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!

Urbay Decay Apocalyptic Nail Kit Swatches

As soon as I saw that Urban Decay was releasing nail polish for the holidays I knew I would buy them. What I didn't know, was that they were releasing this cute set of 7 shades! I thought there would be only one or two colors. I am so excited! I love them all, and I love the packaging:

They come in a metallic purple zip pouch, and I have been thinking this would make a great gift.


White Widow - This was the selling point for me. I really liked all the colors, but I rushed to click "buy" a lot faster for this one. It is a gray-white with silver shimmer, and it goes on like butter! I love whites, and this one is one of my favorites.


Gunmetal - The second I got this out of the box and looked at it, it looked brown to me and not really gunmetal-gray. But I have changed my mind. It is gray, but a brown gray. Brown-gray shimmer. This was the only one that I was not a fan of, formula wise. It gave me a few bald spots.


Apocalypse - This one is like OPI-Lincoln Park After Dark: It's a really hott, super black, purple creme, but it just pretty much looks black with two coats. Luckily the formula of this is so wonderfully super smooth, it allowed me to do a nice one coater to show the true color of it.


Grunge - I am so torn on what this color is! I can't even think about it. As soon as I decide it's green, I say, "noooo, it's blue. But.... it's green!" And it's not a typical teal. I went back to the Urban Decay website to get the link for these, and found their description for this polish: "metallic peacock". I like that! Very fitting, since the shimmer flashes blue and purple and therefore, looks peacock.


Meltdown - Royal purple shimmer. Gorgeous.


Big Bang - Hot pink foil. I looove this one. Very hott, opaque and metallic-shiny.


Fbomb - Bright, brick-red creme, this swatch is only one coat!! These are incredible.

And since I have been on a matte kick, I did a quick shiny/matte comparison using Essie - Matte About you matte finisher.

Shiny:Matte:
I especially like White Widow, Grunge, Big Bang and Fbomb matte.

The set can be purchased online at Urban Decay and goes for $26. The bottles are not standard half ounce (15 mL) size. They are 0.17 oz (5 mL).

Nubar Modern Matte

Hey! I got my Nubar Mattes from Beauty Judy's giveaway and I swatched them to share! They come in a little plastic baggie/carrying case and they are are all shimmery and very matte. Judy also sent me a little something extra to share a taste of Philly with me! They are a box of Tasty Kake, Butterscotch Krimpets. They are a soft, yellow cake like a Twinkie, but without the filling, and they have a butterscotch icing on top. Yum! I seriously opened the box and shoved one in my face before I even looked at the polishes!! I have a major sweet tooth. I did the same thing when Tuli sent me polishes (here). She sent along some chocolates, and I dove into those before getting to the rest of the package! I think if I sold polish, I would send them with sweets in every box! Wouldn't that be great.


Vital - Sun and shade - I wore this one as soon as they came. It was vital. It is a royal purple shimmer with blue and pink shimmer. It reminds me of grape juice.


Prevail - Sun and shade - Grayed purple matte shimmer. Sorry for the speck on the middle finger. I got something on it while painting. It's not the fault of the polish. The shimmer in this is dense and gorgeous. It's like a peach shimmer. I love the way it looks with the shade of this polish.

Avant-Garde - Sun and shade - Brownish, burgundy matte shimmer. I think this is perfect for fall.


Contempo - Sun and Shade. Bright red matte shimmer. This is a smidge brighter than Zoya - Posh, but they look pretty much the same.

And to showcase how shimmery they are, I put on a topcoat which really makes the shimmer pop. They look beautiful:

Vital - With topcoat and without

Prevail - With topcoat and without

Avant-Garde - With topcoat and without

Contempo - With topcoat and without


Nubar Modern Matte Collection is available at bynubar.com. They retail for $7.49 each, or $24.95 for the set, which saves you $5.01

Thanks to Beauty Judy and Nubar for the giveaway!

L.A. Colors and L.A. Colors Color Craze

Helllooooo everyone! I went on a hunt recently for polishes and I was trying to hit beauty stores I never went to before. Independent or smaller chains as opposed to something like Sally's. I discovered LA Colors!

In picture above: Silver glitter, Shock, Force, Phenomena


Silver Glitter - Shown alone and over black. This is a small grain, silver glitter top coat. This swatch was two coats but it covers very well with just one too. This is the stuff I used to make Evening Twinkler, my Starry Starry Night dupe.


Shock - I love this shade! I just wish is was more opaque. I would layer this over white for a mani. It's a neon yellow-orange, tangerine color and dries semi-matte. If I remember correctly, this was 3 coats and you can still clearly see visible nail line.


Force - I love this one too! This is a very shimmery metallic burnt orange. It reminds me of fall more than any other fall-ish nail polish I have seen. It is gorgeous.


Phenomena - This is a red purple creme. I love red-purples! I can not get enough. But this would NOT photograph. It looked cooler/more blue in real life than this. More magenta and not so red. This was the best pic I could get and I still don't like it.

I found the Color Craze polishes at the same store as the Santees I showed you. They were $1. And I found Silver Glitter in a different store and I think it may have been $2. These are all also available on Cherryculture.com.

About Lippmann Collection's New Glitter/Sequin Polishes

I found an interesting blog post from Deborah Lippmann herself, explaining her new hexagonal sequin polishes:

URGENT INFO ON SOME NEW LIPPMANN COLORS

I was very interested in this since I have reviewed the colors in question on my blog, including Funky Chunky and Marquee Moon, and they are some of the most unique polishes ever. Since they are so unique, I assumed that the application was to be unique. I was wrong.

