It's Your Swirled, I'm Just Livin' in It

Hey there everyone! :) Today's bread class was fun! We learned to make english muffins and also made pizza. :-D Did you know that English muffins aren't baked? They're cooked on a griddle- never knew that!! Anyway, it lovely outside here in Vegas, if a little on the warm side (in my opinion, lol), at a sunny 87°F. :-D Today I decided to do a marble- it's been too long since I've done one! The colors I chose today evokes a retro vibe to me, which I love.



I used L.A. Girl Army Green, Orly Gumdrop (LOVING the SWEET collection), MAC Showy, and American Apparel Cotton. Topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Now go outside, and enjoy the weather, wherever you are!!

Lots of bridal nails!

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been doing sets and sets of bridal nails and loving them. The nail session never gets bored with brides to be. Booking of banquets, ROM, gowns, table seating arrangement, guest list......etc. I think I'll be a pro when it comes to my own wedding. Haha!

For now, I've picked 2 sets of them which I really love. French nails with a twist. Something different from the usual french, but at the same time, still retaining the original look, pink and white.


Modified this design from Nail Up! Hand painted simple pink flowers and it turns out surprising well on the french nails. Has a really sweet feel! Pink and white french details are all done with colored gel.


Oh and I forgot to mention that this is gel overlay on natural nails. She has long nail bed and it's perfect for either overlay or extension. :)


A set of soft gel sculptured extension. And this lady has got super nice nails as well! Nails are only extended a teeny wee bit cos her nail bed is crazy long! Perfect for french nails.


The french twist and 4 petal soft pink flowers.


I love this cos it's a mix of the classic french and twisted french.

Lots of bridal nails!

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been doing sets and sets of bridal nails and loving them. The nail session never gets bored with brides to be. Booking of banquets, ROM, gowns, table seating arrangement, guest list......etc. I think I'll be a pro when it comes to my own wedding. Haha!

For now, I've picked 2 sets of them which I really love. French nails with a twist. Something different from the usual french, but at the same time, still retaining the original look, pink and white.


Modified this design from Nail Up! Hand painted simple pink flowers and it turns out surprising well on the french nails. Has a really sweet feel! Pink and white french details are all done with colored gel.


Oh and I forgot to mention that this is gel overlay on natural nails. She has long nail bed and it's perfect for either overlay or extension. :)


A set of soft gel sculptured extension. And this lady has got super nice nails as well! Nails are only extended a teeny wee bit cos her nail bed is crazy long! Perfect for french nails.


The french twist and 4 petal soft pink flowers.


I love this cos it's a mix of the classic french and twisted french.

Funcky Nails with Zoya Flash

This Leopard manicure is very bright and juicy, i made it using polishes from flash collection by Zoya. I usually don't enjoy wearing orange nail polish, however this shade seems to be really sweet and goes well with my skin tone, unlike most oranges.
And another great news is that i am all done with my final project and defense, and now i am all done with my Master degree. This is a really big step for me, and i am glad that all this hard work finally came to the conclusion.
So this is what looks the nails of someone who have just got a master degree in computer information systems :D

Worn...out.

Hola!! Today's nails are fairly simple, I used tape to tape off stripes, then sponged different colors from each side of the nail over the base color. I think that the effect looks like the screen printing on an old worn t-shirt. It was originally matte, and I took pics of it, then painted topcoat over it to see what it'd look like shiny, then looked at the photos and saw they were blurry, so y'all get the shiny version!! :-P



i used OPI for Sephora What's a Tire Jack? Matte as a base, with China Glaze DV8 and China Glaze 2NITE sponged over it. Topped off with one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

And...some pix from the bachelorette party last night! :)

My hands (painted with the Chippen-Nails design) on a bona fide Chippendale's face (they wouldn't let a pic happen with the abs. *lame*



The group with the awesome bartender at the Rio- Elton!



The group after dinner at Hamada (Jessica, the bachelorette looks FULL of sass in this one!!)



And finally, a pic of me with my future hubs, *drool* (he doesn't know yet, but he will) :-D



I think I need to find friends paler than me (like Albinos probably), because my friends make me look like Casper. :-P

Cruelty Free

Hi everyone! Today I wanted to discuss a more serious subject: animal cruelty. Being a lover of animals I have been a vegetarian for over 6 or 7 years now, and I'm not planning on changing that any time soon. In all honesty, I'm nowhere vegan, but I am very conscious of the suffering animals go through, to serve us people.

Hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated product tests for cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products, etc.
And if there's one thing I cannot stand, it's innocent little creatures suffering for the sake of testing extremely silly products. And yes, in that case, I consider nail polish to be pretty damn silly too. 94% of animal testing is done to determine the safety of cosmetics and household products leaving only 6% for medical research!

The tests these companies perform are incredibly horrifying. There is a test, the painful Draize eye irritancy test, that involves placing substances into the eyes of restrained rabbits, then recording the eye’s progressive deterioration. Some also use the lethal dose test, forcing substances such as oven cleaner or nail polish down animals’ throats, pumping it into their stomachs through a tube, or injecting it into their bodies, until a percentage of the animals die.

But there is good news, thankfully! In 2013 all animal tested cosmetic and household products will be banned in Europe. And, after doing some research I found out that a lot of our beloved brands are in the green zone.

Let's have a look: In the first column you'll find brands that do test on animals. In the other columns you'll find the companies that don't.

Brands that do test	Awaiting confirmation @	Cruelty free brands *
A (Giorgo) Armani (L'Oreal) C Cover Girl (Procter and Gamble) Christian Dior E Ellen Betrix Essie (bc: owned by L'Oreal) H Helena Rubinstein (L'Oreal) K Kiehls (L'Oreal) L L'Oreal Lancôme (L'Oreal) M Max Factor (Procter & Gamble) Maybelline (L'Oreal) Miss Sporty (Coty) MNY (L'Oreal) N Neutrogena (Johnson & Johnson) O OPI (Coty) R Rimmel (Coty) S Sally Hansen (Coty) Shiseido Cosmetics Shu Uemura (L'Oreal) Smashbox Cosmetics (L'Oreal) T The Body Shop (L'Oreal)	A American Apparel C Chanel N Nfu Oh NYX Cosmetics S Sinful Colors	B Barry M Bloom Cosmetics Bourjois Burt's Bees C Catrice Cheeky Cosmetics (vegan) China Glaze Claire's (vegan) Clarins Clinique Color Club (vegan) E E.L.F Essence ESN Estee Lauder Etos Evil Shades G Gosh (vegan) H H&M Cosmetics Hard Candy Hema/Miss Helen Herôme Cosmetics I IsaDora J Joe Fresh Cosmetics K Koh Cosmetics L L.A. Colors LUSH Cosmetics M M.A.C. Cosmetics Make Up Store ManGlaze	Milani (vegan) Models Own N Nars Nubar (vegan) O OCC (vegan) Orly P Priti Polish (vegan) R Revlon RGB S Seche Sephora by OPI SpaRitual (vegan) T Trind Cosmetics U Urban Decay (vegan) W Wet ‘n Wild Y Yves Rocher Z Zoya (vegan)
	* = the end product AND ingredients are cruelty free
	@ = these brands claim to be cruelty free, emailed them to ask about the ingredients - awaiting response

Please note that companies do change policies, so if you spot a brand that shouldn't be on either list, please let me know! Also: I've seen this table being used on other sites, please remember I'm still waiting for a lot brands to confirm and I can only be hold responsible for information under the domain of www.lacquerized.com

This needs nuancing though: when a company is claiming that their products are cruelty free, they're talking about the finished end product! Their statement isn't saying anything about the ingredients that have been used, so keep that in mind. I've placed an * asterisk next to the companies that make 100% cruelty free products. When there isn't one, it doesn't imply they're not 100% cruelty free, I just don't know to what degree. If you happen to have more information, please do share!

pollcode.com free polls

How do you feel about cosmetics being tested on animals?

I don't care, I'll buy whatever I want. I don't know! I think it's ridiculous, it should stop! I'd feel guilty, but I won't stop buying these brands.

