Jade Glitter Swatches

Hey there! How are we all doing this Monday!? This Monday that is a holiday for most here in the US except me! I am at work! I could have used today off. I am still a bit hungover from Saturday's shenanigans! That is not fair. You need not be hungover for more than one day! Anyway, today I bring some interesting glitters from Jade. These are my first Jade polishes. You don't see them very much. I stumbled on them online one day so I took a chance and ordered a few. Here's what I got:

Gold Flakes - This is a horribly misleading name. This is not a flake polish. It is gold glitter in a sheer, shimmery gold base.

Asteroid Caress - Magenta glitter in a clear base. What a strange name! It makes me picture asteroids caressing people floating in space, or people being caressed on an asteroid. Lots of interesting imagery...

Charm Illusion - Lime green glitter in a clear base. It kind of looks gold at first glance.

Volcanic Lava - Deep orange glitter in a clear base. This is the one I used as the middle color on the glitter gradient in my previous post. I really love the color of this glitter, but I wish that it covered completely. This was 3-4 coats and still shows plenty nail. That is the case with all of these, actually.

I purchased these at 123nailsupply.com and they were $1.25 each. These do not have the best coverage, but look great layered, or would make great frankening colors. Especially since they are so inexpensive.

Autumn Glitter Gradient

I am finally bring you the manicure that I have been super excited about. And I am bringing it from Washington DC as I am traveling for work! I'm on the road again!

It is a glitter gradient and it seems pretty fall-like to me. I started with a black base using Tropez - Black Satin, my absolute favorite black. (It is opaque in ONE COAT and it cosst ONE DOLLAR!) I then used Sinful Colors - All About You and started painting further from the cuticle than where the black started. Then I did another coat of All About You and started up further than the first coat. I then grabbed my orange glitter, Jade - Volcanic Lava and did the same application further up still. I finished it off with a coat of Color Club - Art of Seduction, a very dense red glitter, on the tips. And voila! Glitter Gradient!

And of course, I had to see it matte:

Maybelline Vanishing Venus

Hello! I had a really great post of my manicure this past weekend planned, but I left the pics at home so I can't post them right now and I wanted to put up something! So today I bring you a pretty color from Maybelline. It is called Vanishing Venus. I borrowed it from a friend. I was so intrigued by it because I went to her place one day with Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie on and couldn't wait to see her reaction because it is so unique. She looks at my nails and says "Is that Maybelline?" Are you serious?! Maybelline does not make a color that is a dupe of Scrangie. So I had to borrow it and see. It is definitely not a dupe, but I see where she was going. Scrangie is more of a blue-purple-lilac with a blue-green shimmer, and Vanishing Venus is a deep plum-eggplant color with a more green shimmer. I don't know if this color is discontinued, but I have never seen it in stores. But you can just add it to the hard-to-find shades you are going to hunt for! There are dupes to this color, however they are hard-to-find too. There is Urban Decay - Bruised and NYX - Grafitti. I was most exicited to learn about Grafitti and rushed over to NYX's website to find it but instead found that Grafitti is now what looks like a gray-white shimmer. Boo. I really hate the interchanging of names/colors that NYX does. Not cool.

And I will post the awesome weekend mani I had on either later today or tomorrow!

Halloween Giveaway

The cool chick with the most amazing long nails is hosting a rather awesome giveaway. It includes:

-A Konad sponge nail art kit
-A Konad image plate with Halloween designs
-A Konad Special Polish

I am so excited! Head here to enter!

Essie Swatches

Hello and Happy Friday! I must apologize for my unexplained absence! I went to NY last week to visit family and just got back last night. It was a great time, but I am glad to be home! And glad to be back to you guys! I have lots to post, so let's start the post-fest with a post filled with pictures! My favorite kind of post!

