First off, I want to thank everyone for the kind words. I think Sid gave us her answer last night. I got home from work and she was running around and rolling around like a puppy! She slept through the night, no accidents and this morning was running up and down the stairs like she used to do. So I think we are just going to hold off to see how long this streak will last and just put off the inevitable a bit longer. I'll for sure keep you guys updated.

This last weekend we took the kids and two of their friends to Universal and went to HardRock for dinner. I took a few pics of my park outfits, which I will probably share later, but for now I am going to share what I wore to the HardRock Cafe.

We took the pics inside the hotel room and they all came out in Sepia tones. Kind of interesting how that happened. At first I thought I would correct the colors, but in the end the outfit looks a little vintage (even though its not), so why not keep a vintage touch to the photos?

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

I always said if I became a burden to those around me due to health or an accident I wouldn't want to live. I still feel that way, but how do you transfer that to your pet? We have a dog who is turning 13 this year. That's 91 in dog years. She has arthritis so bad that she is constantly shaking. She is deaf and going blind and has no control of her bladder anymore. She is up all night crying. Not barking - crying. We put a gate on the bathroom door and made a little home for her in the bathroom for the night time, and she hates it. She has never been kenneled, so this is pure torture for her. She doesn't understand why she has to stay in the bathroom all night. We put a gate in the door and leave the door open, I just imagine how scary it would be for her if the door was shut with her in it.  I think about getting her a kennel, but for a dog who has never been in one, I can't imagine that this would be better than the bathroom for her, but I still wonder. We just  can't leave her out at night or when we are not home anymore though, because our carpets, couch, pillows or anywhere else she chooses to lay would be ruined, she really just can't hold it anymore.

We brought her to the vet and after several tests, the best that they can tell us is that she has doggie Alzheimer's, but that it could be diabetes insipidis which would be ridiculously expensive to treat (according the vet) or it could be that she has a brain tumor or injury. Running tests for either of these things would be extremely expensive (again according to the vet - we haven't actually gotten the cost yet but we are going to get it today hopefully). The vet recommended putting her on a certain medication that would rule out one of these things based on whether it works or not. It would take several months before we would know if it works or not. If it doesn't we can move on to the more expensive medicine for the other option. Or we could fork over tons of cash and have test after test run until we figure out what is wrong with her and go from there.

I just don't know what to do. Part of me thinks she has lived a good life and is probably miserable and it is time. But the other part of me thinks of those good days where she seems like her former puppy self. I think that she isn't "sick" that we know of and if it is Diabetes is that a reason to put her down? But at the same time, are Juan and I suppose to stay up all night with her and let her continue waking the kids all night with her crying. Her crying is loud and intermixed with the occasional barking and it is impossible to sleep at night. I feel so dizzy and nauseous from the exhaustion in the mornings. What are we supposed to do?

I guess I am just here putting my feelings in writing, hoping that an answer pops out of all this. But it still isn't any more clear. I'm torn. What is best for her? I wish she could just tell me what she wants.

One of my goals for Cult Nails is to create a community of women and men  who help and empower each other. I remember before I started Cult Nails I would day dream about owning my own company and making a difference in the community I live in. I have these grand ideas that I still want to make happen as we grow the cult so to speak.

As I grow Cult Nails and interact with so many of you, I realized one thing though, I am not just in my community. We have become a global community. I try to volunteer my time and money in my community now. I do what I can to make a difference. I believe every little bit counts. But the realization that we could make a global difference is just amazing to me!

So I wanted to see what you guys do for the community you live in.  Let's promote community service. What do you do in your community? Small or big let us know. Do you know someone who is involved with making a difference? Let us know. We would like to regularly feature someone who is making a difference in their community. Who knows, maybe it will increase the awareness to what you do or get more people involved. And of course there just might be some polish in it for those we feature and/or nominate someone for us to feature!

I can't wait to hear how you all make a difference! Email us at info .com (no spaces)

Everywhere you look there are colored jeans. I first noticed red jeans everywhere and my daughter just had to have a pair. A few months ago while doing some online surfing I came across a pair of cobalt colored jeans. I became obsessed and needed a pair. Finally I found a pair of WorkCustom cobalt jeans on ideeli.com and had to get them. I've only worn them a few times because I am still having trouble trying to figure out what to wear with them. Then while in Cali, I picked up a pair of mint colored jeans at H&M. I would love a pair in a burnt dark orange or red color, but after that, I swear that will be enough in the colored denim dept. I think these will come and go after this summer, so I don't want to invest too much. But I do need some stuff to go with them. I have found that Polyvore is the perfect site to help me get ideas on how I want to put outfits together. So off I went trying to come up with some outfit ideas for my new jeans. The key is finding items that will go with just about everything. The hard part is trying to keep the look current and out of the 80's!

