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SpaRitual Starry Night

Posted on 12 January, 201511 January, 2015 by Cynthia

I have some sad news today: the great drugstore foundation search has been a bust. I bought the Revlon Colorstay foundation a couple of weeks ago and I had high hopes after all the great feedback I was getting, but I think I’m having some weird allergic reaction to it so I guess I’m just going to stop using it. I picked out the color warm golden and it looked kind of pink on me…ugh…so hard to get the right foundation! Now I’m just going to suck it up and go back to my MUFE HD which I know will work for me. I really wanted to find a more budget friendly alternative but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. DAMN YOU MUFE FOR BEING SO AWESOME! On this dreary Monday morning, I have yet another beauty from the Wander Collection: SpaRitual Starry Night.

Isn’t this polish just absolutely gorgeous? The formula is perfect–very smooth and opaque. You can almost get away with one coat if you’re careful. I think that the satin finish makes this polish look even more amazing. Let me just say that the SpaRitual Wander Collection is maybe my favorite Fall Collection of 2014.

So how is your Monday going? I hope you had a great weekend and are ready for the new week. Let me know what you think of this polish below in the comments. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you later!

SpaRitual Nomad

Posted on 6 January, 20154 January, 2015 by Cynthia

Have you been to Ulta lately? A week or so ago I mentioned finding a bunch of awesome polishes on clearance. I think my Ulta jumped the gun and had 50% off clearance items before the rest of the stores did which is how I managed to get crazy deals on some polishes. I managed to pick up a few polishes from the SpaRitual Wander collection for like $2.99 which is amazing! I know some ladies were finding them for around $5.99 which is still a good deal. The polish I have for you today is SpaRitual Nomad which is probably the star of this collection. Let me show you what this beauty looks like.

SpaRitual Nomad is one of those ugly/pretty colors, and I definitely love it. I think that what makes this polish spectacular is the satin finish that just makes the polish glow. The formula seemed a little sheer at first, but it was perfect after the second coat. I also loved that the polish didn’t dry too quickly so you don’t have to worry about overworking it.

I feel like SpaRitual is definitely on my radar because of this amazing collection. I’ve purchased a few of their polishes previously but was never blown away like this by them. In fact, I have a whole story about a SpaRitual holiday set that I still get a kick out of when I think about it. (You can read about it here.) So what do you think about this polish? Is it something you would wear? I’m sure these polishes are getting scooped up soon but it’s worth a look in the clearance section at Ulta if you’re interested in getting it. Thanks for visiting today, and I will talk to you soon.

SpaRitual Oasis & Happy New Year!

Posted on 1 January, 2015 by Cynthia

Today is the first day of the rest of your life…NOT! I know we all tend to make a big deal about the new year, but it really is just another day. I don’t necessarily make official resolutions, but I do tend to think about things that I would like to change or improve. When I actually to promise myself to stick to resolutions, inevitably I break them right away and then I end up feeling super guilty. The biggest thing for me this year is to just be happier. I finally have a job that I like so that makes a huge difference in the quality of my life overall because we spend so much time at work. I know that the #1 resolution is to lose weight, which I desperately need to do, but I’m not going to say that this year. I just need to develop better eating and exercise habits and the rest will fall into place. As far as my blog goes, I want to get back on track with my posting. I haven’t been very consistent these last few months and I have felt that my heart just hasn’t been in it lately. I am feeling recharged and hope to do more nail art to get my creative juices flowing. Being more active on IG has been a lot of fun because I have been able to interact with a lot more people. I also feel that my blog needs a major facelift, but I don’t even know where to start so that will be a project that I will tackle a little later in the year. I wasn’t sure what to wear as my first polish of 2015, so I just grabbed one of the bottles that I recently acquired: SpaRitual Oasis. Let me show you how pretty this polish is.

I recently found most of the SpaRitual Wander Collection at my Ulta for $3 each. What a deal, right? The polishes in this collection are supposed to dry to a satin finish, but this one did not dry down to that finish and looked uneven I ended up top coating it to get an even glossy finish, and I was not disappointed.

And just because it’s been so freaking cold here in SoCal, I decided to use KBShimmer Flake Dance (press sample) to make this whole mani kind of icy and sparkling. I love this glitter and I love how easy it is to use to take your manicure to another level.

So how has the first day of the new year been treating you? What are you hoping to work on for the coming year, if anything? Well, I hope that you had a safe and fun NYE. Thank you very much for continuing to visit my little corner of the internet and I hope to get to meet more of you this year. Have a great rest of your day!

SpaRitual Arroyo

Posted on 24 September, 201423 September, 2014 by Cynthia

Back to work today after a 4 day weekend. It’s painful. Oh so painful. During 2 of my days off, I took care of Peanut which was such a treat. He is 10 months old now and has such a huge personality. Now that he is mobile, he is quite a handful but I enjoyed every minute. I especially enjoyed our 3 hour nap yesterday afternoon. I think that we should have nap time at work. What do you think? Yeah, I don’t think my manager is going to be on board with that. On Sunday I went to my friend’s house and she brought out SpaRitual Arroyo. She complained that when she bought it, she didn’t know that it would be matte. She then offered it to me since she said she probably wouldn’t be using it. When have I ever said no to polish? I was so excited and couldn’t wait to try it out. Let me show you this gorgeous polish.

