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Sephora + Pantone Universe Jewel Lacquer In Reflecting Pond

Posted on 5 November, 20125 November, 2012 by Cynthia

Ok, so my pictures turned out like crap today. Well, crappier than usual, that is. I was rushing and I didn’t review my pictures of the base polish before stamping over it so I got stuck with ugly pics. Then I did the same after I stamped and didn’t check out my pictures. So there you have it: lack of planning = craptastic pictures. Boo. I don’t know what possessed me to pull out this polish today since it is 90 degrees outside, and I’ve been letting the temperature guide my polish choices. I got this polish along with Parachute purple a couple of months ago but hadn’t gotten a chance to try it. Sephora + Pantone Universe Jewel Lacquer In Reflecting Pond is a very pretty jewel toned green. This reminds me of Pixi Evening Emerald, Essie Dive Bar, etc… Just like Essie Dive Bar, Reflecting Pond has a very promising pink/purple flash in the bottle that completely disappears on the nail. So disappointing!

I am only posting one picture because all the other ones were beyond bad. This one is pretty bad too but it’s the best of the ugly bunch.

Same goes for this picture. I used Bundle Monster plate 322 and Essie Good As Gold for this houndstooth design. Normally I loooove anything houndstooth but I am just not feeling this manicure today. Ugh…maybe it’s just my crappy mood today.

Last night I went to dinner with one of my best friends and we seriously piled out. We went to a seafood restaurant where you basically order shrimp, crab, clams and various other delectable crustaceans by the pound. You choose a seasoning (lemon pepper, Cajun, etc) and a level of spiciness and they then bring out a plastic bag full of your seafood selections boiled in your seasoning of choice. Your only utensils are your fingers, paper towels and your plastic bib. hahaha Behold the shrimp massacre!

Did you get a load of my fingers after our meal? Whoa. Let me tell you, I am still feeling the aftermath of this feast. I feel like garlic is seeping through my pores. Ugh…I don’t know if I’ll be back soon despite how yummy the meal was.

So how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? I can’t wait for election day! I take voting very seriously so I’ll be up super early to cast my ballot!

China Glaze On Your Knees!

Posted on 12 October, 201211 October, 2012 by Cynthia

Is it just me, or were polish names a little more risqué in the past? I seem to keep running across a lot of older polishes with very interesting names, and today I have another oldie but goodie. China Glaze On Your Knees! was part of the 2002 Winter collection called Crown Jewels. Lately I have been on a total old polish buying binge–the older they are, the more excited I get. You can blame all the dusties in my area for my recent obsession with older polishes.

Behold the Fall beauty of China Glaze On Your Knees!

This polish has a glowing cinnamon aspect to it so it reminds me a little bit of Jessica’s Cinnamon Kiss. This polish is definitely not 3-free and I found the formula dreamy: it is a little sheer but it’s super easy to control and apply. These are the type of colors that I look forward to wearing every fall and winter.

And because I’ve missed my stamping…

I really don’t like the Essie Mirror Metallics as regular polish, but I love them for stamping. Look how gorgeously crisp the stamping is with As Good As Gold! I used a design from Mash plate 41 for this design in case you were wondering. Doesn’t it remind you of a chain link fence?

I might have asked this before, but does it annoy you when I feature polishes that are discontinued and are probably hard to find? I have found so many amazing polishes (some even pre-2000) lately so I’m super excited to share them on here. Let me know what you think about this and about my latest mani. I love hearing all your opinions. Thanks again for stopping by–your feedback keeps this blog fun for me. 🙂

Newer Essies I Had Passed On

Posted on 5 September, 20126 September, 2012 by Cynthia

Last time I showed you two Essie polishes from some way older collections and today I have two from more recent collections. I don’t know about you, but the more polish I acquire, the more discriminating I become. I used to just run out and buy whole collections without really thinking about the colors–I just wanted every single polish because I felt incomplete not getting a complete collection. Now I tend to pass on colors more often. Case in point: I only bought ONE of the OPI Germany polishes because all the others were a snoozefest for me.

Today I have two previously shunned Essies to show you:

First one up is Tour De Finance:

This was the only color from the Navigate Her Collection that I didn’t purchase. Why? I have no idea. Maybe I was hating on pink that day. Who knows?! It’s a very shimmery hot pink with an awesome formula. You can get away with one thick coat but I applied 2 thin coats here.