Cruisin' Nude

Black Out will return in late March

Ha! I was fixing my hair getting ready, but dang - look at those guns! 3 months of Strong classes at my local gym 3 days a week and already my body is changing!


 Oh my gosh becky! Look at her butt! It's just so round... I know I have a big butt for my body, but I never realized how much it sticks out! And this is with a loose covering the top of it!


What I'm wearing:
Top - From Asos, similar one on Asos.com here
Jeans - From Forever 21
Jacket from Francesca's Collection
Shoes: Carlos Santana Peep Toe Pump that I've had for a few years now, a cute alternative on Zappos.com here
Nails - I was wearing the "Bad Devious Nature" but didn't take a picture.

I posted this on Instagram. Love this pic in black and white, big butt and all. Well not exactly BIG, more like shapely really. If you have an iphone, download the Instagram app and follow me on there. I'm Cult Nails on there. I try to post at least one photo a day.

Oh here's a pic showing my nails! HA!

I tweeted this that night - but for those who don't follow me on Twitter, I found it so strange that the ladies room had to toilets side by side with no partitions. I had to take a picture! LOL!

Our next collection is finally ready and just a few weeks behind schedule! LOL! This collection is near and dear to me and I feel like it is a big risk. I am actually a bit nervous about this one since it is so different than anything we have done before.

If you know me, you know I think even when I sleep. I take many dreams as a jumping point. I feel like a lot of what I am thinking or feeling gets incorporated into my dreams and then I try to determine if it was just a random dream or something more.

Well I had a dream one night that I made a collection of 6 various shades of "nude" that represented those of my family. See I always see nudes that are this pasty color and that does not represent me at all. I wanted one for me, something that would go with my olive yellow skin. Apparently this thought was brought into my dreams and in my dreams I made one for my moms milky tan skin color, one for my skin color, a beautiful pale ivory for my cousin's skin color, a light chocolate color for my other cousin and a super dark brown that reminded me of my "grandfather". (not my biological grandfather but he is the guy my grandmother married and I knew as one of my grandfather's as a kid.) I always thought it was so cool how different we all looked and even as a kid I thought it was so cool that my family had such a mix where most of my friends families all looked the same. I don't know why I thought that made me so lucky, but I always loved that about my family. In my dream I peppered my blog with all these family photos from when I was a kid while telling this story. In reality, that is just a bit too personal for me to be sharing. You all know what Juan and I look like, but I'm not about to ask my family to expose themselves to everyone for Cult Nails. It wouldn't be fair.

When I woke up from that dream, I knew I had to do it, but I needed to pair it down to only 4 colors. I started with opaque cremes, but I felt it was too stark and mannequin hands. I then moved on to make them thinner and more sheer and I loved them, they were perfect. But then hasn't that been done already? So I decided to add gold shimmer to all of them. And then I decided to make the colors a little "off" not an exact skin tone match, but more of an enhancement. Because frankly I want to show off my nails, not hide them to look like the rest of me. I also wanted colors to look good on everyone and not be so "skin tone" specific. So all that from one dream! LOL!

Needless to say when we were trying to name the collection Juan and I kept going back to the all skin tone thing, so we decided to twist it up just a little bit more and we named each color (with the exception of toxic seaweed) after a nude beach.

So here I bring you The Let's Get Nekkid Collection!

This is a very subtle sheer light tan color. This was inspired by my mom. The shimmer is what makes this one stand out. It is very subtle, yet brings some fun with the gold shimmer.

This one is inspired by my skin tone. Coco actually mixed this one! While I was making the others she sat there and made this one for me. It was the summer time and I had a bit of a tan going on, and then we made it a bit more vibrant so it wouldn't be an exact match and added the shimmer.

