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Nubar Absolute

Posted on 2 December, 2012 by Cynthia

I was looking through my melmers today trying to decide what other polishes to put up on my blog sale (yes, go check out my blog sale now!), and I ran across Nubar Absolute. Believe it or not, I didn’t even realize I had this lovely polish and was shocked that I hadn’t worn it before. I had to remedy that immediately. This is the manicure I did today:

Read below to see what I used for this look.

Nubar Absolute comes from the fantastic Prisms Collection from 2010 which predates my polish obsession. Thankfully, I was able to find some of these locally so I snatched them up. I absolutely love this polish, but I do have some beef with it: it is super SUPER sheer. I had to apply 4 coats because I still had VNL at 3 coats. I found that because the polish is so sheer and the holo pigment particles are so fine, this polish dries very quickly. Absolute looks pretty but not that spectacular in regular light, but boy did it blow me away once I went out and it caught the sunlight…it really shines. Despite having to apply 4 coats, I still love how beautiful and delicate this polish is.

I’ve been all about stamping lately so I pulled out Konad plate M3 and used two designs for the stars. I don’t know about you, but stamping is not as easy as some people make it out to be. It takes time to get the hang of it so I don’t now why I’ve been seeing people say that stamping is “cheating.” I’m a stamper at heart because it was the first “nail art” I ever did when I first became obsessed with nail polish. I really like how this turned out–especially because the stamp didn’t cover up much of the lovely base polish.

What do you think about Nubar Absolute? Are you a Nubar fan? Let me know what you think!

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 17: Animal Print Nails

Posted on 9 November, 2012 by Cynthia

As usual, here I am posting super late. I am such a spaz. I was pretty busy today so at least I have an excuse. Since I was short on time and lacking any really creative ideas, I decided to resort to stamping. I know, I know…I kind of cheated. But hey, at least I got the right challange design unlike other people. *cough* Nicole *cough* hehe.

I decided to finally use one of the glitters that so many people raved about when the China Glaze On Safari Collection came out. Now, which one to use? I Herd That or I’m Not Lion? I decided to give I Herd That a Whirl…

This glitter is absolute perfection. I am not kidding. It’s easy to apply, it covers nicely with only 2 coats and it just SPARKLES like a mofo. I love it and can’t believe that I have waited so long to use it.

I used Konad plate M57 for this design along with Konad’s Black special polish. I think it came out pretty well. I am definitely happy with the simplicity of this mani. I Herd that is definitely the star here, and I can’t wait to use I’m Not Lion!!!

Since I have you here, don’t forget to check out my blog sale. I am doing a huge purge of polish. Most of my polishes have only been swatched once, and I really want to find a new home for them since I know I won’t use them much. You can see all the polishes I have for sale here.

Don’t forget to check out the other animal print manis for today’s challenge…or a floral mani if you’re Nicole. Let me know what you think and talk to you later!

China Glaze Little Drummer Boy

Posted on 1 November, 20121 November, 2012 by Cynthia

November is here which means that the only holiday I like is around the corner: Christmas! I am not a person who usually enjoys holidays, but I love decorating a Christmas tree. There is something so lovely about the process of unwrapping and unpacking Christmas ornaments that just makes me happy. I was looking through my polishes today since I had a bunch of them out after my blog sale post, and I reached for China Glaze Little Drummer Boy. This polish comes from the 2010 Holiday collection which predates my nail polish obsession. The reason why I even got this polish is because I can never think of the song The Little Drummer Boy without thinking of Angela on the office singing this song during office karaoke or when she asked Andy if she could walk down the aisle to this song when they were planning their wedding. hahaha…I am cracking myself up over here. I tried to find a clip of these exchanges on youtube but could not come up with anything. 🙁 However, I did find one clip that I had forgotten about:

That’s classic Dwight right there.

Back to the polish: Little drummer boy is a darkened blue with some gorgeous shimmer. This polish is super opaque so I could have gotten away with one coat but I used two.

Since I haven’t been doing much stamping lately, I decided to stamp an argyle design from Konad plate M60.

