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Jessica A Night At The Opera Collection – Fall 2013

Posted on 12 August, 201314 August, 2013 by Cynthia

When I was a kid, I used to live for Saturday morning cartoons. The ABC lineup used to be my favorite, and I would be so upset on those Saturdays when I had to go to Catholic school and miss out on my favorite ritual. Another reason why I loved Saturday mornings was because it was really the only day when I was able to spend time with my dad. Since he worked so much, I never really saw him during the week but on Saturday mornings, he would watch cartoons with my brother and I. I loved that time with my dad even though I was such a little turd when I was a kid and would never tell him how much I missed him. One of our favorite shows was Looney Toons because they were so old school and were actually FUNNY and not bloody and violent like the cartoons nowadays. Well…I guess they were violent but it was more for comedic effect and not to actually show gore and blood. I loved the musical numbers, and I remember that’s where I first encountered Opera.

Do you remember this? I thought it was hilarious but was also intrigued by this strange music. It wasn’t until years later that I started listening to opera as a teenager that I fully understood what it was about. One of the very first operas I listened to was a recording of Maria Callas’ La Traviata, and I just became enamored. From there, I devoured opera. One of the things on my bucket list is to see a performance at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. While I was in Milan, I did stop by but didn’t have the time to actually see if it would even be possible to see a performance.

Now that I have bored you with my childhood memories of opera, let me tell you about the Jessica A Night At The Opera Collection for Fall 2013. Isn’t it funny how something like a nail polish collection can evoke such fond memories in your mind? It’s almost like when you hear a song and you are transported back in time and you experience those fond (or not so fond) memories from your past. This Fall collection is full of bold colors, and I was very excited to give them a whirl. Let’s take a look at the polishes…

While I wasn’t too excited when I saw Jessica Velvet & Pearls because how exciting can a black crème be? Well, let me tell you that it’s pretty fantastic. Not only is the formula outstanding, but the color is not really a true black…it has this smoky gray quality to it that really makes it unique in my stash. I know that black nails were all the rage a couple of years ago, but I still sport them because they just look edgy on short nails.

When I first saw Jessica Standing Ovation, I kind of heard angels sing. Yes, the way this polish looks in the bottle is rather majestic. From experience, I know that bottle shots can be super deceiving and I hate that bitter disappointment especially when it comes to duo or multi-chrome polishes. Well, this polish did live up to the hype I had created for it in my head. I loved it!! Not only is this shimmery green gorgeous, but you can definitely see the different colors flash depending on the angle of your nails. Just to show you how gorgeous it is, here is a bottle shot:

Jessica Standing Ovation 3

Seriously…how can you resist this polish. Just looking at those colors in the bottle…ghaaa!

For the purple lovers out there, I can see you going totally gaga over Jessica Prima Donna. This purple is just so shimmery and glowy that it pained me to remove it while I was swatching this collection. It’s such a rich and luxurious purple with a highly pigmented and easy to control formula.

Jessica Overture reminds me of some of the amazeballs polishes from last year’s Spicy Dream Collection. This is as close as I ever want to get to having my nails look like they are on fire. I am a big fan of orange so this fiery copper won me over.

The only color that left me feeling kind of meh is Jessica Opening Night. It’s not that the color isn’t pretty or that the formula is subpar—because it isn’t—it’s just that it wasn’t that exciting to me. The formula on this is great: smooth, rich, great consistency and very pigmented. It’s a nice fuchsia shimmer, but it didn’t make me get weak in the knees a la SWV:

Woot! Let’s hear it for the 90’s kids!

Are we tired of seeing these dark and smoky blues? Not me! Jessica Blue Aria is kind of “the brainchild of my brainchild.” Jessica calls this a dark cobalt…cobalt?? This is a darkened blue with a rich formula that could almost be a one-coater if you’re careful with your application. My nails definitely approve of this polish.