This was inspired by one of my cousins. Her skin color is so beautiful. I remember as a kid, I wished I was as dark as her. Her skin reminds me a lot of Halle Berry's skin tone. But again I didn't want an exact match, I wanted something reminiscent and a bit different. Then a co-worker told me I should make Power Thief with gold instead of silver shimmer, because the silver shimmer clashes with her gold jewelry. Well her wish is my command - this is the same neutral shade with gold shimmer.

This one was inspired by my Grandpa Al. He passed away when I was young, but he remained a huge impact on my life. He would tell us stories about what it was like growing up black when there was so much racism going on in our world. He always told us your skin color did not matter as long as you were a good person and worked hard. He told us stories of how he worked his way up from a shoe shine boy to a concierge. I didn't understand the impact of racism at such a young age, but I understood that he was a great man, and he had an amazing story and that I needed to accept everyone and work hard. Just thinking of this brings tears to my eyes. A lot of the stories are hazy as I was so young, but I still remember sitting out my grandmother's porch loving to listen to them.  He was so inspirational to one little girl and I don't know if he ever even knew it. I miss seeing the way he would look at my grandmother and the way she would look at him. Love knows no race or color. Phew - need to wipe my eyes and move along here... This is a deep chocolate brown (think Hershey bar) with gold micro glitter.

Limited Edition: Toxic Seaweed. This was a lab screw up that I loved, but of course had to make some changes to. We gave them a color and they missed the base, but then we added more glitter and brightened it up a bit and we had a Cult winner. I will tell you now, this has the same flake issue as Clairvoyant. So when this one sells out, it will not be coming back. This is truly a limited edition polish - completely out of my control. When it is gone, it is gone. So sad to just think about. But originally when I started Cult Nails, I wanted all colors to be limited edition and always have a rotating stock, so I guess I am getting some of that now. LOL! We are working on sourcing a different ingredient, but I can't make any promises so we are just playing it safe and calling it Limited Edition. We will be starting the pre-sale soon on this collection. We would have already started, but we wanted to give you all notice to plan. The pre-sale will be for entire collection purchases only. We will ship out all pre-sales before making the collection available on our site. As with all pre-sales, we give a special price, so the pre-sale collection will sell for $40 (That's $10 off). From there each bottle will be available for purchase on our site for $10 a bottle. We don't have dates yet, but it will be some time this week! So keep an eye out for our emails and our announcement on Facebook!

I'm sitting here in Houston at the airport writing this post since my flight to get home has been delayed a few hours. Hey a girls got to keep herself busy after all. (You won't actually see this until Sunday which by then I will be home already.) I warn you now,  this is a pictureless post since I did not get any pictures at the lab, but for those of you interested in how it went, here you go....
First and foremost I have to say it was an amazing experience. I spent the day learning so much. I wish I could share a lot more with you guys, but I am not allowed. Who knew that polish industry is so top secret! LOL! There were many things that I liked and a few things that I thought could be done differently. But isn't that always the way when you are on the outside looking in. Sometimes it takes that outside perspective to make a positive change and other times the outsider is an idiot that needs to learn a little more before offering up suggestions. So I kept my mouth shut since I'm not sure which side of the camp I fall under in these particular situations. LOL!

Did I have fun playing with the polishes? Yes!!! It was totally different than I expected. I didn't get to go hog wild and just grab what I wanted. Although being in the room with all those options, you know I totally wanted to - so they were probably pretty smart in keeping that off limits. But they did take a lot of different bases and glitters and shimmers and more out for me to play. Some they pre-mixed so I could see what they could do in certain bases, others were just put in clear bases. They didn't let me just play with raw ingredients. It was very controlled.

I brought with me all 20 colors for the remainder of 2012. These didn't include our first two collections we are putting out for 2012 with 5 colors in each collection. It hit me - we are putting out 30 colors in 2012! WOW! The down side is by creating everything so far in advance - I may change my mind and want to do something different and it will be too late. But the positive side is that everything will be ready to go and if I come up with anything else it will just be an in between collection.
We went collection by collection doing a lot of writing to describe what I was looking for and the feeling of each collection, then once we had that down it was time to walk around the room amid hundreds of options and do the work - like ok this base and that base and then that shimmer and then that... you get the picture. From there the lab is going to go and put it all together for me and send me the "final" product. Some things they had out for me to play with, made me pull some of what I had intended and do something totally different. I can't wait to share some of that with you guys. The plus side is I brought Coco's collection with me and that will be a collection sometime in 2012 and I brought a few colors to finalize with me that were asked for by bloggers and Culties and friends and that will be a collection in 2012 as well! Oh and remember when I said we may add more in between collections if I get inspired in the year? Yeah well I got inspired there and there are two in between collections already in the works! One will have 4 colors. An amazing true black opaque that shines like nobodies business and three toppers for it and then a later collection that will feature three other toppers to put over the black or any color for that matter. I originally wanted a black jelly, but after trying the two options and getting this amazing black opaqueness made, I felt I wanted that more.

