It's my birthday! I already started celebrating over the weekend. 😆 My sister sent me a box of macarons and chocolates from Ladurée. So freakin' good. The packaging is beautiful. I'm going to keep the boxes.
Saturday night my husband took me out to dinner at a new restaurant we haven't tried yet. The name of the restaurant is The Optimist. We're huge Marvel fans and when we saw members of the cast paid a visit, we made a point to come here. They're known for their seafood dishes.
The bread is AMAZING.
We love oysters and this is something we really miss coming from the northeast. We just don't get to have oysters often, so this is a treat.
Stater - Nantucket Bay Scallops
Starter - She crab soup with shrimp toast
Maine lobster roll with steak fries.
Chocolate cake with butternut brown ice cream 😋
The next night I wanted ramen from Jinya, which is my favorite ramen spot. I always get the spicy vegan ramen with an egg. The protein is tofu. Sometimes I'll even ask for bamboo shoots. It's so good.
Spicy vegan ramen with an egg. No bamboo shoots.
February special - Ebi-Katsu bun (shrimp cutlet) 👌
Smokescreen magnetic polish
Also on the birthday menu was a mani-pedi. I discovered Mooncat a few months ago and I'm obsessed. I know most of you already know of my handbag weakness but another guilty pleasure of mine is nail polish. I used to buy Chanel polishes back in the day when they were $26 a pop. Now they're $30 and I don't think it's worth it. It was already ridiculous at $26. I remember when they used to be $18! I also like Essie and Deborah Lippman polishes too, but Mooncat polishes are now my favorite.
This is Mooncat's Smokescreen magnetic polish.
My collection
Let's talk about my collection. I allow myself to buy as many polishes as I want, but the rule I set for myself is that they all have to fit inside the Chanel box. I think there's about 50 in that box, give or take.
My Mooncat collection - so far.
Let's talk about Mooncat. It's a female owned company. Michelle Lin is the CEO and founder. Her instagram page is worth checking out if you love seeing nail polish swatches. Also take a look at the Mooncat Instagram page as well. All polishes are made in the USA. It's vegan and animal cruelty free. 10% of all net proceeds goes to help cats find their forever home. 🖤 That itself makes me love this company.
They ship in a box and each one comes in its own box too! 😍
Mooncat has all kinds of nail polishes. My favorite are the magnetic polishes because of the depth and different looks you can create. I love the cat-eye style but the velvet style is my favorite. Every magnetic polish order comes with a magnetic wand. Here are some photos to show how it works. I just got my nails done, so I'm just showing the basic idea.
Magnetic polish - Kelp Kingdom
Magnetic Wand
Paint your nail with a thick coat and hover the wand over for 30 seconds.
The colors will shift and give a cat-eye effect.
I just got mine done with Smokescreen, but my manicurist is super busy so she only holds the wand over my nails for three seconds and moves on, so while it does have the initial cat-eye effect, it doesn't hold because as the polish dries the colors shift and it turns into something like velvet nails instead, which I honestly don't mind, I think it looks really beautiful and mesmerizing. To get the full cat-eye effect, hold the wand over the nail for thirty seconds.
Mooncat pricing ranges from $13 to $16. $13 will get you a creme lacquer but they are my least favorite because I find creme lacquers hard to apply. They're always streaky whenever I do it myself, so I go for the holographic, shimmers, glitters, multi chrome, magnetics, pretty much anything else! They are a little more pricey at $14-$16. All of the magnetic ones are $16. So far my favorite magnetic color is Millenia.
Millenia. Buy it here.
To keep your manicure fresh, apply another layer of top coat on your 5th day and make sure the tips are wrapped. I also like to use Essie's apricot cuticle oil. Which I will link to below. I have both versions in the bottle and the tube. Massage the oil into your cuticles two times a day to keep them healthy. Let me know if you're also a nail polish junkie like me! 😅 I hope you all have a fantastic Monday!
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Happy birthday Leslie! It looks like you had a fun weekend filled with awesome food!
ReplyDeleteThe Mooncat nailpolish is gorgeous! The magnetic finish makes it look like tiny galaxies on your fingers. I love it :) I really like Smokescreen and Malevolent. The shipping to Canada isn't too horribly expensive, so I might take another look at the website next month.