Next up is Dive Bar:

Oh, Dive Bar! Why are you so deceptive? When I saw that purple shimmer flash in the bottle, I was drooling. But where did it go once I put it on my nails? Sadness! I’m not saying it isn’t an awesome nail polish, I was just a little disappointed that the purple was MIA. The formula on this seemed a little watery but it went on easily and 2 coats were enough for full opacity. Do I like this? Hell yeah!

Don’t forget to check out Beauty Stop Online if you’re looking for some of these Essie colors (and many other polish brands as well!). You can click here and browse through their selection.

Are there any polishes that you previously passed on and recently picked up?

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

Essie Oldies

Posted on 3 September, 20124 September, 2012 by Cynthia

As a fairly recent nail polish addict, it pains me to realize how many amazing collections I have missed out on pre-2011 because I wasn’t really following any of the major brands. I was an occasional nail polish wearer until I started getting weekly salon manicures. It was something that I would do every Friday after work to help me de-stress and just put work out of my mind for the weekend. So when I think of all those amazing–and sadly discontinued–collections that I missed out on, I just want to cry! (I’m looking at you China Glaze OMG!)

I am always on the lookout for older polishes so I tend to spend a lot of time searching online for information. I especially like to collect REALLY old nail polishes mostly for the vintage bottles, but that’s a whole other obsession that I won’t discuss right now. There are a lot of polish etailers out there but today I’m going to talk to you about Beauty Stop Online. They have a wide range of products (not just polishes!) so you should definitely check them out if you’re looking for quality products at a good price.

Today I have two Essie polishes that pre-date my polish hoarding days: Poor Lil’ Rich Girl & Looking For Love.

Poor Lil’ Rich Girl is from the Winter 2004 Frozen Assets Collection. You are probably thinking that there are tons of dark red nail polishes out there and you are right: there are! While this color is not terribly unique, I can never turn down a glossy and vibrant creme polish. Application was not a problem even though I needed 3 coats to even out the color. This is not a straightforward red; I think that it has some brown in it that gives it a vampy feel. This is the type of color that I love to wear when my nails are this short. And before I forget, I can’t stop singing “Rich Girl” by H&O every time I look at this polish!

This polish thoroughly confused me. From the Spring 2008 In The Mood Collection, Looking For Love is not a polish I would normally wear, but I think that I have been trying to branch out. Essie is known for their delicate sheers and pastels so I decided to give this one a try. In the bottle, this color appeared to be gray with some blue but once I got it on my nails, I saw a slight lavender/lilac tinge to it. Upon googling this polish, I came across a lot of information from other polish fiends stating that there appeared to be two versions of this polish (My Private Jet anyone?!) While I like the end result, this polish was kind of a streaky nightmare. It took 4 coats to get this manicure done.

If you’re interested in checking out what other Essie colors are stocked at Beauty Stop Online, you can click here and browse through their selection.

When did your polish obsession start?

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

Is This Real Life?

Posted on 6 July, 2012 by Cynthia

I love this video. I think it’s my second favorite kid video on youtube with Charlie Bit My Finger being #1

I was asking myself if I really bought this much nail polish today. I look at it and I am still wondering what possesses me to go on these nail polish buying binges. It’s like a high. Is anyone else understanding this or am I just nuts?

So much polish…………………..

I picked up the whole Gelato Mio collection from Jessica Cosmetics. I’ve gotta admit that the main reason why I got these is because I am dying to go back to Italy. Some of my fondest memories of Italy are food related–gelato being a huge part of it. The last time I was in Italy, way back in 2003, V. and I went to Rome and Florence. Despite how cold it was, we were still dedicated gelato eaters the whole time. Ahhh! Also, I have the funniest picture of D. and I during our first trip to Italy. We went out for a really awesome dinner and we had probably the most pivotal conversation in our 15 year friendship. We also proceeded to get plastered on red wine and then wandered around the city drunk and crazy trying to find a gelato place that was open. Once we did, we bought some and headed back to the hotel. The next morning, D. was asking me what the hell we had done the previous night because his jacket was coated with something. We never figured it out until I developed the pictures and we got a picture of him drunk, eating gelato while it was melting down the cone and down his arm all over his jacket. LOL

One of my dusties had a crapload of these American Classic nail polishes. I wanted to get a bunch of them because the one I previously tried was awesome. I still don’t have much info about this nail polish line, but I got to talking with the owner of the nail polish store and he told me that the guy who started this company also started China Glaze. Huh? He was telling me how he had designed the bottle and stuff. When you look at these, they do look exactly like CG bottles except for the ridges on the cap. How cool. Sally Beauty Supply gave me a contact # for American Classic (who make Gelous) so I’m going to call them and see if they can give me any info about this. I’d love to know how old these are.