Jessica is one of my favorite brands and this collection continues to cement that opinion. Not only are the colors absolutely gorgeous, but the formula on all of them is superb. I applied two coats of each color for all my swatches and a couple of them could get away with one coat if you’re careful with your application. My biggest peeve about Jessica Cosmetics is that they are not as widely available as other brands so I always get questions about where to find these polishes locally after I review their collections. Please make these available everywhere!! For now, you can purchase Jessica polishes on ninjapolish.com or through their website at jessicacosmetics.com A few people have told me that they can be found at other sites, but these are the only two reliable and trustworthy sites that I know of short of getting them at independent beauty supply stores. I don’t have an exact date of when this collection will be available but it should be available sometime soon. Make sure that you follow Jessica on Facebook and Twitter for all their latest news.

So now that you have seen this collection, let me know what you think. Any favorites? Are you a Jessica fan? Let me know! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

About Jessica:

A global powerhouse, the Jessica brand of nail care from Jessica Cosmetics International is available in more than 35 countries at the finest salons, spas and retailers and at www.jessicacosmetics.com. Jessica Vartoughian–founder and creator of Jessica Cosmetics–”The First Lady of Nails” by the New York Times and “Manicurist to the Stars” by Vogue. Her complete colour and treatment line has been designed to promote healthy, beautiful nails.

Born Pretty Store Review: Red Flocking Powder

Posted on 7 February, 20136 February, 2013 by Cynthia

I got past hump day! Woot! Tomorrow is Thursday which means that the weekend is upon us again. I’m probably going to have another swatch-a-thon and get my posts all lined up for the week. It’s just so much easier to do that than to try to do individual posts each night. I really admire all my fellow bloggers who work (or go to school–or both!!), have time to post almost every day and still follow up with other blogs. I am so bummed that I don’t have enough time sometimes to visit my favorite blogs daily to comment and support them. I am going to have a lot of catching up to do this weekend! One of the manis that I worked on over the weekend is this velvet man that I’m going to share with you today. I was super excited to get the opportunity to review the red flocking powder from the Born Pretty Store because I had been wanting to do a velvet mani for ages. Let me show you how it turned out.

This is the bottle of red flocking powder. It’s a very generous size!

These are the three products I used to do my velvet mani.

As my base color, I decided to use my favorite bright red: Velvet Fantasy from the Jessica Glamarama Holiday Collection. This red is perfection in a bottle. It’s the absolute most perfect one-coater!

Now, this is what my mani looked like after I applied the red flocking powder. Let me tell you that it was definitely messier than I anticipated because the red flocking powder will get EVERYWHERE if you are not careful. I think that the most important step of applying the flocking powder is that you make sure that the top coat is still fairly wet or else the powder won’t stick. Because of that, you have to do one nail at a time. To tell you the truth, I love how this looks way more than I thought I would, but it’s not a manicure that you can wear for long. I wore it for a few hours and then I had to do dishes and stuff so that didn’t work out so well. It’s a “going out” mani that you can wear for the night if you’re not going to be doing anything crazy with your hands.

Velvet manis may be old news to you, but this look is 100% new to my nails and I’m super happy that I finally got to try it out. If you’re interested in getting some flocking powder from the Born Pretty Store, you can click here and see all the different colors that they offer. Don’t forget that if you use my discount code, JGL91, you will get a 10% discount off your purchase. If you head over to the Born Pretty Store, make sure to look around because it is a nail art heaven.

Let me know what you think about velvet manis. Would you wear it? Have you tried it out before? Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR firm (except for the NYC Top Coat). For more information, please see my disclosure policy tab here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on 23 November, 2012 by Cynthia

This being the first Thanksgiving that my blog has seen, I was wondering if I should do anything “special.” What does special mean? I have no clue. So instead, I decided to just let all of you know how grateful I am for all the wonderful support I have received since I started my blog. Whether this blog continues to exist in the future or not, I will always love it because it gave me the opportunity to meet some amazing bloggers (and non-bloggers!) whom I am fortunate enough to call friends. Around this time last year, I was dealing with so much crap that I could barely get my head wrapped around it all. While I still have a lot of not so pleasant things going on, I feel light years away from the horrible pit of depression I was in for most of 2011. In fact, the reason why I even started this blog was to VENT out into the void since I refused to go to therapy regularly. Of course the venting also included my love for nail polish and here I am almost a year later still talking about nail polish…and food…and UPS men…and pervy postal clerks. Ahhh…I have a wonderful life!