I am not that happy with this stamping job. I have noticed that all of the white konad polish that I have purchased the last year or so have been really watery. The first couple of white konad polishes I bought where so thick and opaque and always stamped perfectly. These new ones, not so much.

And just as a treat (I’m looking at you, Lesley!), here is a compilation video of awesome Dwight moments:

I think that I have just found the perfect opening sentence for my next job interview: “How would I describe myself? Three words: hard-working, alpha-male, jackhammer, merciless, insatiable.” How could they NOT hire me, right?

RGB Haze

Posted on 17 July, 2012 by Cynthia

It’s about time I use this nail polish. I think that because it was associated with the whole SpaRitual/Beauty.com debacle a couple of months ago, I wanted to give myself some time to forget how they sent me empty nail polish boxes twice! I’m still wondering how that even happened. Eventually, I ended up getting the nail polish set and they refunded my money for all the aggravation. This is my first experience with RGB and I’m not really blown away. It’s a pretty color, but the formula seemed kind of strange: it was kind of streaky and goopy. At $16 for .40 oz, I guess I was expecting something better. I don’t know if I just got an off bottle because I’ve heard a lot of great things about RGB. It’s too bad because these are the colors I enjoy the most: dusty, smoky and PURPLE!!!

I haven’t used this design from Konad plate M73 in a while, but I really love it. This Wet N Wild silver polish called I Can’t Stand Up Straight is my favorite silver polish to use for stamping.

I decided to build a better lightbox today so I went out to purchase some posterboard. While I was at Dollar Tree, I saw packages of Big League Chew. Remember that stuff? It’s like little shredded strips of bubble gum that gave kids the impression that they were using chewing tobacco like their favorite baseball players. That stuff is almost as bad at the gum cigarettes that had a powder in them that you could suck and then blow out…like you were really smoking…at 5 years old. WTF? Anyway, it took me so long to build the darn thing, but I refuse to pay for one because they are super pricey. For you ladies who are also nail bloggers, do you use a lightbox? I’ve been using mine a lot more lately which is why I decided to make a new and bigger one.

Today I chopped off my nails down to the nub so I’m going to lay off the nail polish for maybe a week and just work on hydrating my skin and cuticles. I have a stockpile of pictures so I’ll still be posting regularly. Don’t worry…I know you’d die without my random nail/life ramblings. 😉 I am also putting myself on a no-buy. Yeah, yeah…laugh it up. I know I’ve said that before but I really need to tone it down a bit. I’m inching closer and closer to 600 bottles and I just can’t outgrow three melmers…I can’t! The last time I put myself on a no-buy, this happened. Yeah. I will say that I will get the China Glaze New Bohemian duochromes…no mater what. I think I am over the idea of getting the Essie Mirror Metallics because I know that I won’t use them too often so at least I’ll save some moola on that end.

And lastly, my giveaway for the Saved By The Bell nail polish collection is ending in a couple of days so don’t forget to enter. Today I went back to my lucky dusty and purchased a couple more bottles of the OPI DS linear holos for a future giveaway. I’m really enjoying all the new ladies who are stopping by and interacting on my posts so I want to make sure I thank you all by sharing some of the polish love. These are the two polishes I bought for future giveaways.

Thanks for reading, ladies, and have a nice Wednesday!

Happy 4th Of July!

Posted on 4 July, 2012 by Cynthia

I was not feeling any kind of inspiration for a 4th of July nail look. None at all. I’ve been posting like a machine lately, and I’m trying to slow down. The thing is that I am working really hard to keep myself occupied. I have not been feeling very motivated lately, and I’m afraid of my anxiety getting worse. I thought Prozac was supposed to help with anxiety as well, but it’s not working very well lately. I’m having problems sleeping regularly and have started the stupid cycle of nightmares. It seems that my nightmares always center around my worst insecurities so they seem even more intense and leave me completely emotionally overwhelmed when I do wake up. I hate feeling like this but there isn’t that much to do about it right now except to keep my head above water and not let it get the best of me again.