Ahhh…Kleancolor. These smell like the vas deferens of a platypus. The smell is beyond disgusting so I don’t know if I’ll be able to deal with them. These are all glitters!!!! I decided to get them because they are dirt cheap and I will never pay a lot for any glitter.

These are just some assorted goodies from China Glaze (yay for super old polishes!!!), Nubar, Essie and Dare To Wear.

And lastly, I got some more special Konad polishes for stamping and some nail art stuff.

I need to cut the crap and stop being such a nail polish hoarder. I only have 20 nails…why do I need so much? Well, for now, nail polish makes me happy and I really need a little happiness when I’m usually feeling so rotten. I hate feeling like I’m just a shopaholic, but I guess it could be worse.

Sephora by OPI My Personal Serpent

Posted on 30 June, 2012 by Cynthia

I was debating what to wear on my nails today, and bright cheery colors just weren’t appealing. I’ve been in a crappy mood today so I wanted something dark and smoky. I looked at my untried stash and pulled out SOPI My Personal Serpent which I recently got on sale at Sephora. This color is part of their Fall 2011 collection called The Garden Of Good And Evil which included seven other polishes. Before I get into swatches and the stamping I did, I wanted to do a quick polish comparison. My Personal Serpent reminded me of Essie Bobbing For Baubles and Zoya Cynthia so I did a side-by-side comparison

Pretty similar, right? I purchased Bobbing For Baubles first and really liked it. Out of the three, Essie has the best formula. They actually all are pretty great when it comes to the formula and you reach opacity with 2 thin coats. I purchased Cynthia because…well…it’s my namesake so how could resist? I just imagined that my namesake polish is a crazy glitter in an alternate universe. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! So why did I purchase My Personal Serpent even though I have 2 other nearly identical colors? Because it was on sale, and who can resist any nail polish sales? I am such a psycho nail polish hoarder….

You already know I like blues so this dark smoky blue fit the bill today. This color is just so dark and saturated that it makes me dream of fall/winter colors. Ahhhh!

I am anxiously waiting the arrival of my Bundle Monster plates so I took out my konad and used my favorite mummy bandage plate design.

Do you have multiple dupe polishes from different brands? Do you feel dumb once you realize you purchased a dupe? I need a polish intervention.

Sation Periwinkle Princess

Posted on 23 May, 2012 by Cynthia

My fellow nail polish addict Nicole has really been diggin’ glitter lately judging by her recent posts. Of course I had to give her a hard time because I am so not a glitter person. Despite how many times I have written those words here, I continue to buy glitter nail polish sporadically. Why? That is the nature of a true nail polish addict. I had previously posted about the re-vamped Sation polishes and had also teased Nicole about the awesome glitter I had purchased. I couldn’t decide what base color to use so I just went with a safe color by Essie: Nice Is Nice.

I then applied a couple of coats of Periwinkle Princess.

The main thing that attracted me to this polish was the bar glitter because I don’t have many bar glitter polishes. I found that the bar glitter was a little difficult to manipulate and there doesn’t seem to be that much of it in the polish. However, I did like the effect once I got it on my nails. It’s hard to capture how this looks in person but it really is pretty. Here is my one glitter comment: it was not a pain to remove! I was in shock. Never thought you’d hear that from me, right? Well, now you heard it.

So what do you think of this glitter? Does it look like something you’d wear? How would you wear it differently?

Essie Who Is The Boss

Posted on 18 May, 2012 by Cynthia

From the 2012 Love & Acceptance Wedding Collection, I decided to wear Who Is The Boss today. Am I the only one who is only thinking of this?

Anyway, I like this color but it’s not anything new or exciting. Doesn’t this look exactly like Essie Absolutely Shore?

I messed around with my dotting tools and this is what I came up with:

Sorry about the lighting…it’s super crappy.

I would write more right now but I’m running late! 🙂

I Have No Willpower

Posted on 14 May, 2012 by Cynthia

I’m hanging my head in shame as I share this information with you: I caved on my no-buy and purchased some nail polish. A few. More than a few…a lot. It all started on Saturday. I had been feeling crappy so my resolve to not buy any polish melted away. I was immediately tempted when the Cult Nails sale started. I just couldn’t pass up getting 3 polishes at 50% off. Sooooo…I bought three: Hypnotize Me, Let Me Fly and Iconic. Then later that day, I noticed that a friend had posted a $5 gift card for Sephora on my facebook. I didn’t think it was real, but it turns out that it’s a new app and it really worked. So I was just perusing the sephora site when I saw that Nails. Inc had brought back their neutrals set.