I really really hate turkey. I mean I really hate it because turkeys are ugly and they taste like feathers. Since I’ve always had an aversion to birds and poultry, I’ve always had to come up with something else when it comes to my main Thanksgiving protein so I decided to make some tri tip and it came out perfect! Since my parents weren’t able to join us for Thanksgiving this year, my brother and I are celebrating at my bro and sil’s house. We had a great time eating, eating and eating some more.

That’s my plate with some delicious tri tip. This year I decided not to eat so much that I felt like dying afterwards so I didn’t eat everything on my plate. Get ready for my brother’s plate:

He ate TWO servings like this. TWO!!! Ahh…to have the metabolism of a 22 year old guy. I told him that he eats like the apocalypse is coming.

And because this post wouldn’t be quite right without a mani picture, this is what I decided to wear on my nails today.

I didn’t want to do anything complicated so I am happy with the simplicity of this. Jessica Pumpkin Spice seemed very appropriate–even though I prefer apple pie to pumpkin pie.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and family and thank you for always being here–reading, commenting, lurking…whatever! THANK YOU!

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

Posted on 21 November, 2012 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 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?

Stamping Sunday: Can’t Wait For Fall

Posted on 19 August, 2012 by Cynthia

I am a fall person. I can’t help it. I was born during the Autumnal Equinox, and I always found something poetic about it because I’ve always felt like I was an old soul with a darker disposition. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I hate summer so much!

This Sunday, our theme is “Can’t Wait For Fall” and it couldn’t be more appropriate for me. Today I’m teasing you with Pumpkin Delight, a color from the Jessica Spicy Dream collection that is not available just yet. It should be available this month so keep an eye out for it if you love dark, spicy and rich fall colors. If you would like to see swatches of the whole collection, you can click here.

I started out with 2 coats of Pumpkin Delight:

Then I used stamp BM 309 for this design. I’ve got to admit that I hate birds. They freak me out so this was a big step for me to actually have birds on my nails even if they are supposed to be cute owls.

So what do you think of this look? I wasn’t feeling super inspired today. This was actually my second mani for Stamping Sunday; the first one was a complete fail that I didn’t even photograph before taking it off. Don’t you hate it when things don’t work out at all the way you pictured them in your mind?

I hope this weekend has been nice and relaxing for you. The heat has not eased up here in So Cal so I’m beyond grouchy at this point. All I have to say is that next week better be cooler or else…

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.

Jessica Show Stopper

Posted on 29 April, 2012 by Cynthia

Here is another polish to add to my Baby Poop Color Chronicles. Granted it’s no China Glaze Trendsetter but it has that weird quality that always makes me think of baby poo as soon as I look at my nails. Yeah, totally not a good image. I got some random stranger compliments on this polish so I guess it looks more interesting than I thought. These pictures make it super obvious that I don’t wrap my tips and this polish really needed it!

The shimmer is very noticeable on my nails and I wasn’t expecting it because the bottle color just looks dark and without shimmer. I also think that the polish did not react well with my topcoat. Once I put Poshé on it, it started to look streaky which was really weird! I do like this polish I don’t see too many of these dirty olive colors, but they are certainly cropping up more often in random collections.

Do you have any similar colors in your collection? What do you think of this color?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a great weekend.

Don’t Hate Me! I Have A Sickness.

Posted on 27 April, 2012 by Cynthia

Master enabler Nicole “convinced” me that it was ok to start my no-buy policy this Saturday instead of in the middle of the week. And when I say that she convinced me, she just agreed with me when I put it out there. I needed no further justification to jump in my car and head over to Little Saigon for polish therapy. I told myself that I wouldn’t spend more than $20 and I stuck to it much to my surprise. It’s a good thing that everything is so cheap there or else I would have been in big trouble.