As far as being patriotic, I don’t think I’ve ever been crazy patriotic. I am grateful for living in a country where I can say and write whatever I want without fearing persecution. We enjoy many freedoms that we take for granted so it’s worth taking a moment to be thankful for all that we do have. I always try to put things into perspective because in the grand scheme of things, we are almost living in paradise compared to other places in the world where war, extreme poverty and hunger are just something that is in their every day reality. I’m not trying to be preachy or anything; I just think it’s nice to have a day to spend with your friends and family even if you’re not all hyped up on Independence Day.

So back to nail stuff…

I used Adventure Red-y which is an amazing one coat red from the China Glaze On Safari collection as my base color and then used Man Hunt, also from the same collection, for the chevron tips. Using Konad plate M84 and their white special polish, I stamped the stars over both colors. Simple, right? This was actually the second look I tried today. The first one was a complete disaster–better as an abstract idea because it was horrid once I tried to execute it. Oh well…you live, you learn.

If you’re in the States, do you have anything fun planned for today? Stay safe whatever you end up doing!

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.

Zoya Wednesday

Posted on 26 June, 2012 by Cynthia

I have way too many untried polishes. It makes me feel bad that I now have over 500 bottles of nail polish and I continue to add to my collection without having worn all the ones I already have. Wednesday is a color that I picked up during the Zoya Earth Day Promo along with another dozen or so polishes. Yeah, I know…terrible. You can’t really go wrong with Zoya most of the time.

Really beautiful and creamy, right? I’m sure there are a lot of dupes out there…Essie Turquoise & Caicos is the one that comes to mind first, but I haven’t done a side by side comparison yet. This is 3 thin coats.

Since I’m getting back into stamping with a fury, I used Konad M73 and the special black polish. I love the pigment in the black polish, but it is a huge pain to clean up. I still have staining on my skin.

Do you have Zoya Wednesday? Can you think of any other dupes? Let me know what you think!

Sation Miss Emo Shun All

Posted on 23 June, 2012 by Cynthia

I’m still trying to figure out what the name of this polish means. At first I thought it was like an Emo girl who shuns everything/everyone and then I thought it just meant Miss Emotional. Of course this could just be ambiguous on purpose to drive people like me crazy. Which one do you think fits better?

Well, whatever the case may be, this color is gorgeous. I think it might be a dupe for Color Club Disco Dress. They are both really bright purples and they have that really pretty satin finish. Why can’t there be more satin finish polishes? I really wasn’t expecting this to be a satin so it was a nice surprise. Besides, I can always put a top coat on it if I want a super shiny mani with this color.

I used three thin coats for this manicure. I guess that you could get away with two thick coats, but I always prefer to do thin coats for a faster drying time. After the second coat, it was rather opaque but I noticed that I could see some slight bald spots when I went outside so I applied a third coat to even out the coverage.

I’m a konad maniac even though I have been neglecting all my stamping stuff. I seriously used to konad at least every other day, but maybe I got sick of it. I am really interested in seeing the new Bundle Monster plates before I purchase them, so I’m going to wait and see some of the designs my fellow stamping friend, Nicole, uses on her blog first. Who am I kidding? It’s just a matter of time before I cave and get them too.

So how do you like Miss Emo Shun All? Do you like to use konad to spruce up your nails?

I hope you’re having a good weekend so far!

Nubar Prize

Posted on 19 May, 2012 by Cynthia

Last night I went to L’s house and we watched The Vow. I don’t usually watch sappy movies by choice, but I wanted to see this one cause I like Rachel McAdams. It was alright…not super impressed by it. I was petting L’s cat a lot yesterday and all of a sudden my eye got so red and irritated. It felt like I had something stuck in it so we tried flushing it out but nothing seemed to help. By the time I left, my eye was swollen shut. That was fun on the drive back home. I do not recommend driving with only one eye at night. I figured that it was probably some kind of allergic reaction to Tigger. Here is the little fur ball:

He is a super shy cat and always runs away to hide when someone comes to the door. He’s no longer scared of me so after a minute, he comes back out and lets me pet him. He’s cute, right?

