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Tarina Tarantino Meteor Night

Posted on 1 October, 201430 September, 2014 by Cynthia

Hey, well it’s Wednesday and suddenly we’re almost half-way done through the week. You’ll never ever hear me complain about that. I think that today is going to be one of those hellish days at work so I’m already mentally preparing myself for that. When I was at work yesterda, I had to speak with someone who was so grateful after our conversation–and after I helped her fix her issues–that the genuine gratitude in her voice made up for any other grumpy people I had spoken to. I guess that’s what makes me want to go to work–knowing that I actually can make a difference in someone’s life. That and the fact that working funds my polish binges and other side stuff like food and rent–but polish comes first, you know? All jokes aside, its nice to have a job where you can feel like you accomplished something to make someone’s life better. My previous job did not give me the same satisfaction which is why I had to leave it–it was slowly killing my soul. I’ve never been a person who just works for the paycheck–if I don’t like my job, I will find one that I do like. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being single and childless–I have the luxury of being crazy and just following whatever I want to do without having to think of anyone else. Let’s move away from serious stuff and let me show you the real polish goods today: Tarina Tarantino Meteor Night.

I like blue nail polish. I know you like blue nail polish. Don’t deny it. I saw your eyes get all big when you saw this gorgeous blue. No, that was not me peeking through your window. This polish is hella pigmented so I could have gotten away with one coat, but I am a creature of habit so I applied two coats. It dried so shiny that I didn’t even need a top coat. If you want this polish, I’m sorry that I have no idea where to buy it or if it’s even available. This line used to be sold at Sephora but it was discontinued so I have no other information. Sorry!

Just because I wanted more awesomeness, I applied one coat of Nails Inc The Wyndham over Meteor Night. I like it. I like it a lot. I could have applied more coats to make this look even cooler, but I just wanted a wash of flakies. Why can’t nail polish companies make awesome flaky polishes? Someone please explain it to me!!!

I am feeling kind of nuts today. It could be that I went to sleep late or I’m just giddy for whatever reason. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this to you: I added a feature to my blog that allows people to leave me voice messages! This could either be super fun and cool or a huge mistake. lol I signed up for a free account which allows me to receive 20 messages but I’m not sure if that includes responses. We shall see. Maybe I’ll only get 1 message and I’ll feel like a loser. Actually, I take that back. Robin left me a message last night and it totally made my night. I didn’t get a chance to respond yet because I was super tired and was falling asleep but I’ll get on it posthaste! I posted on my facebook for Robin to send me an email with her mailing address because i want to send her a little gift for being the first one to use the application. Anywho, I’ll talk to you guys soon and thanks so much for stopping by today.

The Lacquer Ring – Green

Posted on 14 August, 2014 by Cynthia

I totally flaked out on getting this post up on time. Womp womp. Even worse, this was my month to choose the color and theme…triple womp. I really have to learn to schedule things better because I keep falling behind on so much stuff. I’ve been trying to swatch the last Zoya collection for like 2 weeks now and something always comes up that derails my plans. I finally got a chance to swatch the whole collection last night while I was watching So You Think You Can Dance. I was really impressed with the whole Michael Jackson theme—did you happen to watch it? Anyway, this month I chose green as my color. I love green nail polish so much! I know I say that about pretty much every color when it comes to nail polish (except maybe orange and gold), but I just love how green nails look…unless they’re green because of fungal growth, but I digress… It was difficult to pick one green polish, so I ended up using two of them, but I did go with my #1 favorite green: Color Club Holiday Splendor.

Holy crap, this is a gorgeous polish. It has such an amazing holo sparkle that gives it incredible depth. I’m completely in love with it! If you want a sheer jelly finish, you can get away with one coat. I prefer to apply two coats so that it’s fully opaque. You should see this baby out in the sun! It sparkles like a mofo. It is a little bit of a pain to remove but totally worth it. I’d also like to mention that it dries to a minor rough finish so load up on your top coat if you want a super smooth finish.

I received some of these decals/nail vinyls from KBShimmer (press sample), and I finally got around to using them. They’re pretty much idiot-proof which is why I was able to use them without much trouble.

This is the first time that I do chevrons like this and I quite enjoy the loo. The pretty creamy green that you see here is nails inc. Queen Victoria Street. I love this green as well!

So what do you think of these dreamy greens? I am super happy with these two gorgeous colors and how they turned out. Don’t forget to check out the other manis presented to you by the other ladies of The Lacquer Ring!

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Stamping Saturdays #15

Posted on 19 April, 2014 by Cynthia

Welcome to another installment of Stamping Saturdays! I can’t believe that I have managed to do this without missing a single Saturday since we started this up. Is it funny that I find this a huge accomplishment? I’m feeling like a lazy bum today which is par for the course so all I’m going to do it laundry and watch TV all day. For today’s Stamping Saturdays post, I decided to do something kind of obnoxious so I started with a crazy bright yellow: nails inc. Carnaby Street.