I hope you're having some more birthday celebrations today!
Hi Lola! Thank you so much. Malevolent is really cool too. I pretty much love all the magnetic ones. I took Monday off from work - which I think everyone should do when it's their birthday. I'm just going to chill and relax and eat of course!
DeleteHappy Birthday Leslie!!! Wishing you another amazing year filled with love, fun and joy!
ReplyDeleteI'm never a nail polish person (oh well, I don't do any make-up actually LOL) but I really enjoy your post. Those are some pretty nail polish colors!!! Agree with Lola that the magnetic finish makes it look like tiny galaxies on your fingers (especially Millenia!). They are just mesmerizing!
Andrea
Hi Andrea! Thank you so much! I actually stopped wearing make up during the pandemic and just never went back. Once in a while I will wear some eye shadow if it's a special occasion. The photos you see of me on the blog is me make up free. But I love nail polish! =D
DeleteHappy birthday, Leslie! The macarons and chocolates look delicious! Thanks for sharing the food pics! I don't usually use nail polish, but will do it for special occasions. The Mooncat magnetic nail polishes are very cool! I've never seen anything like it! I also like that the company donate a portion of the proceeds to help cats find homes.
ReplyDeleteAre you doing anything special today? May be a special homemade dinner by your SO? Whatever your plans are, I hope you're having a wonderful day~
Hi Karen! Thank you so much. Those macarons really are my favorite. I kept my birthday celebration pretty low key. I did have some really good meals and just relaxed. =D Spent some time reading and watching shows.
DeleteHappy birthday, Leslie!! All that food looks amazing! I am in love with these Mooncat nail polish swatches. I have to check them out! The magnet idea is super cool. I don't do my nails so I've never even heard of something like that. I occasionally paint them a color but not often.
ReplyDeleteHi Janessa! Thank you! I'm obsessed with the magnetic ones. I usually have mine done once a month and then I'll paint them myself in-between visits. I like to have fun colors on my nails.
DeleteHappiest of birthdays to you! All of the food looks amazing. It's rainy here today, and a big bowl of ramen would definitely hit the spot.
ReplyDeleteMooncat looks VERY cool - must check it out!
Thanks LZ! I love ramen, it's just so good! I can have it in the summer too, I love it that much. Mooncat is definitely my latest obsession!
DeleteOoh, I love these nail polishes!! So beautiful! I'll have to try them. I have a pretty big nail polish collection too. I mostly buy Zoya. But, like any company that you buy from for a long time, the newer releases are too similar to colors I already have. That's probably a sign that it's time to venture out to other companies. I love holographic polishes, but I've never tried the magnetic ones. I've wanted to though, so mooncat is a good place to start!
ReplyDeleteHi Stacy! Ohhh if you do try Mooncat let me know. My favorite magnetic one so far is Millenia. It's soooo pretty especially if you do cat eye or the velvet style.
DeleteHello. I admit I don’t follow your blog but found it while looking into mooncat. I admit I’ve never looked into it before but decided to give it a shot since I’d decided to start fresh with my nail polish collection. At one point, I had a shoe box size container with mail polish in it PLUS another box about the size of a large cd case that had individual slots for nail polish that was also full. However I’ve recently found out that I have a horrible reaction to gel nail polish and UV lights so I threw everything out for fear of having another reaction… for the 4th time… I really didn’t wanna give up doing my nails! I can’t seem to find specifics though for Mooncat. I know it says nail lacquer on the website but I just want to be sure before spending $15 on mail polish, which I very rarely do. I would love to try these colors though and fell in love as soon as I saw them. Could you tell me if they require IV light or are a gel polish?
ReplyDeleteHello there! This is regular nail polish, no UV light needed. It's not gel polish. I take it off with regular nail polish remover. I use a base coat and their Speed Demon Top Coat. I also find that these polishes last nearly 10 days! which is insane. Since this post I've bought more and now have nearly 30 colors in my collection. They are just so good! If you do try Mooncat, come back and let me know how you like it!
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