- Image is property of cosmeticanimaltestingpictures.com
- Find more cruelty free brands

Chippen-Nails

Today's nails are dedicated to my friend Jessica, more affectionately known as J-Nas, or J-Nasty. :-P She's getting MARRIED!!! Yay!! Tonight is the bachelorette party, so in honor of the Chips we're going to see tonight, I did Chippendale nails- aka Chippen-Nails! :-D Personally I'm more of a Thunder fan, but a nearly-naked man is a nearly-naked man. :-P (jk, dad) Anyway. They're not perfect, and even though strippers these days don't have chest hair, I thought it'd be funny to sponge some on anyway. :-D



I used Urban Outfitters Matte Nude 3 for the thumb and pinky, Essie Mink Muffs for the index finger, Zoya Flowie for the middle finger, and Zoya Dea for the ring finger. For shading/lines I used the aforementioned colors, as well as Zoya Angelina and American Apparel Cotton. For the collar and bowtie, I used Sally Hansen All the White Stuff and American Apparel Hassid, and for the chest hair, I sponged on Zoya Angelina. :-P Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat to give them that 'just oiled up' sheen. :-P

Now, who's got some dollar bills?!

Forms Over Function

Happy Tax Day! I hope that everyone got their taxes done... I was a procrastinator and only did mine just last night. :-D I hate doing my taxes, all the legalese and fine print, etc, are like Greek to me. Oh well, in any event today's nails are inspired by income tax forms (and the IRS). :-D



I used American Apparel Cotton as a base, with American Apparel Hassid for the black on all nails, China Glaze 2030 from Khrome Collection for the gold outline on the dollar sign, with American Apparel Hunter and Green Scene for the dollar sign. Topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite top coat.

What are you going to do with YOUR return (if you get one)?

On an updated note, root canals are evil, I'm sick of soft, bite-sized food (it was a lower incisor that was worked on, so no biting!!), and I'm hoping the new prescription works, because the Lortab sure didn't do anything to help. :(

NEW GEL POLISH COLORS!!!!

I am having too much fun with the nail art this week. 1 more week until the Vegas nail show. I can hardly wait to go get all sorts of new nail art ideas! Whoot Whoot!




These are all temporary tattoo nail art.




This aqua glitter is from sparklesnailproducts.com

This a french manicure that I did with opi gel polish in black onyx. FYI to all of my gel polish clients I just got 8 new colors of gel polish! The new opi gel colors include: Kyoto Pearl, My Private Jet, Here today... Aragon tomorrow, Miami Beet, Barefoot in Barcelona, Cosmo-not tonight Honey!, Pink Flamenco, and Pink Before You Leap. You can try the colors on at opi.com

Retro-Active

Not going to lie, today's nails are easy and simple, and pink... definitely not my usual. lol After my root canal yesterday (which completely sucked, btw, see below for details), I decided that I deserved a present. Well, I was in CVS, and had a coupon for $4 off of $20. I also had $7.50 in CVS Extra Bucks. The ORLY Sweet collection was on sale for $6.99 each, so I got Cotton Candy, Pixy Stick, and Gumdrop....for a total of $11. :) I thought that they were fitting of a post-dentist reward for the sheer fact that their inspiration was what sends people to the dentist in the first place! :-D Even though I'm not a pink person usually, I really really liked the pink I used in today's design...who knows. I wasn't feeling that great last night after the dentist, so I was after a simple design, so I busted out some fauxnad plates from a NailArt Diva kit that I got at ROSS, of all places. I loved the retro look of the sparkles on one of the plates, so I HAD to use 'em!



I used Orly Cotton Candy as a base, with Essie Foot Loose applied with the un-numbered fauxnad plate. Topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat for that candy-coated shine!

Root canal details:

Got one round of 'Novocain' , or whatever they use these days for numbing, still felt stuff, so he administered another round of it. Felt ok, then he started working...about 5 seconds in, I felt EVERYTHING, so he mentioned something about 'crossover' since everything he was doing on the right, I felt on the left, so I got ANOTHER round of shots in the FRONT of my mouth, and he got back to work. the drilling was fine, but once he started the actual root canal part, I felt EVERYTHING, and no anesthetic was helping (he tried flushing the canal with anesthetic, etc) so I had to suffer through the rest. Once he got to the bottom of the tooth, he discovered that it was infected, so they couldn't finish it, and I'm on antibiotics for the next week until I get it finished. He prescribed pain killers for me (Lortab/Hydrocodone), but they have no effect on me, which I discovered was probably because they are a composite of codeine and thebaine, and I've noticed that codeine-basesd painkillers don't have an effect on me (surgery, codeine cough meds, etc), they never take away pain, knock me out (as every doc says they will), or anything else. Oh well, I'll live, it just sucks because it feels like I was punched in the teeth (the root canal was on a lower incisor). :-P Enough bitchin' and moanin'. I'll live. ;)

Thank you again everyone for the well-wishes!