SpaRitual Arroyo is a beautiful mauve-y pink with a beautiful golden shimmer. The formula on this polish is fantastic…and out of this world for a matte. It does dry very quickly, but it’s so easy to apply. I used two coats for full opacity.

And here is what this beauty looks like with a shiny top coat. I have to admit that I prefer the matte finish.

This polish comes from SpaRitual’s Fall 2014 Colletion, Wander, which seems a little out of place in a Fall collection. But hey, I’m not complaining because it’s freaking gorgeous. What are you up to on this fine Wednesday? I’m just trying to figure out what to do for tomorrow’s The Lacquer Ring post. I had a long weekend to get it done, but of course I procrastinated because it’s one of my talents. Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

The Infamous SpaRitual Holiday Set

Posted on 16 June, 2012 by Cynthia

If any bottles of nail polish will have a more interesting story than these two, I will take a shot of acetone. Well, no, not really…cause, well…it probably tastes like evil. After getting two empty sets, I thought I might never get these darn polishes and I wasn’t really expecting for beauty.com to refund my money and send me the set for free. I know some people might think it’s silly to get upset over nail polish, but when you pay for something, you just expect to get it, right? So let me say that these are my first creme SpaRitual polishes; I bought one at Sephora that is super shimmery/metallic looking. My litmus test for any nail polish brand is how well they do cremes because in my opinion, there is nothing better than creamy, glossy and vibrant nails.

Hot Blooded really does remind me of blood. I’ve been called hot blooded on more than one occasion but all I could think of when I saw the name of this polish is the Foreigner song.

I thought I was going to like this polish more but it’s a little too sheer. It’s more of a jelly in that sense and it also has a very slight shimmer which you can’t really see.

This dark and vampy color is called I Feel The Earth Move. It’s a very pigmented red/brown with some burgundy to boot. I don’t think I have any dark reds with this much brown in my collection so I like it. It’s a very fall appropriate color for sure.

Overall I’m happy with these polishes. I really like the SpaRitual formula because it’s very workable and a breeze to apply. Dry time is also excellent even if you don’t apply a fast dry top coat. The only thing I didn’t like is that both of these darkly pigmented colors stain like a mofo so make sure you wear a good base coat to help protect your nails. This set was worth the wait.

Are you a SpaRitual fan?

I Love Thee UPS Man

Posted on 15 June, 2012 by Cynthia

I should ask my new UPS man’s name because he’s super nice, and I am always happy to see him because it means he has something for me. I was expecting my last nail polish order and the third beauty.com attempt to send me the SpaRitual set I purchased a month ago. You may recall that I got a shipment from them twice and the set was empty both times. Will the third time be the charm?

OMG THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Just Kidding. 🙂

Thank you beauty.com for finally making sure I didn’t get an empty box again. They ended up refunding my money AND sending me the set for free which is pretty nice. When I initially purchased it, it was on sale AND it was during the F&F sale so it was about $12. I now looked it up and the set is selling for $30. Really?? SpaRitual retails for $10 a bottle (and can sometimes be found cheaper) so they’re telling me the box is worth $10? Lame.

So here is my new nail polish stash. I got everything on sale so I don’t feel THAT bad. Either way, I think I’m set for a while. I am going to go through all of my untrieds before I purchase more.

Sephora By OPI: Eve-y On The Eyes, Tempted By Teal, Stop Stocking Me! and My Personal Serpent

nails inc.: Maddox Street, Heathrow (Matte), Hampstead Gardens, Tate, Old Park Lane, Gatwick (Matte), Westminster and FNO

SpaRitual: I Feel The Earth Move and Hot Blooded

So this is all the nail polish news I have today. I also have swatches of the latest Essie collection so I’ll try to post that later today. Last night I went to see Snow White and The Huntsman with my friend L. We were both feeling pretty rotten so we thought that maybe getting our minds off stuff would help. It did in a way, but then we got back to my place and we started talking about everything. It’s hard to see someone you care about go through so much crap. I know she knows exactly how I feel right now, and that breaks my heart.

This morning I went to see Prometheus because I had a gift card that I needed to use before it expired. I really loved it. Michael Fassbender and Idris Elba in one movie? So hot. Want to touch the hiney.

I’m really happy to see Noomi Rapace more in American movies. If you’re not familiar with her, she portrayed Lisbeth Salander in the original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy in Sweden. She is awesome, and you should definitely check out that trilogy.

Anyway, I’ll post the Essie swatches later and will start working on my untrieds. I updated my spreadsheet, and I now have 498 bottles of nail polish. I know. Don’t say it.

