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Stamping Saturdays #51

Posted on 10 January, 2015 by Cynthia

It’s so nice and sunny today, and I’m soooo enjoying it. I don’t know what it is, but I have such high hopes for 2015. I’m determined to make the best of out of this year after being so down on myself for so long. Today I’m catching up with a lot of the shows I missed out on during the week, namely Empire. Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson are hot lava together in one show. So last night I was trying to figure out what to do for Stamping Saturdays and I decided to use a polish I hadn’t used in a long time: Dior Frimas.

Dior Frimas is one of those beautiful holiday polishes that Dior puts out each year. I picked this up a couple of year ago and had completely forgotten about it. Sometimes I hate myself for buying some of this expensive stuff and then never using it. I know part of it is that these are collectors items, but isn’t t just wasteful? Anyway, I think I don’t like this polish as much as I initially did. The color is just a little off on me and the formula is so grainy. Still, it’s pretty and I don’t exactly regret getting it.

For my stamping, I used and image from plate Born Pretty 02 (press sample) which i found a little difficult to do since I was stamping with my non-dominant hand. I didn’t initially like this mani at all, but it grew on me a bit.

So what are you up to today? Well, whatever you’re doing, I hope you are enjoying your day. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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Stamping Saturdays #46

Posted on 6 December, 20146 December, 2014 by Cynthia

Something horrible happened last night, something that didn’t allow me to sleep: American Horror Story Coven is on Netflix so of course I’m not going to sleep this entire weekend just binge watching every single delicious episode. I actually stayed up until like 4 am watching episodes which means that I didn’t wake up until like 11 am this morning. UGH! I hate sleeping in that late, but I was pretty tired. It seems that whenever I sleep in super late, I am extra lazy the rest of the day which means that I will be rushing to get all my stuff done on Sunday. Womp womp. Last night I got it in my head that I wanted to go buy Sinful Colors Prosecco for my Stamping Saturdays mani. Apparently I’m the only person on the planet who didn’t know that it’s really hard to find because I went to 5 different stores and no one had it. Once I got home, I decided to look through my “high end” melmer drawer and couldn’t decide between Dior Rosy Bow and YSL Vert d’Orient. Of course I ended up going with Rosy Bow which is probably my favorite baby pink of all time. Let’s take a look at it.

I know that most people balk at the price, but Dior Rosy Bow is worth every penny in my book. I just love this polish so much and I am a super huge fan of the Dior brush as well. This is two smooth coats of the polish with a coat of Seche to amp up the sine.

I then used an image from Born Pretty plate BP-02 for this lace design. I also used my Mentality stamping polish in Black Opaque and I really loved how it performed. One thing that I really love about this stamping polish is that it is opaque but doesn’t stain like crazy unlike my black Konad polish. I also like that it doesn’t smear and smudge like the Konad one either. No matter what I do, my black Konad polish smears when I top coat it.

What do you think about this mani? I personally like the way it turned out BUT it almost pained me to stamp over my base color because I love it so much. The beautiful simplicity of this creamy baby pink just blows me away. So how is your weekend so far? I am thoroughly enjoying being lazy so I hope you’re enjoying your weekend as well no matter what you’re doing. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

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Vapid Lacquer Purp-etrator

Posted on 27 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Don’t you love the rain? It was raining so hard this morning and now it’s nice and sunny but a bit chilly. I wish I would rain all day since we’re in the midst of a terrible drought, but I guess a little rain is better than no rain. I took the day off today since I’m still nursing my broken toe back to health. It’s feeling better but my foot just feels all hard and swollen so I’m just going to keep trying to keep it elevated and all that. Today’s polish is a gorgeous creme that I wore last week. If you know me, you know that cremes are my absolute favorites so I loved wearing Vapid Lacquer Purp-etrator. Let’s take a look at my swatches below.

Vapid Lacquer Purp-etrator is a gorgeous creme with insane shine. It least more purple than what my pictures show, but I would still call it blurple. The consistency is nice but slightly thicket than I’m used to. The pigmentation is great so I only needed two coats for full opacity.