This polish is so damn electric. In real life, it leans a tiny, tiny bit orange but it’s still a super bright orange. The formula is a bit streaky so it did need three coats for full opacity. Now that we’ve seen so many awesome yellows come out, it’s disappointing to have such a streaky yellow. I am pretty sure that I have mentioned that I love yellow everything and I can trace it back to my mom always dressing me in yellow when I was a little girl.

For my stamping design, I used a design from MoYou Plate Pro Collection – 02 (press sample).

I can’t tell you enough how awesome these MoYou London plates are! I’ve used them so much lately and the quality is just superb.

This triangle design is kind of busy, but I just love the combination of yellow and black. It makes me think of cabs and of crash test dummies.

I don’t know about you, but these videos used to scare me when I was a kid. hahaha

So what do you think about this design? Do you have any plans for Easter Sunday? I haven’t finalized any plans yet so I’m assuming I won’t be doing much for now. Thanks so much for stopping by today and enjoy your weekend.

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Stamping Saturdays #11

Posted on 22 March, 201422 March, 2014 by Cynthia

So I just want to preface this post by saying that I’m not really happy with today’s Stamping Saturdays offering. I think I did a sloppy job, and I go from thinking it isn’t too bad to actually hating it but I figure that I should post it anyway because not every manicure is going to be perfect. I’m feeling kind of blah today for a variety of reasons so I apologize for the lack of “pep” in this post. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

I started off with two coats of Nails Inc. Baker Street which is probably one of my favorite blues ever. This color is just so amazingly electric that I can never get enough of it.I always love to see the combination of a bright blue and Max Factor Fantasy Fire so I applied two thin coats over Baker Street.

Lastly, I used an image from Bundle Monster Plate BM 310 for my stamping design. I’ve used this image quite a few times because I love it, but I don’t think it quite works with this mani. I don’t know if it’s the color or something else, but I don’t like how this turned out. I think I’ve had a pretty good run of awesome stamping manis, so a dud was bound to happen, right?

While I was finishing up writing this post, I was watching Thelma & Louise and that final scene of their car flying off the cliff was so perfect! I love that movie! Last night I went to watch the movie Divergent and I was actually surprised that I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie, but I think it serves its purpose which is to entertain. I felt that the characters could have been a little more developed and I wanted to see more of Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn before they were killed…womp womp. Anywho, I’m looking forward to watching Noah next week. Are there any movies out right now that you can recommend? Let me know what you think of this week’s mani–I won’t be butt hurt if you tell me it sucks–haha! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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Blues Smackdown

Posted on 27 March, 2013 by Cynthia

With all the gorgeous blues that have come out lately, the questions about possible dupes is inevitable. As a blue polish lover–and hoarder–I knew that I would cringe when I finally sat down to evaluate all the possible bright blue polish dupes. Today I chose two older and two newer blue polishes to compare. For my blues smackdown, I have the following four polishes:

Color Club Bright Night – Essie Butler Please – Kiko Electric Blue – Nails Inc. Baker Street

While all of these colors are fairly similar, I think that Color Club Bright Night and Kiko Electric Blue are dupes while Essie Butler Please and Nails Inc. Baker Street are dupes. All of these polishes have a glossy creme finish except for Color Club Bright Night which dries to a satin finish.

These are 3 other polishes that I thought might be close to these as well:

Nubar Dusk Till Dawn (I suspect it’s pretty close to Nubar Blueberry too!)

Cacee BFF Sky

And lastly, this is Essie Avenue Maintain which is NOT a dupe for any of those blues. People had asked me how close this is to Essie Butler Please, and it’s obviously not close at all.

I hope this helps some of you decide if you REALLY need certain blue polishes, but I have a sneaking suspicions that the true polish addicts won’t care. And just for the heck of it, here is my polish haul for this week. I had commented that I basically blew through my polish budget for the next few months…if I had a polish budget.

I picked up 3 of the 4 new Essie Resort Collection polishes and also got an extra set for a giveaway so be on the lookout for that. Thanks for stopping by today!

Nails Inc. Leather Effect Shoreditch Lane

Posted on 15 March, 2013 by Cynthia

Hey kids, it’s Friday! Unfortunately, it’s not my Friday since I will have to go to work tomorrow. Wah, wah!!!! Today I was just feeling so lethargic and tired despite the fact that I went to bed really early last night. I think I was just so miserable thinking about having to go to work in the morning that I couldn’t even get some proper rest. Today, as I was nearing the end of my workday, I was sitting at my desk softly repeating over and over: “I hate my job. I hate my life. I hate my job. I hate my life.” That is both sad and funny to me. I hope that no one heard me because I am sure that they would think I’m completely insane. Anyway, things could always be worse, right? Now that I’ve had my work complaint for the day, now I’m going to show you a polish from the Nails Inc. Leather Effect line: Shoreditch Lane.