So, this is what I ended up purchasing today:

Enchantress, Showstopper

Jazz, A Crewed Interest, Funny Face and Turquoise & Caicos

Once I had my polish fill, I decided to stop at Sephora. Bad idea. I had gotten a few samples of Korres Wild Rose Moisturizer, and I freaking loved it so I wanted to go check it out. Since I had some store credit, I decided I might as well get something useful like moisturizer. Even though it’s starting to get hot and I have oily skin most of the time, I have noticed that my Clinique gel moisturizer isn’t helping some of the weird dry patches I’ve been getting lately. The Korres moisturizer is really thick but it feels great on my skin and best of all, it doesn’t make me break out. Of course they didn’t have it in store so I have to buy it online. Poo. I started walking around, and of course I ended up at their nail bar. My Sephora is now carrying Julep as well as SpaRitual. I was curious to see if they had Ciaté but it wasn’t available yet. Then I remembered how much I wanted Illamasqua Nomad. No bueno. I picked it up and also grabbed SpaRitual Meditate On This and ran to the check-out before I could change my mind or grab more things.

These are new brands to me so I can’t wait to try them out. So excited!

Remember how I initially went to Sephora for the Korres moisturizer? Well, at check-out they had the usual 100pt and 500pt perks. Yawn. The perks haven’t been worth squat lately so I barely even glanced at them. The cashier told me I had like 3,000 points. I always kind of hate when they tell me my point balance because it makes me feel self-conscious like I have issues. Well, I do but still… Then I noticed that one of the 100pt perks was a mini tube of the moisturizer I was looking for. Score! I ended up taking 5 of them which is 1.7oz of moisturizer: .3oz more than the amount a full size container carries and retails for $35.00.

This is probably the most well-spent points EVER for me. When’s the last time they had any kind of full-size product even at the 500pt level? Poo to you Sephora. You have to kick it up a notch or else loyal customers, like moi, will start to go elsewhere like *cough* Ulta *cough*

Are you glad it’s Friday? Do you have any plans for the weekend? What do you think of the polish colors I got? Tell me! 🙂

What’s Up With Your Nails?

Posted on 26 April, 2012 by Cynthia

My neighbor asked me this when she saw me taking pictures of my nails this afternoon. She’s about 3 years old and very talkative. I told her that I was taking pictures because I wanted to share how they looked with some friends and she thought that was cool. Invariably, someone always catches me taking pictures of my nails outside, and I always get strange looks. It used to bother me but not anymore…the light is too good.

I was messing around with the OPI drawer in my melmer and I saw Fly. I love Fly because it’s so bright and creamy looking so I decided to use it today. I actually hadn’t used it since I swatched it a while back. I know you like it. Don’t tell me it’s not gorgeous.

Since I’ve been trying to lay off the Konad, I played around with another color and my Jessica holo topcoat. OPI Pamplona purple is the other polish I picked for this manicure.

Frankly, this was way too much work for me. I am going to try to leave this on my nails at least 3 days because it’s a waste of time otherwise. How often do you change your nails? What are you wearing right now?

Jessica Born 2 Pansy

Posted on 25 April, 2012 by Cynthia

Can someone please explain to me the name of this nail polish? Born 2 Pansy? What am I missing here? Anyway, this polish is from Jessica’s Spring 2012 Collection and it’s a baby soft pink with a hint of lavender and some fine iridescent blue micro glitter. I liked this a lot more in the bottle than I did on my nails. I don’t really see the shimmer too much on my nails in regular light, but it could be that the sun has been MIA for the last week or so. I love how it looks pink, purple and kinda blue sometimes. The formula was ok. It is very sheer but buildable without any major issues. I had to apply 3 thick coats which I don’t like to do so a quick dry top coat like Seche Vite is a must. Ultimately, I do like this color but can’t see myself wearing too often.

Because I hadn’t done any konading in a few days, I decided to put a stamp on it. Single ladies, put a stamp on it! Cause if you liked it then you shoulda put a stamp on it. Ok, yeah…I think I’m delirious right now.

I liked it better without the konad on it, but it’s too late now. Oh well, better luck next time.

PS. My nails are growing. Any bets on how much longer I can go without cutting them down to the nub?