A few months ago, I discovered that one of my favorite e-tailers, Head2Toe Beauty had increased their prices on Essie polish from $4/bottle to $8. That is a %100 price increase! I was a bit panicked, and figuring this was not the fault of Head2Toe, but that of Essie, I was afraid that the same would happen on other favorite sites that allow us to get our polish fixes on the cheap. So I bought a bunch that I had wanted immediately from Trans Design.

I have compiled all my Essie's right here for you! They were not all necessarily purchased on Trans Design, but I wanted to post them all! They are not in any particular order, or collections. Some are really old, some are new, some are safe, some are blue. (I just had to do that rhyme!)



Mesmerize - From spring 2009 collection. Bold royal blue creme. Awesome.

Sexy Divide - Gorgeous royal purple shimmer. From winter 2008.

After Sex - I must say I bought this one just for the name. Some of Essie's name choices are pretty interesting. And she says that she herself does the naming. Hmm. Anyway, this is a glowing red shimmer. I really love it, but I think it looks just like Sinful Colors- Sugar Sugar.

Wild Thing - This one is older. I found it at a nail supplier and I believe it is not big three free. (So it contains Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Formaldehyde and Toluene) It looks just like After Sex, but with sparse, holographic glitter pieces.

It's Genius - From Winter 2008. It's a muavy purple shimmer.

Sag Harbor - Another interesting name! I really, really love this color. Very slightly blue gray with a subtle silver shimmer. From The North Fork Collection, Spring 2009.

Marshmallow - Classic, jelly white.

Caribou - Light, baby pink creme. The absolute worst application ever. This swatch took 5 coats and it still looks like crap. It is the streakiest, runniest polish ever.

Pound Cake - Creamy off-white with a hint of tan. Love this.

Flirty Fuschia - Neon pink creme. Dries matte and is awesomely bright.

Funky Limelight - One of the best colors I own. The absolutely brightest neon ever. The brightest neon hi-liter yellow. It amazes me.

1,000,000 Giraffes

Hello all! Thank you for all the birthday wishes! It is so nice to hear! I had a great day full of cakes and cards and flowers. I went out for a few cocktails (and shots!! haha) with friends. It was perfect! I chose the gorgeous gold and seafoam green glitter that I got from Tuli as my birthday manicure. It was quite fitting for the occasion!

Today I am bringing you a little nail art and a fun project you can join. It really isn't nail related, I just made it nail related.

I saw Nailoftheweek tweet about submitting a giraffe to a project of getting a million giraffes. I was intrigued. I clicked her pic and it was a giraffe made out of nail polish bottles! I tried to find it to show you but I had no luck. Anyway, this person in Norway is trying to collect 1,000,000 hand made giraffes by 2011. Here is the website with the details and how to submit your giraffe. I thought I would do my part and so I made a giraffe on my nail with nail polish:
I used: Essie - Sag Harbor, Sally Hansen - Lightening and Revlon-Chocolate Truffle. I submitted today and it says it needs to be approved first so I haven't seen it up yet. I read somewhere on the webpage or blog or on twitter, that 10,000 giraffes were received in a day! That blows my mind! And the current total is over a quarter of a million! It's very exciting.

You gotta check out the 1,000,000 Giraffe Blog. There is a giraffe of the day post everyday and they are amazing/hysterical/mind blowing. You have to check it out.

For fun I made my giraffe matte:

Birthday Winner!!

Hello everyone!! Today is my birthday!! YAY! I didn't get a chance to do a birthday mani on myself though! Today at work is going to be rough until I can get home and get some glitter on my nails!!

The reason I am posting though, is to announce the winner of the Birthday/Follower Giveaway! AND THAT IS>>>>>

DENISE!

Thank you all so much for reading and entering! It is soooo awesome!!

Congrats to Denise and thank you all again for reading my blog!