Empty Boxes & The Wheaten Greetin’

Posted on 1 June, 2012 by Cynthia

Today I received my second SpaRitual delivery from Beauty.com. You may recall that I ordered the SpaRitual Holiday Duo about two weeks ago during their Friends & Family Sale. I am a sucker for a sale, so I couldn’t resist getting this set at such a great price. Well, that was a major letdown when my package arrived and the actual box set was empty. I called them up and they re-ordered the set and sent it out to me. I’ve been waiting for these polishes for almost 2 weeks! I really want to try them out since I only have one other glittery SpaRitual polish, and the ones I ordered are cremes–my favorite finish. So this is take two:

Yay pretty box again! 🙂

Uhm, empty box…again?!?!?!?!?!?

You have got to be kidding me, right? Is someone playing a joke on me? I called Beauty.com again and the CSR told me that they are going to “investigate” the issue with the warehouse and that I will get a call back the next day. They offered to refund my money, but I’d rather wait and see what happens. I really want my nail polish, dammit!

And on the Alfie front, he is really coming into his own. If you don’t know much about wheatens, I suggest you watch this video:

I’m nearing a week that he has been here and he is starting to let his wheaten personality come out. Today he realized that he is a prodigious jumper which was just his stepping stone to the wheaten greetin’. He jumped up on a couple of people today to say hello. I know this is something that people try to train them out of doing, but I love that about them. I’m sure a lot of people would hate it if some random wheaten jumped up on them so I don’t know how I’m going to handle it yet. He jumped on some kids that we ran across on one of his potty breaks and then completely lost it once I got him back inside. He was running around like a bat out of hell. At one point he was running across the room towards his crate but he missed it and crashed into me since I was sitting near the crate and putting some of his toys away. I now have a huge bruise on my leg thanks to Alfs. He has also completely mastered going up and down the stairs, and now I just have to train him not to go so fast. Here are some Alfie pictures. I took these after he wore himself out horsing around like a lunatic.

The best part of my whole day was when Alfie licked my cheek and wagged his tail. He hadn’t done that to me yet so I am confident that he is making a lot of progress. I hope he continues to grow into the wheaten playfulness. I love my stinky little pup.

My Last Orders Came In & Puppy News

Posted on 24 May, 2012 by Cynthia

I was anxiously waiting for my last couple of orders to come in from Cult Nails and from the Beauty.com friends and family sale. Finally, I got everything and I couldn’t wait to try my new polishes. Look how pretty everything is:

I purchased these three during the last Cult Nails sale. Woo hoo for sales. The colors are: Iconic, Hypnotize Me and Let Me Fly.

This is my first RGB polish so I am excited to see what the formula and wear are like. This shade is Haze.

This SpaRitual Holiday set is really pretty. Just look at the pretty gold box. I am a sucker for packaging so I really loved this set.

Until I opened up the box….

Where are the polishes?????? Hahaha…this was such a wah wah moment that I wish you could have seen my face. Since I was in a crazy good mood for reasons I will go into shortly, I wasn’t super annoyed. I called up Beauty.com and explained to them that I received an empty box. The CSR sounded a little incredulous but he didn’t give me any grief about it or anything. He just re-ordered the set for me. Hopefully the polishes will be in the box this time.

So for my puppy news: I was going to put down a deposit for my pup pup and the breeder informed me that he was no longer available. Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! My heart sank. Then she told me that she did have an older puppy that had been on hold for a buyer who later changed his mind. So this is the pup that I’m going to go meet this weekend!!!! He’s 4.5 months old and absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to meet him.

And just for reference, this is a picture of the puppy’s dad so I can get an idea of what my pup will look like when he’s older.

I am sure that I won’t be able to sleep for the next couple of days until I get to go see my little Alfie. It’s finally happening. I’m getting my first dog at the ripe old age of 32. Wish me luck. 🙂

SpaRitual Meditate On This

Posted on 29 April, 2012 by Cynthia

I made it through wearing my last manicure for a few days. I was really itching to take it off and try one of my new babies so I picked the SpaRitual shade I recently picked up at Sephora. Now, before I talk about the new nail polish, let me show you the aftermath of OPI Fly.

This was the staining left behind. What.A.Nightmare. This was AFTER I used pure acetone too! I had to break out the baking soda, whitening toothpaste and toothbrush to get rid of all the staining. As much as I love Fly, I am in no hurry to deal with this any time soon.

Back to the new nail polish! I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with this nail polish because it looked so amazing in the bottle but lost most of that purple tone on my nails. It’s so hard to see the duochrome effect on my nails, and the duochrome was the main reason why I wanted to get it in the first place. Look at a bottle shot:

This is a pretty sheer polish so I think maybe next time I will wear a dark base. I applied 3 thick coats and still had some VNL.

As you can tell from my pictures, you can’t see any of the purple in direct sunlight. It’s only visible in the following pictures that I took in the shade.

Is this a pretty polish? Absolutely. Was I expecting more? YES! I will be trying other SpaRitual polishes for sure but will make sure to try cremes next. That is my test of an awesome polish brand: if they make an awesome creme, they go on my favorites list.

What do you think of this polish? Have you tried SpaRitual?

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! 🙂