A while ago I had purchased two polishes from the Prisms Collection that Nubar released in 2010. I just love holos even if they are not linear. I can’t believe I hadn’t tried this yet considering how pretty it is. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that it dries so incredibly gritty and rough so you have to use a thick top coat if it bothers you.

Since I haven’t been using my Konad as much lately, I used stamp M73 for this design.

So what do you have going on this weekend? Anything fun? I am feeling super crappy right now because I have monstrous cramps so I’m just laying low. I hope I feel better tomorrow so I can actually do something fun.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 🙂

Sunday Morning

Posted on 6 May, 2012 by Cynthia

Am I the only one who really really likes this song?

Anyway, happy Sunday to all. Thanks for stopping by! I am kind of exhausted right now. I didn’t get home until around midnight last night and didn’t fall asleep until almost 2 am. Then I woke up at 6 am because my friend and I wanted to go to the beach. It’s been eons since I’ve been to the beach even though it’s literally like 10 minutes from my place. It was so nice to be out that early breathing fresh air and hearing the sound of the waves. I also saw tons of people with their dogs. When can I get my dog, dangit?!

We were there for a long time. We walked along the sand laughing and making fun of each other. See, I’ve known V since we were like 10 years old. We didn’t like each other very much until we were stuck working together on a project for one of our classes in 8th grade. So 20-some years later, we’re still friends and I’m very lucky to have her in my life. I always tell people that my litmus test for friendship is to travel together. Well, we have gone on vacation twice and we had a fantastic time. The first time we went to Hawaii which was freaking awesome…even if we got so hammered we could barely walk up the stairs at the hotel. Ok, maybe that was just me but I know she was probably pointing and laughing. The next time we took a trip to Europe and went to Paris, Florence and Rome. She reminded me today of how we were freezing in Florence (it was late fall/early winter) but we HAD to have some gelato late at night. So we went to find a place that was open and walked outside eating our gelato and freezing our bums off.

Since V is a true friend, she told me that my nails looked ugly. Haha! Yeah, true biatch. (I still love you, though!) I can’t say that she’s wrong because I didn’t like my nails much so I didn’t even post them yesterday. They just turned out so ugly…kind of ghettoish. I started with Zoya Malia. I don’t have a lot to say about Malia. It just looks like OPI Do You Lilac It? to me. It is a color that I like but not terribly exciting. The formula was great, and it only needed two thin coats.

You can tell by the crappy job that I wasn’t that excited about doing my nails for some reason. I didn’t even do decent clean up! But wait till you see them after konading.

My nails are starting to look wonky to me because they are so long. However, I can’t cut them because I am going to beat Nicole at our imaginary nail competition. I just noticed a hair or fiber that got stuck on my middle nail. Can you spot it? How gross. Anyway, I need to take these things off asap and try another color.

Last night was really fun as well. I went into a sushicoma with my sil. We both didn’t eat all day so we could fully enjoy our sushi. So this place that we go to is a little neighborhood joint. The sushi is really good, fresh, delicious and reasonably priced. Their service has always been on the slow side which we don’t usually mind because we are slow eaters and talk the whole time. Sometimes it does get a little ridiculous like waiting an hour or more to get our food when they are super busy. Surprisingly, they weren’t busy last night so we were annoyed with attentiveness. We should have counted how many times the waiter came by our table or the busboy peeked to see if we had any empty dishes. It might have been 20 or more times. It was getting beyond annoying. At one point, we thought we were on some hidden camera show to see how much we could take before we told them to fuck off and let us eat in peace. After we were done eating, they brought us the check without even asking if we wanted dessert!!! So of course we had to order some out of spite (and cause who are we kidding? we love our sweets!). We laid a bet to see how many times someone would come to our table to bug us while we ate dessert. My sil said 3 and I said 5. I won. 5 times!!!!!!!!!

After that we watched The Lucky One which was ok. There really wasn’t anything else we could watch and The Avengers was sold out for the rest of the night. Is it just me or does Zac Effron still look like a baby?

I don’t know what to do right now. I want to change my nails, but I really want to take a nap. Wow, a nap sounds so good…………………