Those will be the only clues I give you guys to the future collections. Now on to the question everyone is asking - what is going on with Clairvoyant? Well it turns out that the iridescent color changing flakies were not a big seller for the manufacturer who made them. So they discontinued them. Then some little girl came along and made this amazing flakie polish and so everyone else decided they would do the same and bought up all the amazing supply on this little girl! LOL - OK so that is totally narcissistic of me! HA! HA! The reality is that Flakies suddenly exploded on the market and as us aficionados know I am not the one who invented flakies, it just so happened that my flakie came after some amazing flakies and before other amazing flakies, so I am in the middle of the flakie buy out. Just a mere coincidence as far as timing goes.

ANYWAY, I have two upcoming flakies that depleted the rest of my labs supply. They can't get more because it is no longer being made. Well let me rephrase - they can get more from overseas, but all our polishes are currently made in the U.S. with U.S. sourced ingredients. All the ingredients have to have FDA approval to be used in nail polish, and by going overseas if even one ingredient is off, that can kick out the approval. So it is safer to buy from already FDA approved manufacturers. So will Clairvoyant ever come back, I'm not sure. We are going to look at options. There is are other flakie options that are not iridescent, but the effect changes, so that doesn't work. There is something else going under FDA approval now which is a new type of flakie that may work, but it can be a year before it is available. Of course there may be another manufacturer that we just haven't unearthed yet, but again all those things take time. So while we were very excited to have Clairvoyant back in stock, at this time we are deciding to do the research and come up with the best option without compromising quality or safety. I just wish the lab didn't wait until the final hour to let me know. I mean honestly, I found out the day they were supposed to ship to me! HELLO? Communication please?

With that being said we had several other different polishes coming with these same flakes, which we are now having to change. boo... the two flakie polishes for the next two collections have already been made, so we will have those - BUT these will be limited edition. When they are gone, they are gone. We do not intend to bring them back once they sell out. Well of course unless some miracle happens and we can start sourcing an equivalent ingredient, but at this point if they come back at all - it won't be anytime soon. :( It's kind of the same situation with holo's - other countries can make them, but we can't here because the ingredient isn't FDA approved. Which is another thing being worked on, so I hope that changes soon. I have talked to overseas labs, but not sure we want to really go that route as I mentioned before.

So there you have it, my visit in a nutshell. There was so much more we discussed, like the bottles (do we change them?), the caps (what kind of custom options do we have), deadlines, screen printing, storage, polish testing. etc.. Needless to say it was a very busy day and I learned a lot! I shared what I feel is safe to share, and I hope you all enjoyed the update.

Today I head out to the lab and I can't wait to get there. I don't know how much I'll be allowed to share with you guys, but you know I'll try to get as much of a scoop as I can. I sent a package to meet me at the hotel loaded with a bunch of polish color options created by me, bloggers, culties, my kids and my friends. My goal is to work on these creations in the lab and get everything for the year finalized once and for all. This will mean that everything will pretty much be set for the rest of the year and avoid future delays. I don't know how many we will be able to get to in the limited hours I have there, but I'm hoping it's most of them. Worst case I'll have to go back out for a second trip and believe me, I don't mind that! LOL! Playing with polish all day? No not that! Ha! But it will be nice to know I have everything for the year set and then start working on next year. Apparently this is how the big dogs do it! (Said in my most sarcastic voice.) From a business perspective this makes sense. Everything is ready to roll and there are no delays and your year's business plans are all set. From my perspective the downside to this is the advanced planning leaves very little room for on the fly polish creations set to what everyone might be feeling and you all know we change our minds often! I think there will still be some tweaks, edits and additions throughout the year, but for the most part, I think this is a great idea.

