I'm alive...just been focused on getting better

Thanks for checking on me, you ladies rock and I appreciate that you were checking on me.

My trip to Seattle to visit my son was really good. He's growing up fast being out on his own and far from home and it was actually just pleasant and fun to hang out with him and his roomie for a week. I made his favorite foods for dinner (with plenty of leftovers to come back to after I'd gone home.) We went shopping so I could show him how to feed himself for cheap for a month. Visited some cousins and connected him with family and friends I know up there. Drank some red wine with him and his roomie every evening and showed him how to make a cheap red wine taste pretty darned good!

First trip off the plane was a to Ulta so I could get what I needed to keep my nails in shape. (I carried baggage ON and you can't take flammable stuffs. So I picked up a bunch of polish that I left behind except for one. (more on that maybe in another post.) Do I have photos? No, my camera died and so I never thought about taking pictures until just about the last day there. That is when I took this picture:

It's a picture I took at Gas Works Park which is about 10 blocks south and 5 blocks west of where he lives.

Yeah, the weather pretty much sucked the whole time I was there. Took me over a week to get over my seasonal depression coupled with missing him...it was a rough week and a half. My poor husband. LOL

Just before I left, I spent a few days at Physical Therapy and got some exercises and stretches I could do on my trip. I got a little better while I was away too!  Since I've been home, I've been focused on doing my Physical Therapy exercises and making my appointments. It's paying off. Last night, for the first time in over a year, I slept all night without pain and without the aid of Ibuprofen or Naproxen, (Motrin or Aleve if you want brand names.) At PT yesterday, I was weeping tears of joy and pain at the same time...because, though there is still pain, I am releasing the fear around the pain and allowing my body to relax and get through it. There is a huge lesson in that for me and I believe that is why I am healing. Of course, the therapy is a big deal since it's stretching muscles that were so tight they weren't moving anymore and building muscles that had gone to sleep since the frozen muscles were doing all the work. I even rode my bike for 10 mins and it was WONDERFUL!!! I get to ride for 10 mins a day for a week and if all goes well, I can increase in 10 min increments over the weeks ahead. Soon, I'll be back to riding to work...ok, maybe not soon, but at least I have that to look forward to again...and riding on the weekends to downtown Santa Barbara and back. So. Much. Fun. I. Can't. Wait. (but I have to.)

So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm crawling out of my hole...And I do have a couple photos of some past manis to share. First up is Cheeky Monkey Get Wet. What can I say, I love Cheeky Monkey. I love the colors, the names, the idea, the owner and goodness...the formula is to die for. I think this is from 4 days of wear too:

Taken in morning light with my new Droid phone. Not too shabby! And again, this is after 4 days of wear.

I got a swap package from Konadomania (More on that later too) and picked the Sh-E holographic polish. It was interesting...It was my holographic mannequin hand color. Kinda cool!

Hard to tell the whole mannequin hands thing, but in the shade it was pretty close. Then in the sun it was all, Wham! Pow! :) It's pretty! Thanks Ms. Konadomania!

On another note, I sent a request to Clarin's today using this link: Ask Clarins  to bring Clarins 230 back. I got a response saying they'd forward it to research and development. Let's all drop them a note to bring it back and maybe if they get enough requests they will? Let's at least try. What do you say ladies??? Who's with me??? :)

Trailer Trash

Cheeky Monkey Trailer Trash, that is. :)  As soon as I saw the post about Cheeky Monkey on the Vampy Varnish blog, I went to the website, fell for Trail Trash and sent an email via their contact form. I heard from Andrea just about instantly and having no pride, I asked for some freebies which, after a bit of chat, she agreed to send. I've already reviewed Social Climber and so here I have for you the lot I received. (check out my coolio jammies that I thought complimented the bottles so well! 

I've since worn them all and shown you a couple: Social Climber and Man Chaser, so here I bring you my chosen color: Trailer Trash. I love the name and thought the color would be a bit more on the lavender side according to the website so I will admit I was a little disappointed to find it was just a pink polish.

Then I put it on...and yes, it's another pink polish, but there's something not so "Barbie" about it that I really like. This is two coats of Wet Dream, Two self-leveling coats of Trailer Trash followed by 2 coats of I Like it on Top and then one coat of Seche because I need that to be able to sleep at night. :)

I do wish it were more lavender as it shows on the website, but I love the name and the formula is the most amazing formula I've ever encountered in all my years of nail polish. I'm enthralled by the Cheeky Monkey and a fan for life. I'll soon own them all but I think my first purchase will include No Bra, Pour Me One, Raunchy Bitch and Romp for starters.
The formula and pigmentation on these is amazing. By now, you all know I love this brand so I'll leave it at that and let you look at more pictures of the beautiful.

til next time
~The Lizard

Emerald Sparkled Blog flat out copy mani.

Trincess over at Emerald Sparkled is having a fantastic giveaway and I've been putting off entering until I could find a mani I could replicate with the limited Konad disks that I have. That girls got them all, so it took me a while but I found this one: (her version)

and created this one using Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics Man Chaser with a coat of Nfu Oh 49 on top, then I used WnW black and SH Insta dry white for the stamping with layers of Seche Vite in between. Counting base coat and stamp layers, I have 9 coats of polish on my fingertips!!! 9, yikes Trincess! Here it is in all it's glory and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

and just to prove it was a full mani, here's the left hand:

This concludes today's post, now I shall head on over to Emerald Sparkled to enter the giveaway. Come on over with me!