I then used Dior Perlé to do some dots. I fail at dots–they look all random but I still liked the end result. My nephew, who loves dark colors, kept staring at my nails so I think that he approved.

I hope that you’re having a good day and that you are ready for the weekend. I’m glad I got two days off to rest but I do work Friday and Saturday so womp, womp. If you’re interested in Purp-etrator or any other Vapid Lacquer pretties, I suggest that you check out their big cartel site here. Purp-etrator can be purchased for $8 for a full size bottle and $4 for a mini. Speaking about buying polish, yesterday I updated my blog sale with a bunch of new stuff. I even added the grab bag option that I had first brought up on Facebook. Help me destash and regain some of my sanity and space!!! Check out my blog sale here to see if there’s anything that you’re interested in. Well, enjoy the rest of your day, and I will talk to you soon!

Dior Perlé

Posted on 14 February, 201414 February, 2014 by Cynthia

Are you happy that it’s Friday? I should be, but unfortunately I work tomorrow morning at 6 am AND I don’t have President’s Day off…poo! One thing I am super excited about is that House Of Cards Season 2 is on Netflix!!!!! Holy crap I’ve been waiting for this forever, and I anticipate a huge Kevin Spacey binge this weekend. If you haven’t watched House Of Cards, I am going to tell you to watch it–you will love it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Robin Wright in such a splendidly cold role! Some other great news is that my medication stuff got figured out; my doctor changed my meds to something my insurance wouldn’t give me a hard time about so instead of $400 a month, my co-pays total $40. Not bad! I’m lucky to have such a responsive and attentive doctor and she always emails me back quickly which I appreciate. I guess that all in all, things are looking good and now I can start taking my meds and get my big ass to the gym. I was telling my co-workers that I have to lose 65 lbs this year and we were all talking about the changes we are going to make. I’m hopeful that I can get there and can’t wait to share my progress with all of you. Now, let’s get to the polish du jour: Dior Perlé. I’m sure you all know how I feel about Dior (love!), so it was a no brainer when I saw their new spring collection. I managed to control myself and not buy all the polishes in the collection and only picked out Perlé since it seemed so unique. Let’s take a look at it, and I’ll let you know what I thought.

I started out with two delicious coats of OPI I’m Feeling Sashy (press sample). This is such a gorgeous polish!

And this is one coat of Dior Perlé over I’m Feeling Sashy. Ehhh…I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely had to buy this because it’s Dior and limited edition (the most evil words ever), but I am also not that impressed with it. It’s like I want to LOVE it, but I’m still holding my full judgment until I try it over a super dark color. This polish gives your nails a sugary sparkly matte finish which I know a lot of people love–including yours truly.

I am currently stressing about what to do with my nails since tomorrow is Stamping Saturdays! I have a bunch of ideas in my head, but usually when I am this indecisive it just means I’m going to have a major fail on my hands. Let’s hope that’s not the case although it will be difficult to top last weeks awesome design. Well, what do you think about Perlé? Would you pay the $25 price tag or is this a pass for you? Let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Dior Diablotine

Posted on 10 November, 201310 November, 2013 by Cynthia

Hi everyone! I hope that you’re enjoying your Sunday and that you’re getting ready for Monday! Work was pretty slow today so I got to just chill out, and I hope that tomorrow is slow as well since it is Veteran’s Day. I won’t hold my breath, though. This weekend has been pretty exciting because my beautiful nephew was born a little past midnight on Saturday and I can tell you that I am completely in love with the little man. I am definitely a proud auntie! Before I start sounding like a lunatic about how excited I am about my nephew, let me tell you what polish I have for you today. I bought Dior Diablotine sometime last year, maybe, but I hadn’t reviewed it which surprised me because I’m always excited about my Dior purchases. Well, once I tried to photographed it, I remembered why I hadn’t blogged about it: I couldn’t get a good picture of it for the life of me! Let’s take a look at my bad swatches below.