They are FOUR full size polishes that retail for $9.50 each, and this set costs $25. I didn’t really have to think too much about this so I snatched it up. The retail therapy seemed to help, BUT now I had to deal with the guilt of failing!

Then today I was over the moon when I got the news about my dog paperwork so I went completely insane and ended up buying all sorts of craziness.

From the 2012 Poppy-Razzi Collection: Lights and Bazooka

From the 2012 Love & Acceptance Collection: Who Is the Boss and Love & Acceptance

Random Color Club: Age Of Aquarius, Pucci-Licious and Hydrangea Kiss

Then I went to Ross and found some new Color Club sets…like I was going to pass this up. These are not labeled like the previous All About Color set so I’ve contacted Color Club to see if they can help.

And lastly, I saw a few Essie bottles at Ross for $3.49!!! When did Ross start carrying Essie? I failed to notice that these are super close to the Essies I had just purchased an hour ago. I guess I was too excited about Essie at Ross to even notice.

Essie: Nice Is Nice and Absolutely Shore

So, I am really annoyed with myself right now because I didn’t buy any polish for almost 2 weeks and then went out and purchased 23 bottles. Is this the ugly face of addiction? I think so.

Polish Moratorium

Posted on 30 April, 2012 by Cynthia

My nail polish boycott begins now. Since I was so close to the end of the month, I just decided to start everything May 1st. I will not buy nail polish for one month. I think that I have enough new polishes to last me a month or more and I want to save up some money for other things. Today I bought a few new polishes and some “interview shoes.”

I had never heard of this brand so when I saw these at one of my nail places, I picked up a couple to try them out. They had about 4 other colors that looked pretty interesting, but I’d rather wait and see what the formula is like before I buy more. The first one is supposed to go from Teal to Turquoise and the second one is supposed to go from Blue to Neon Blue.

I didn’t see too many Essies that I wanted. Neither of my main nail places have the new bridal collection or the poppy razzi collection so I am just going to wait to get a couple of colors after next month. The two colors I picked up are Watermelon and Haute As Hello. I almost got Tarte Deco but I liked Haute As Hello a little better. They look pretty close from the bottles so I didn’t want to get both.

I also got two new Orly polishes from two new collections. Mysterious Curse was the one polish that really drew me in from the Dark Shadows Collection. There was another one that looked cool but I just picked one. I can’t wait to see the movie because who doesn’t like Johnny Depp? The other one I purchased is called Skinny Dip and it is from Orly’s Feel The Vibe Summer 2012 Collection. The whole collection is full of super bright colors and one dark glitter. I loved this one because it’s one of those blues that I adore, and it has some purple microshimmer. I suspect that it’s not going to show up much once it’s on my nails but I’ll probably still like it.

I am really loving Poshé way more than Seche Vite. I never thought I’d say that but I just really like it. I got the professional size and it came with an extra regular size bottle. Best of all, I only paid $11 for it. For those who have used Poshé for a while, does this thicken up the way Seche Vite does? Do you need to buy thinner for it?

Here are the shoes I bought:

I got them in black and beige so I can wear them with anything. They are a little “grandma” but they are a perfect height and I like the cut out on the sides. They are SUPER comfy so I’ll be able to walk around for a long time. I bought two new pantsuits: one in black and one that is light lilac with brown pinstripes. I may not be confident about many things, but one thing I am 100% confident about is job interviews. Maybe it’s because I have hired a lot of people in the past…I just know how to work the interviewer. And maybe I’m weird, but I really like going to interviews.

And these just for fun:

I love flats, and I love peeptoes even though I hate my feet and really don’t like feet in general. I know I’m not alone on this so at least I don’t sound like a total freak.

I don’t know what to do with my nails today. There is zero sunlight…it’s all overcast and windy. I love this kind of weather but it’s not good for taking pictures of my manicure. I’ll see what I come up with. I can’t believe I haven’t cut my nails yet. I think this is the longest they have ever been, and I haven’t broken one yet. I am using this new Nail-Aid Strengthening/Growth thing so maybe that’s made a difference.

How is your Monday going?