These Companies Agree: Customer Service is Job 1

I've been doing a lot of writing to various companies to ask questions about their products and I am amazed at the level of service I've received from the following: Miss Marion, China Glaze, Color Club and Cheeky Monkey have wowed me with the level of service delivered by their representatives/employees.

I wrote to Miss Marion - the J Pinon Cosmetics company - when I wrote to them about my experience with "Garnet" they not only responded but sent me replacement product with assurance that what I had was not what I thought I had. I have since received the replacement and some fun stuff along with that which I'll be sharing soon. I think the change from old formula to 3free is what has made a difference, but Garnet is still quite a gem and I'll show her to you very soon!

"Carnival" - a bright red jelly

Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics not only responded to my email, but I have had a few more email conversations with the founder to learn more about the product. It's obvious that Andrea cares about her customers as much as she cares about her company and delivering a quality product.

 

Social Climber, Man Chaser, Trailer Trash, Pop My Cherry 

with top coat - I Like it on Top and base coat Wet Dream

This is some high quality product and fast becoming a favorite of mine!

China Glaze not only answered my questions about their products, but went above and beyond to find out information about a sister company for me. Sadly, the answer was not what I was hoping for, but once a product is discontinued, that's all there is to say. Irene was so helpful and I hope to be in contact with her again sometime in the future, it was a pleasure to chat with her.

My Love - China Glaze Atlantis with a stripe of Twenty-Four K

Color Club, what can I say about this company? W O W. I wrote a quick email on their site asking about a product and I didn't get an email at all. At about 6:30 pm this evening I got a phone call from Forsythe Cosmetic Group that led to a wonderful conversation about their products and my recent experience with Color Club. The conversation ended with them being more than willing to correct a problem and make sure I was delighted with the resolution. 

Color Club Wild at Heart with a Matte Funky French tip

This is customer service at it's best. I wish every company in the United States would truly understand this and act upon it like the companies I've mentioned did.  I am impressed and so happy to have found this world of nail care again. From the companies I've dealt with to my fellow bloggers, it's a pretty great place to find myself right now and I'm so grateful to be a part of it.


I have a ton of pictures to share, and I'm on a no-buy til I swatch and swap what I have, keeping only the true keepers. I have a ton of dupes to do comparison swatches and choose the keeper...then I'll give the rest away to make room for new stuff. :)


I don't think I'll be posting much til after April 15 since I'm in the midst of the busiest part of the year at work.  But I've got some stuff to share and will do my best to get them posted for you all very, very soon. Bear with me and thank you so much for being there, reading, commenting and even just perusing my pictures. I don't even have much time to respond to your comments, but I'm reading them and appreciate every single one!

Ladies and er...Ladies! I give you Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics' Social Climber!

Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics describes this color as a dark brown, but my description of  it would be more like this: it's the color of the dried blood found under your finger nails after a long day of climbing the social ladder. :) I hope they don't mind.   I love this color! It's the perfect purple brown, like milk chocolate but a shade darker. It's a creamy jelly (is that even possible?) that is opaque in two coats.

Upon the first application of this, I found it to be a bit too thick for me to apply. I added some thinner and it applied the way I like a polish to apply - it stayed where I put it without running all over the place and pooling. 

I used 1 coat of the Cheeky Monkey base coat, "Wet Dream" followed by three coats of "Social Climber" and one coat of Cheeky Monkey top coat, "I Like it on Top" to finish the manicure. I stayed up for another 4 hours, went to bed and woke up with sheet wrinkles. :(

I talked with Andrea about it and she let me know exactly how awesome this formula is. And so I tried again with fantastic results (which you see above, the first try was so bubbly and thick it was awful!) I started with 2 coats of Wet Dream, followed by two three-stroke coats of "Social Climber." I did, however, finish this mani off with Seche Vite because it was late and I wanted to sleep and know there would be no sheet marks.

What is amazing about Cheeky Monkey is how the formula works so much like Seche Vite. I over worked it the first time and got tons of bubbles. The second time, I used Andrea's tips and the polish did just what she promised it would, it self-leveled! Are you kidding me??? This stuff is amazing! Stays where I put it, levels and evens itself out and looks just as good on day three as it did the day I applied it. I wonder if I didn't really need to thin it at all...

Well, I had a bit of a learning curve, but I am a huge fan of Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics nail polish.

Next up: Trailer Trash!

Disclaimer: This product was sent to me by Cheeky Monkey for my consideration and honest review

CHEEKY MONKEY!!!

OMG! I just learned about this from the Vampy Varnish website and I HAVE to share.

This new cosmetics company: Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics has some of the cutest packaging and names for their nail polish. I just love the whole idea of it. YOU MUST GO CHECK IT OUT NOW!!!
Click here: Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics

I'm personally fond of "Trailer Trash" and "Raunchy Bitch" ...take a look and tell me, which ones are calling your name?

(Picture taken directly from the Cheeky Monkey Cosmetics website.)