Dior Diablotine is a crazy shimmery orangey-red-coral beauty that refuses to photograph accurately. My pictures make it look more orange than it is in real life. The shimmer in this polish makes the formula feel kind of grainy but that also gives you a lot of control. I also felt that the formula was rather sheer so it looked uneven at two coats, but a third coat fixed that. Overall, I do like this color but to formula was a little…interesting. I’d also like to note that removal was challenging because the shimmer got EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere.

And just because I can’t help showing him off, here is a picture of my nephew. Isn’t he adorable? I just want to snuggle him!!

Well, that’s all that I have for you today. I hope you’ve enjoyed your weekend, and I will talk to you soon.

Dior Minuit – Holiday 2013

Posted on 8 November, 2013 by Cynthia

This is going to turn out to be the week of Dior on my blog because I am going to have a few Dior posts. I think that out of all the luxury polish brands I buy, Dior is my favorite because the formula is always great and I love the regular Dior brush. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a chance to post this today because I hadn’t gotten a chance to write up any posts in advance, and I thought I would be busy with the impending birth of my nephew. Oh yeah…remember I’m about to become an auntie? I’m so excited, and can’t wait for him to get here so I can have someone to totally spoil rotten. Anyway, let’s get back on track with the polish. Today I have the other pretty from Dior’s Holiday Collection for 2013: Dior Minuit. Are you ready for some swatches?

Dior Minuit is impossible to photograph: it’s just too pretty and refuses to cooperate. Ugh, it’s like those bitchy girls in high school that are too pretty for their own good and make you feel inadequate. Anyway, this polish is gorgeous. The base is very dark but that shimmer really comes through–especially in sunlight. The formula is good–kind of thick and with a grainy texture because of all the shimmer. I applied two coats for my swatches above.

And because I immediately thought of Taboo when I first got my hands on Minuit, I decided to do some comparison swatches.

As you can see, these are not dupes at all. They could be cousins, but the base colors and shimmer are totally different. While I really love Taboo, Chanel polishes don’t seem to wear very well on me.

So what do you think about Dior Minuit? Worth the hefty price tag? Let me know! Thanks so much for catching up with me today, and I will talk to you soon!

Dior Frimas – Holiday 2013

Posted on 7 November, 20137 November, 2013 by Cynthia

It is such a beautiful day today! It’s not that hot, it’s sunny and just beautiful. I woke up today with the intention to swatch a bunch of polishes, but I ended up getting stuck watching a bunch of dumb movies. Instead, I have only swatched one polish and boy is it pretty. Let me show you Dior Frimas from the Limited Edition Holiday Collection.

Get a load of the beautiful packaging. I’m a sucker for beautiful packaging and containers so I was drooling over these pretty bottles.

Dior Frimas is a limited edition polish from this year’s Holiday Collection. This polish is basically a neutral on crack. That beautiful gold shimmer really takes it up a notch and keeps it from being just plain old beige. The formula on this polish felt a little strange because the shimmer makes it feel grainy. The graininess of the polish makes the formula a little thick but also easy to control. Despite the thickness of the formula, it feels a little sheer so I had to apply three thin coats for full coverage. As far as dupes, I think that China Glaze Fast Track is a similar polish because of the gold shimmer and neutral base, but Frimas is a little more golden/rose.

Overall, I really like this polish but what really kills me about this polish is the beautiful bottle. The curse of the Limited Edition status always gets me too. Is it worth $26 for a .4oz bottle? To most people, probably not, but it’s worth it to me because 1) I am a polish collector/hoarder 2) It’s LE!!! 3) I love Dior! One thing I do want to mention is that if you love the Dior rounded brush, you will be disappointed because the brush on this polish is thin and square. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. I did manage to super splurge and also purchased Minuit so that one will be on the blog tomorrow. Thanks so much for the visit, and I will talk to you soon.