:c)

Oldie Sally Hansens

I went digging in my friend's polish stash recently and discovered some great discontinued Sally Hansen glitters. And since I love glitters I had to try them! Unfortunately, two of the three were almost empty (and the two I wanted to try the most!) and they were pretty dried up. I threw in some polish reviver/thinner to at least get out enough for this swatch, but definitely couldn't get out enough for a full manicure. I thought it would be interesting to post them. Check out these bottles:


Celebrate, New Penny, Wired



The swatches are: Celebrate, New Penny, Wired and Wired over Revlon-Chocolate Truffle.


Celebrate is purple, green and gold round glitter and bar glitter. It's like Mardi Gras in a bottle. It is so fun! I wish this was still around.

New Penny is a small grain, but dense, copper/orange glitter. I really wish this was still around.

Wired is a translucent brown-yellow with small copper glitter and larger holo glitter. I am not a fan of it alone, but layered it's nice.

I wanted to say here "I wish that Sally Hansen would release interesting glitters like this," but we have just gotten some nice glitters, including one of my favorite glitters: Rockstar Pink. I am just such a nut for sparkle, and if I saw interesting mixtures like this in the drug store I would grab them up, no questions asked.

How old these are is a mystery. I don't really know when they came out/were discontinued. But perhaps if you hunt for them, you could find them somewhere. Some smaller independent beauty stores, or maybe ebay. If your like me, you're never scared of a little hard-to-find hunt!

Some Claire's Swatches

Hello all! Today I have for you some polishes from Claire's. I don't have a ton from them (only 5) but I like them all. Claire's stores have a nice selection of holos, glitters, neons, shimmers and those funky layering polishes. Here are the ones I have:

Goldmine - You guys have seen this before... a few times... because I loooove it.


Orange Neon - This swatch has a top coat. It dries matte on its own, as neons usually do. And I love it! It's definitely more neon than this picture depicts.


Rockstar - Pretty grayed purple with an irregular-shaped silver shimmer. I had to see how this one looked matte soooo:

I looooove this look so much! I looks like it could be an O-P-I Suede.


Green Confetti - 3 coats. This is a slightly blue, green jelly base with tons of multi-shaped, holographic glitter, including my favorite: hexagons!!


There's No Place Like Home - Dark pink base with a fine holo glitter. It's really not even like glitter, it's more like a holo shimmer. It's pretty and fun without being over the top.

I know they have even more wonderful colors that I need to get my hands on!

What polishes do you like from Claire's?

I was tagged! Twice!

I was tagged twice for this "10 facts about you" fun! I was tagged by Nihrida and by Tuli!I have to give you guys 10 facts about me, and then tag 10 more blogs! Okay, here they are:

1) I am a fisherwoman. I was the first born child, and since my dad didn't get a boy, I learned the boy stuff. Incidentally, I love fishing and caught my first fish when I was about 2. Mostly I like to fish streams for trout, but last year I went fishing for striped bass in the spring on the Hudson River and caught a 25 lb. bass.

2) I love games. Mostly darts or pool or ping-pong definitely! But I also love card games (not really poker... not much of a gambler) and my favorite board game is Pictionary. AND I loooove to beat boys at games. Especially ping-pong.

3) I love comedy. Movies or TV. I enjoy laughing. I am not a very serious person. I love to laugh out loud at things I watch, even if I am alone, and I have a very loud, semi-obnoxious laugh. Favorite TV: 30Rock, The Office, South Park. Favorite Movie ever: Dumb and Dumber

4) I am short. Only 4'11''. I don't think I have ever shared that with you guys! I love it, I just hate when people guess my age is waaayyy younger than I am. I have a bit of a baby face, and it sux! I know that when I am older it will be great to look young, but it is no fun to be an adult and have people tell you that you look like a child. I get IDed for rated R movies and last week a guy in a toll booth didn't think I was old enough to drive! I am going to be 24 next week!!! Come on!