I don’t know about you, but I think this finish is pretty damn interesting. I think it’s pretty similar to the Liquid Sand finish but less gritty and more matte. It definitely has a bumpy texture, but it did not bother me at all. I really appreciated the formula because it was very easy to control and it was very opaque, but it is necessary to apply at least two coats to really let the texture develop as it dries completely. While a lot of special effect polishes come and go as annoying trends, I can actually see myself wearing this a lot. I love the deep color, and maybe next time I will top coat it with some seche and see how it looks glossy. Shoreditch Lane definitely gets two thumbs up from me. I was super close to getting one of their new “Feather Effect” nail polishes but as some of you may know, I have major issues with birds–basically I hate them all and they gross me out. The bottle even had a picture of a bird…uhm….no thanks! Just thinking about it now gives me the willies.

Let me know what you think of this polish…do you like it or do you think it’s just a fad that will probably go the way of crackle? Oh, God…please let crackle/blasted/shatter polishes disappear from the face of the earth. Banish them to Atlantis, if you must. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you later.

Barielle Elle’s Spell

Posted on 21 December, 201231 December, 2012 by Cynthia

Beejus, can you believe that Christmas is in a few days and then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to 2013? I am actually really excited about the new year just because I want to close the chapter on the crapfest that 2012 has been. Don’t get me wrong–things have definitely improved these last few months of 2012, but I am just looking forward to a fresh start.

For my first real holiday mani, I decided to stick with a combination of red and white.

I started out with two coats of Nails Inc. Gatwick. Great Odin’s Raven! this polish is awesome. I usually have a love/hate relationship with matte polishes, but this one just blew me away. The formula is super thin so it doesn’t get goopy at all, and it’s really easy to control.

And here is the belle of the ball: Barielle Elle’s Spell. This gorgeous polish is from Barielle’s 2010 holiday collection and I definitely think it was the stand-out from that collection. It has a slightly red-tinted base that is pretty sheer and it’s chock-full of golden-red flakes. I have not tried to wear this polish on it’s own and I don’t think I will–I prefer an opaque base as opposed to a sheer jelly.

Lastly, I applied a snowflake design from Bundle Monster plate BM 319. Snowflakes are definitely my favorite holiday design right now. Just because I couldn’t help myself, I ended up mattifying the whole manicure.

Which version do you prefer: shiny or matte?

Well, my dears, there you have my holiday mani. This year I have decided not to buy any Christmas gifts. I feel kind of like a Scrooge, but I’d rather save the money right now. My parents aren’t coming for a visit this year so I will probably be spending Christmas with my brother and sil–along with my youngest brother whom is also known as “The Mooch” to my long-time readers. Are you prepared for Christmas? What are your plans?

This weekend I am going to have 2 guests posts for you from two of my lovely blogger friends: Amanda and Siobhan. I can’t wait for you to see their awesome designs. There is one more day left to enter my 1 year blogiversary giveaway so don’t miss out!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great weekend.

Nails Inc. Baker Street

Posted on 4 November, 20123 November, 2012 by Cynthia

How do you feel about blue nail polish? As a nail polish enthusiast, I think that most nail polish colors seem normal, but I’ve noticed that other people think it’s an off color for nails. I think that nail art has become so mainstream, that nothing is really that shocking anymore. Nails Inc. Baker Street is a polish that I had salivated over for a while but somehow hadn’t gotten around to purchasing. If you read my blog, you probably know that Nails Inc. cremes are just about my favorite polishes in the nail world. Before I got my hands on this polish, I received a lovely dupe by Kiko which I reviewed here. Kiko #336 really is a perfect exact dupe, but I could not resist getting both of them. Is it a sickness? You be the judge.

Nails Inc. Baker Street is a such a lovely and saturated cobalt blue. This polish definitely needs two coats because the first coat was a little thin. I actually found that the Kiko applied slightly better. I still love both of them!

I haven’t used my beloved Sticks ‘n Stones in a while so I dusted it off for this manicure.

This was my first purchase from Ninja Polish and I couldn’t have been happier. Since I would never get the Dramarella version of this polish, I’m so happy that this came out. You can purchase it here if you’re interested. Also, in case you are wondering how Sticks ‘n Stones compares to Lynderella Connect The Dots and even Dollish Polish Putting On The Ritzzz, check out this post over at My Lucid Bubble.

So there you have it, my polish peeps. How do you feel about bold colors such as Baker Street?