Dior Galaxie

Posted on 23 September, 2013 by Cynthia

Well hello there! I’ve been a little neglectful with my posting schedule so I haven’t been around much–primarily because it was my birthday this past Sunday. Suck it, 34! Everything was pretty low key and I didn’t do much except go to dinner with the family. Today I spent the day with my bestie, Daniel, so we went shopping and completely pigged out on seafood as you will see below. I dragged him with me to Sephora because I wanted to buy one birthday polish. He was helping me pick out the color but I already had so many of the ones that he recommended that I just ended up grabbing one from the Dior section. Let’s take a look at Dior Galaxie.

I definitely have a soft spot for Dior, so much so that I don’t even care how dupable this color is. Yes, it’s pretty but not so pretty that you should run out and pay $24 for this polish–especially if you have something similar already. Dior Galaxie is one of the two polishes from the Mystic Metallics Collection for Fall 2013. The other polish was a big no for me because it’s metallic and brush stroke-y. Ick. The formula on Galaxie is full of the usual Dior deliciousness: super opaque, creamy and very easy to control. The one thing I didn’t like is that it dries rather dull, but a good top coat will fix that right up.

Now…let me show you the seafood destruction that ensued:

This was an eat all the things moment. This is what 1 lb of crawfish, 1lb of shrimp, 1lb of sausages, rice and chowder looks like. Yes, we ate all of this. Yes, it was just the two of us. Yes, we are disgusting but damn it was good even though I know I am going to be paying for this for the next few days. My stomach is already laughing at me. Instead of screaming “Exterminate!” the Daleks in my bowels will be chanting:

All in all, I think I had a pretty kick ass birthday. You may be surprised that I only bought one polish for my birthday, but that’s only because I am saving up all my repressed polish urges that will be unleashed this weekend. Yep, Lesley will be in town and we are going to GO TO TOWN. Polish Mecca round 2 is coming up. Let’s hope we both make it out in one piece. I’ll keep you updated.

Dior Rosy Bow

Posted on 7 May, 2013 by Cynthia

Hi everyone! Well, today was a rather putrid day at work so I’m just feeling completely blah. Nothing much is going on except that I am completely backed up when it comes to swatching my polishes. Just to give you an idea, this is just a small sampling of all the polishes I have lined up to be swatched.

Fun times, right? Not so much. I don’t like being so backed up so I really shouldn’t purchase so many bottles all at once, yet they are so pretty that I can’t help myself. They call out to me: “Cynthia! Buy me! Your nails need me!” And I fall for it every single time. Something sad happened to day. I got an alert last night from UPS My Choice telling me that I should expect a package to be delivered today. I was super excited since I hadn’t ordered anything recently so that meant it would be some of my favorite nail mail: PR Samples. Weeeeee! Well, look what arrived:

This is what happens when UPS thinks it’s ok to play stomp on the package. Womp womp! Oh well, I’m sad about it but there’s no use in crying over spilled polish. One bottle was completely broken and the other 3 are cracked so I decided not to mess with them because the last thing I need is to give myself a crazy cut. So after a craptacular day at work and this sad polish massacre, I decided to show you something pretty and cute: Dior Rosy Bow.

I’ve got to admit that while I definitely don’t like Dior prices ( $24 for a .33oz bottle!!), I am in love with the Dior formula and brush. There is no other brush that I love more than the Dior polish brush. It’s the perfect size, width and it fans out beautifully for even application. The formula on ever Dior polish that I have ever tried is absolutely flawless and Rosy Bow was no exception. This pink is so incredibly girlie and cute, yet I still fell in love with it. I know I’m a girl at heart no matter how much I try to deny it. hahaha!

So how has your day been? I hope it’s been better than mine. I am so glad to have tomorrow off so I can really build up my strength for Thursday’s impending shit storm. Oh well, such is life! Let me know what you think of Dior Rosy Bow. Have you tried any Dior polishes? Do you think they are worth the price? What is the most expensive bottle of nail polish that you have ever purchased? Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Dior Lucky

Posted on 8 January, 2013 by Cynthia

Ever since yesterday morning when I was offered a job, I’ve been walking on sunshine. I know I mentioned it already, but not only did I get a job but I also won a giveaway–my head was about to explode like Austin Powers’ Femmebots.