5) Although I am a shopper when it comes to nail polish, I am not when it comes to the other standard girl stuff. I don't have tons of shoes, bags, clothes or make-up. I wear the same shoes everyday, and when I wear down the heel tips (yes they are usually heels... shorty here!) I get them replaced! I have had the same couple purses for years, and I rarely do much to my face. I have been getting more into eyeshadow recently though.

6) I love to ride my bike!! I live in a city, so I don't bother having a car, but I love to ride my bicycle. When I lived a little closer to work/school I rode back and forth everyday. It was 5 miles one way. That seemed perfect. But now it's 11 miles to get to work. I can make it. I have done it a couple of times, but I just can't tire myself like that. Plus I would be so gross by the time I got there!

7) Although I don't have a car now, when I was still in New York, the only vehicle I ever had was an SUV. It was huge and I loved it. I carted around everyone and everything and I was always the driver on roadtrips. I have a good sense of direction. It was also a stick, and that is another thing I got from my dad. He had me driving that thing, by myself, when I was 12!!! Only on dirt roads up in the woods though. Not on real roads! This was my baby:

8) I have never dyed my hair!

9) I went skydiving on my 18th birthday.

10) I love spiders. I mean, they creep me out just like the rest of you. I don't touch them or anything, but I am fascinated with them. I think they are so cool and amazing and I love to look at them, and photograph them (I have a collection). Last week Tommy and I were at Target, and when we were pulling in I saw a huge web between two trees, and I had to go take a look. When we got out of the store, I looked... it was, hands down, the biggest spider I have ever seen in the wild! I mean, it was HUGE!!! Body was like a golf ball. From a distance Tommy didn't think it was one spider. He thought two or more. He didn't want to even get close! He was freaking out that I was so close to it. I could kick myself a hundred times for not having my camera. I want to go back, but I just figure he will be gone and I'll be disappointed.

Here's one I took a couple years ago:

And here are my ten blogs. I tried to hit ones that haven't done this yet:
Sparkling.Pink.Gorilla
Vampy Varnish
Concrete and Nail Polish
Lou Lou Land
The Nailphile
Steph's Closet
Dizzy Nails
Nail Art Tuesday
Gettin' Nailed
Alexlyndra

Giveaway For My Birthday/100 Followers (EDITED)

I am so excited to finally post this! I am hosting a giveaway starting today and lasting for 1 week. I had the idea brewing for a while now. I wanted to do a giveaway for my birthday, which is in one week, and I wanted to do one for gaining 100 followers, and since they coincided, this is a combo giveaway!

First of all, thank you so much for reading! I can't even believe how far my little blog has come since April. 100 followers and thousands of page hits, is just too much to handle! I never would have thought. I was freaking out when I had a follower! I thought 20 was just out of this world! And then it kept going up and up! And I will always keep the posts coming for you guys! I don't think I could stop now. I have so many things planned to do all the time. I can't swatch as fast as my little mind ticks!

Since this is also for my birthday (9/22) I thought it would be appropriate to make the prizes some of my favorite things. Well, those would be green, gold and glitter!! So the prize package includes:

China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle, Sinful Colors - Call You Later, and Claire's - Goldmine

And lastly the rules. I HAVE CHANGED THE RULES> This contest is open to my readers, however it may be that you keep up with my blog. It is open starting today, and will close Monday night, 9/21/09 at 11:59 PM Central ST. Please leave a comment on this post to serve as your entry with your email. If you would prefer to not post your email address, you can email your entry to lacquerlaine@gmail.com.

This is open to international readers. :c)

I am liking the way some other bloggers have opened up their contests to allow for multiple entries, so I thought I would do the same! If you have a blog and do a post including this giveaway, it will get you an extra entry.

If you are on Twitter (and are a follower of mine on Twitter), and tweet this giveaway it will serve as an extra entry.

In your comment, let me know if you get extra entries, and if you tweet about it, let me know your Twitter name.

I will announce the winner next Tuesday, my birthday!!


And to show off what you'll win, here are swatches of all the colors:Good Luck and THANK YOU!