here in sweatpants and a tank top and do not want to move my butt off the couch. I’m watching a bunch of documentaries on Netflix as well so I really don’t want to do anything else. At the same time, I am dreading the start of another work week and I could literally cry. My friend Daniel posted this quote on his Facebook today: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” It’s largely attributed to Buddah but according to google, it’s based on his teachings but not a verbatim quotation. Anyway, the whole point of sharing that with you is that I seem to never really enjoy anything because I’m constantly thinking about unpleasant things. Instead of enjoying my weekend, I have this cloud looming over my head about how much I don’t want to go to work. How does that even make sense? I don’t just do this with work, but with pretty much everything else in my life. I need to chill the f out before I give myself another nervous breakdown. Woe is me…blah, blah, blah. Instead of dwelling on this, let us talk polish now, ok? So I had these swatches of Clinique Really Rio done and edited a while back, but they got lost in my many desktop folders. I remember being really excited when the Clinique polishes were first released but now I am just feeling lukewarm about them. Let me show you what I did with this polish.

Clinique Really Rio 1Clinique Really Rio 2Clinique Really Rio is more of a coral leaning polish even though it looks fairly orange here. I can blame it on my lighting, but the color also freaked out my camera because it’s almost neon. Double whammy! The formula was nice and only needed two coats for full opacity.

Clinique Really Rio 3Clinique Really Rio 4

Then I figured I could play around with it by using the OPI Matte Top Coat (press sample), and I really love how this looks!!! I like matte finishes but not as much as shiny and glossy beauties. However, I much prefer this polish mattified.

And because I haven’t showed you any recent pictures of my little nephew, here he is:

DSC06507He just keeps getting cuter and cuter. I have a hard time getting him to smile when I take his picture because he is so interested in looking at the camera that he ignores any of my efforts to make him smile. He just melts my heart!!!

One last thought about the Clinique nail polishes: when I bought them, they were $16 and now I see that the prices have been lowered to $12.50. I guess this means that the polishes weren’t selling at the higher price point which I can totally understand. I bought two of them when they first came out just because of the novelty, but I was not planning to buy more because I found them way too pricey. I might be tempted to buy more now that they are priced a bit more reasonably but only if the color is unique. Have you tried any of these Clinique polishes? Let me know if you have any colors to recommend. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

P.S. Hey, have you checked out my blog sale recently? I’ve reduced my prices on many items, and I have also added tons of new polishes.

Capture

Clinique Hula Skirt

Posted on by Cynthia

self purchased

 

 

Have you heard that Clinique brought back their nail polish line? Well,  being the insane polish hoarder that I am, I found myself at Bloomingdales this Sunday morning waiting for them to open their doors. It was kind of like those old Mervyn’s commercials: “Open, open, open”…am I aging myself here? hahaha

Anyway, I showed up an hour early so I went to do some grocery shopping to kill time. Damn the mall and Sunday hours! I always hate walking through the mall because I have such horrible self-restraint. I have been a beauty product junkie since I was 15 and I would spend all my summer job earnings at the beauty counters. In fact, Clinique was probably one of the first brands that I loved for skin care. But really, what does a 15-year old know about skin care anyway? Still, I always loved their clean packaging and got a kick out of the white lab coats that the associates wore. Today was almost like walking through a little bit of heaven wandering through all the make up counters: I had to walk by the Tom Ford, Chanel, YSL, Givenchy and Dior counters before getting to the Clinique counter so I could spaz out all over the new polish display. I didn’t really have many details about shades and sizes so I just played around with a few of the colors and settled on two. Today I am going to be sharing Clinique Hula Skirt with you.

 

DSC02443

 

DSC02444

 

DSC02445

Hula Skirt reminded me of a pale pistachio green ice cream cone so of course I had to scoop this one up immediately. The formula on this baby is pretty luscious and creamy. The first coat applied a little streaky but a second thicker coat evened it all out.  The swatches above are two coats of Hula Skirt and one coat of Seche Vite. The polish does dry pretty glossy on its own, but I never go without a good top coat to protect my mani. For those of you who are concerned with 3-Free formulas, I didn’t see any information about that on their website so I’m assuming that they aren’t because that’s always  a huge selling point. However, Clinique claims that the formulation of their nail polish is ideal for people with sensitive skin and eyes. I don’t know much about that since I pretty much wear anything on my nails without a reaction so I’m curious to hear from people with actual skin sensitivities to normal nail polish. Here is my beef, though: these polishes are $16 for .3oz. $16!!!!!! I would imagine that this is not a problem for someone with skin sensitivities, but that’s way too pricey for me. I would only purchase more of these if they had a truly awesome and unique color which I didn’t see in their display. Yes, the colors are pretty and the formula seems great–so far–but you can get the same colors and quality at a much lower price point.

I also wanted to share something with you which you might have seen on my Facebook page if you’re on there. I was notified by another fellow blogger that Nail Polish Direct was using my pictures from my review of the China Glaze Texture Collection on their website to sell that collection. I was infuriated and posted on their page and tweeted my indignation and demanded that they remove my pictures from their website. I know this is nothing new to our nail polish community–in fact, it’s not the first time my pictures are stolen–but there comes a point where enough is enough. For a “business” to do something like that is really sneaky and dishonest so I have no qualms putting them on blast. What ensued are the following Direct Messages from Nail Polish Direct on Twitter:

 

1

2

3

Huh? Did these messages even make sense? What I would be happy with is a public apology to me and to all the other bloggers who have had pictures stolen, but since I know I’m not going to get that, I’m happy to share what a slimey company NPD is. If they have no problems ripping off and stealing from bloggers, what can you expect from them from the customer standpoint?

So that’s my story for this weekend. I’ve been pretty busy so I haven’t had a chance to reply to comments and a bunch of emails so I’m sorry, but I promise to get right on it! Thank you so much for all the support on my FB page and on twitter. I saw a bunch of posts on NPD’s FB in support of bloggers but of course they deleted everything, but thank you anyway! Besides the picture thievery, I’ve had a pretty nice weekend so far and I hope you have had the same. Let me know what you think of this new Clinique nail polish line. Have you checked them out yet? What was the very first make-up and skin care brand that you remember falling for? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you later!