My goal for 2012 is to release a collection every month and a half or two months. one collection will be more of the basics that my line is in need of. And the next collection will be more fun. And just back and forth like that throughout the year. Or at least that is how I envision it, but I am flexible, so let's see how it pans out. I want to focus on collections that work together too, so there may be a mix of basics/classics with the fun like I have been doing. I'm just very excited for what 2012 will bring. A little bummed that my Jan collection is delayed to Feb, but it is what it is. Better right than rushed.

Now for those who wondered what I wore to the airport, well, I wrote this post before Thursday and who knows if there will be a last minute change, but I took this outfit on a test run last weekend and this is most likely what I'll be wearing today! We went scouting some locations to take some marketing photos for Cult Nails, and decided to test out some shots while we were there, so you get two Outfit of the Days this week!




What I'm wearing:
Tee: Basic white tee that I picked up at Walmart years ago.
Sweater: Flirty Cardi from Victoria's Secret for $29.95. They don't have this style anymore, but they have similar ones here on sale starting at $19.99!
Leggings: Black leggings from New York and Company that I bought years ago on clearance for I think $5. They have them on sale now for $10.50 here.
Shoes: Frye Regina ballet flat in dark brown from Zappos.
Necklace: From Francesca's Collections, I scored this one on clearance for $7.
Sunglasses: My Kate Spades


Of course with a little coaxing, I was able to convince Juan that he needed to do some outfit of the day photos too. He came home and edited his photo, so I think it might be easier to get him to do more of these. But seriously, I dress down and this is what he wears? He does this to me every time! If I dress up, he's wearing ripped jeans and a stained shirt, when I dress down and comfy, he throws on a nice sweater, jeans and shoes! LOL!

I was hoping to show off the nails a bit more here.

love the lighting of this picture and how my hair looks!

Juan loves this photo. I'm not really a fan of it. My eye color really stands out here. My eyes range from brown to Orange amber mixed into the brown. It's a pretty unique brown if you ask me. When I cry they turn almost green. Now that color I love - but not worth the puffy eyes. LOL!

My manicure that day was the "Bad Devious Nature". I think I want to name this one "A Little Bit Mischievous" If I can convince Juan to help me relabel them all...

I have been getting a lot of questions on how I remove my polish without staining my nails. It's actually quite easy and I am sure there are several techniques that work, but this is mine. I used to go crazy back and forth with the cotton ball, now I just barely wiggle the cotton ball on my nail and go almost straight out. But let's take a look and maybe it'll make more sense.

On Thursday I am flying out to California for a very brief trip. I fly out on Thursday and return on Saturday. The last time I went to Cali, I remember feeling extremely claustrophobic on the way home. I flew by myself on a red eye thinking if I flew overnight I would totally fall asleep. Well I am not one for sleeping in public, so I should have known better. I sat by the window and the two people next to me were sleeping. I felt trapped in an extremely small space surrounded by morning breathe. I can still feel the small panicy feeling I felt during that flight as I write this. Just thinking of these two flights, I am getting a little anxious. Ironically I flew to Vegas for Cosmoprof last July with zero problems and the flights are just about equally as long. So go figure!

Anyway, I usually wear jeans and my Ozbootz when I fly. But I really want to amp up my look a bit more and not look so slouchy. Since this is such a short trip, I am trying to pack as light as I can so I can just carry on. My goal is one outfit to wear there, one for the way back and two outfits for while I am there. (One to meet with the lab and one to go out with an old friend.)

I was thinking I could roll leggings and a t-shirt pretty small, so I was looking for a legging style outfit. I still might wear my Ozbootz just because my feet are always cold, but I also needed more flat shoe options for running errands. I wear heels 90% of the time, and unless I wear my converse, there is no place for sneakers when out running around town. (Well unless you have a totally cute pair of street sneakers, which I don't have!) I just prefer to wear shoes. I have heels and sandals, but flats just never look good on me, I recently found the Frye Regina on Zappos and fell in love. I have flat wide feet and I hoped these would make my feet look just a little slimmer and not be painful.

A friend recently asked me what to wear for a date night with her hubby. It's one of those things where you want to dress up a little more than you would on a day to day basis, but sometimes a datte night with your man is just going out for some coffee or a casual dinner. So how do you make it a bit more special while still keeping it casual? One of my favorite outfit styles to wear is all black. I typically accent an all black outfit with gold accessories. I love it because it could literally be a black t-shirt and black jeans and with the right accessories, you will look dressed up.