31 Inspired Days of Nail Art – Day 3 : Yellow

Posted on 16 September, 2012 by Cynthia

I apologize in advance for what I am about to show you. I actually think my nails look hideous which sucks because I was really looking forward to using this yellow polish. I’d like to say that I do like the yellow polish on its own, but the stamp just looks…barf-worthy. My third submission for the 31 Inspired Days of Nail Art is a big fat fail. Here we go….

This is Nails Inc. Carnaby Street:

It’s no secret that I love Nails Inc. because they have the best creme formula on the planet as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, Carnaby Street fell prey to the usual trapping of yellow polish: it was patchy and kind of annoying to work with. It took 3 coats for me to be able to cover up all the bald spots which is unheard of in my Nails Inc. experience. I should have left well enough alone, but noooooooooooooooo. I had to stamp over this…

I used a design from Cheeky plate CH 48. While the design isn’t ugly, per se, the color combo just looks UGLY. Please join me in hating this final look.

I’m late to posting this because I went nuts and removed this immediately: that’s how much I hated it. I guess I can’t always have a nail win.

Don’t forget to check out the looks created by the other ladies participating in the challenge. I’m sure their submissions will be much more interesting–can’t be as ugly as mine…that’s for sure!

Thanks for stopping by and until next time!

Nails Inc. Sprinkles Polishes & How My Brother Would Starve Without Me

Posted on 16 July, 2012 by Cynthia

I’ve seriously been drooling over the Nails Inc. Sprinkles polishes so I was psyched when I saw them at Sephora today. I was running low on my MUFE HD foundation so I wanted to go get another bottle. While I was there, I noticed that there was a new Sephora brand foundation that looked exactly like the MUFE HD…bottle design and all. I asked one of the cast members if she would color match me. I knew I had a great cast member when she guessed my MUFE HD color immediately. So I took off my make up and she redid it with the new foundation and she applied blush and bronzer too. Very nice! So far, I absolutely love the new foundation and it’s $22 compared to $42 for the MUFE. If you love your MUFE HD and are looking for a more cost-effective alternative, definitely check this foundation out! I also wanted to try the Anastasia Brow Whiz. I currently use the Anastasia brow powder and apply it with an angled brush, but I wanted to try a pencil now. Well, they were sold out of the brunette shade. Wah, wah! The Sephora employee showed me a comparable one from their Sephora line and it seemed like a good alternative. (The price was also better: $12 vs. $20). Unfortunately, she must have grabbed the wrong color because when I got home I realized the color is honey blonde. LOL Grrrr. So I’m going to take it back and exchange it for the Midnight Brown. I also headed to Ross and got a couple of things from their cosmetics section.

As soon as I got home, I had to try out one of my sprinkles polish and I am in loooooooooooooooooove! (Why am I always saying this when it comes to polish?)

I completely adore the way this polish looks!!! You can get away with one coat but adding the second coat adds depth to the polish and how the sprinkle/glitter looks. Nails Inc, you’re killing me…

So here is the rundown of what I got today:

Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes in Topping Lane and Pudding Lane

Doesn’t this look exactly like the MUFE HD bottle??? EDIT: I did not notice this right away but this is not exactly the super amazing, great deal I was touting. The MUFE HD foundation is $42 for 1.01 oz and the Sephora Instant Radiance foundation is $22 for .67 oz. DAMN THEM FOR TRICKING ME! lol Well, it’s my fault for not looking at the bottle more closely.

These are the items I picked up at Ross:

I’ve never tried this line of SH polishes so when I saw these for $1.99 each, how could I resist? I actually saw these at Rite-Aid a few minutes later for like $5.99!!! Same exact polishes.

I am always on the hunt for good cuticle stuff and this was just $2.99 at Ross. I tried it already and I really like it! It’s really thick and leaves my skin really soft even after I wash my hands. It also smells great so double win!

This is what I had for dinner:

You know how they say that if you use smaller plates, you will eat less? Well, that doesn’t quite work when you help yourself to multiple servings…

Since my brother is working late today, I told him I’d leave him some food so he can eat when he gets home.

Oh, the joys of having my little brother live with me. He’s 22 but he is a complete dunce when it comes to cooking anything except cup o noodles. Sometimes I leave him a plate with food prepared and all he has to do is pop it in the microwave and eat it. I will wake up the next morning, and it’s still there. When I ask him why he didn’t eat it, he tells me that he didn’t know how long to heat it in the microwave and that I was already asleep so he couldn’t ask me. Oh dear Lord, help me. Why would I ever want a child if I have my brother?

How was your Monday? Anything exciting happen? Mondays are always my least favorite day of the week. Well, hope your weekend was pleasant and I am so enjoying the cooler weather. Thanks for stopping by and talk to you later!