I even went and bought some lotto tickets because you just never know! I am on a roll here and wouldn’t that be kick-me-in-the-crotch fantastic? Before I get into the fun that has been going on since yesterday morning, I wanted to share the one polish I bought to celebrate. While this might surprise certain people *cough* Frosso *cough*, I only bought one celebratory polish, and I decided to go all out: Dior Lucky.

Normally, I would never consider purchasing a polish for $23, especially when it’s only .33oz! Besides loving the color, of course I loved the name because I am definitely a lucky girl to have so many things start to fall into place after such a putrid year and a half. Dior Lucky is a “hot pink coral” as described by Dior, but I find that it leans red in certain lights. I am a huge fan of these neon-leaning shades even if we are in the middle of winter.

Since this is my first “luxury” brand polish, I was very curious about the brush. Well, let me tell you that I am in absolute love with this brush. It’s wide and has a rounded tip and it fans out PERFECTLY to apply an even coat of polish. I think this brush might just replace my favorite OPI pro-wide brush!

Look at Dior Lucky in all it’s glory. The formula was perfection. It’s buttery, thin but not runny, highly pigmented and opaque at two coats. The formula seems to dry rather quickly which I appreciate. I did not notice this, but I saw the faintest hint of shimmer once it was under direct light. This color is so bright that it photographs like a neon. I am definitely happy with my first Dior polish purchase, but I do find them waaaaaaaaaaay too pricey and I don’t see myself spending this much on polish unless it’s because of a special occasion…like any day ending in “day.” Just kidding…sort of.

Yesterday I ended up going out with one of my best friends to celebrate: we went out for a yummy dinner and cocktails and then ended up karaoke-ing our silly hearts out. Can you imagine how silly we looked doing a duet to ABBA’s Dancing Queen? Not only did we look like a couple of weirdos, but we also tried to do a little dance a la Muriel’s Wedding.

It was freaking awesome! We would have stayed out all night but she had to work the next morning so we wrapped it up at a decent hour.

Today, I spent the day with one of my other best friends. We decided to have a sushicoma day which looks exactly like this:

Yes, we are complete sushi pigs. I am in total love with this sushi place so it’s one of the only places I will go to when I’m craving sushi. Every time we walk in, the sushi chefs behind the bar yell out something in Japanese which I have now determined means “Prepare the sushi boats!” when they seem us walk in. Our waitress is consistently amazed at how much sushi we eat but she stays polite. I am sure she’s thinking we’re disgusting. Anyway, during our sushicoma lunch, I was telling my friend about my future plans for my blog and then I began to chastise him for not reading my blog. Our conversation went something like this:

Cynthia: “I can’t believe you don’t even read my blog! You’re one of my best friends and you don’t even follow my blog!”

Daniel: “Yes I do! I do read it…”

Cynthia: “Ok, well what was the last post that you read?”

Daniel: “Uhm, you mean like the title of the post??? I don’t know!!!”

Cynthia: “Ok, then…what was the post about?”

Daniel: “Uhm…..nails?”

Enough said! After sushi, we went to the mall where I purchased some goodies including my bottle of Dior Lucky and other fun stuff. I really really wanted to ride the carrousel and get a balloon but people are so judgy!

After that, we ended up going to the beach to catch the sunset. There really were a lot of people out there despite the cool weather. There were a lot of surfers out in the water so I guess the waves were good!

So that’s what I’ve been doing since I found out I got a job! There are so many awesome comments that I’ve started to read and I promise to start responding soon. Also, don’t forget to enter my giveaway for the awesome Sation polishes here. I love you all and I can’t tell you enough how much all your encouragement has helped me stay positive through this craptacular period of my life. Thanks for checking in with me today, and I will talk to you soon!