For Funky Chunky, which is the black that comes in the Anniversary Set, Deborah explains that it is supposed to be sheer, with the black sequins showing through. I stated that I thought texture was the key to this one, because as you can see in my swatch, I did one coat (albeit a thick one) and it is not sheer. Even if I did a thin sheer coat, I like the way I applied it better. I am not into sheers, but I am into the look I achieved with my opaque thick coat. Also, if it is meant to be sheer, than the formula should have been just like Ruby Red Slippers. That polish has a nice thin, smooth, sheer black base and allows to be applied nicely no matter how many coats you wish to put on: 1, 2, 3... you can build the coats to achieve the right color for you. It works and looks beautiful. So why aren't the formulas the same?

For Marquee Moon, (which I adore) I said that my only gripe was that the sequins are random, so you have to try to get them on your nails. Deborah says, "dont TRY to make the 'sequins'' come out and look the same on each nail". I agree with the look of having every nail different. That is one of the many reasons I gave as to why I liked it. I do think that it takes effort to get the sequins just on the nail at all though. I want them different, but I don't want any sequin-less.

I thought this would be interesting to pass along since these colors are hot right now, and have brought up much conversation and questions. They need a bit of explaining and now we have the answers straight from the creator.

Santee Swatches

Hell0 everyone! Hope you had a lovely holiday! I am super excited right now because I just learned that I won Beauty Judy's Nubar Modern Matte Collection! How awesome! I will definitely swatch and post them as soon as I get my hands on them! Speaking of giveaways I have one coming up too!

For now I am bringing you a polish I never heard of until I spotted them in a store a few weeks ago. It is called Santee, and I can't find much about them. I found them on Cherryculture.com, but they only had one color and it was out of stock. Lame. I have been excited to share these because they are only $1! I found them at a shop that sold make-up, wild wigs and costume jewelry. So if you want to hunt them down try places like that or independent beauty stores. The colors that I picked up are Melon Green, Pearl Jungle, Neon Orange and Red Speckle.

Melon Green - This is a yellow-green, or maybe green-yellow, shimmer. Goes on smooth and looks awesome.

Pearl Jungle - Very self-explanatory name! It's a pearly green. The green is like a jade/emerald/fern color with a frosty-pearl finish. Very pretty.

Neon Orange - Love this color but hate the name! It is a very bright orange but I wouldn't call it neon. I own neon oranges. This is not one of them. And it doesn't dry matte as neons typically do. In fact, it dries super shiny! But I love the color because it isn't a straight up orange. It is like a cantoloupe color.

Red Speckle - This is one of the best red glitters ever! I love it! It is a jelly red that is a true red. Not orange or pink, but cherry red! Hott! And it has silver glitter. The silver that sits in the jelly looks red, and the pieces that sit on top show silver. Awesome!

All of these went on smooth, in 2 coats and I love the brush. I had swatched some Essie's right before these, and in comparison to Essie's brush this was exponentially better. Wider, but not ridiculous, even bristles, just awesome.

What do you think? Have some? Want some? Know where to get them? Going on hunt?

:c)

My Alter Ego-Gunslinger

My alter ego is the person I want to become.
She is a braver, gunsliging version of me.
She doesn't hold back.
She loads, cocks and fires.

I have a boyfriend who loves guns and has some. I had never been around guns before he came along, so I was horrified. He has gotten me more aquainted with them, and we have gone shooting together, but I am still scared and take my time, and shake when it's time to pull the trigger. I wish I didn't give a damn, and could pull the slide with authority and let it rip. My alter ego is that girl that lets it rip.

For this look I used:

Zoya - Dovima

Essie - Matte About You
Konad Plates M3, M28

China Glaze - Awaken

China Glaze - Devotion

LA Colors Art Deco - Black

Black Rhinestones

My Alter Ego : Fearless

My alter ego is the person I want to become.

She's darker, bolder, braver. She's on fire. She is outspoken.

She can fill a room with her presence.

She is not afraid of what people think.

She is not afraid of anything. Not spiders, or snakes or scorpions.

She doesn't give a damn.

For this look I used:

Perfect Chic - 314

Tropez - Black Satin

LA Colors Art Deco - Pink

LA Colors Art Deco -Red Glitter

Konad Plate M28

Dark Teal/Green Shimmer Comparisons

As promised, I did a comparison of Lippmann Collection - Don't Tell Mama against other dark green/blue shimmers. In the pictures, from left to right they are:

--- Lippmann Collection - Don't Tell Mama
--- Sinful Colors - See You Soon
--- Wet n Wild - Morbid
--- Misa - Toxic Seduction



Don't Tell Mama is definitely the darkest and the shimmer is what I would call teal, since it looks blue and green. See You Soon is on the blue side of that, and Morbid and Toxic Seduction are on the green side.

What do you think?

Giveaways!

Good afternoon! I am writing to inform all of my readers about 2 wonderful giveaways on some fellow bloggers' sites!

The first is at Glitter Millie. She is doing a great giveaway to commemorate hitting 50 followers. It is great because you get to pick your prize! The prize choices include:

5 x Barry M Nail Paints plus a few extra bits and bobs
OR
1 x Illamasqua Nail Polish plus a few extra bits and bobs

You must be a follower and can find the full rules here.

The second is at Painted Lady Fingers. You must also be a follower of this blog to enter. And the prize? It is kit A of the Coraline Konad collection! It includes plates, polishes, stamper and scraper!

You can find the full rules here.

GOOD LUCK!

Evening Twinkler - An Essie Starry Starry Night dupe

I did it. I finally did it! I made an Essie - Starry Starry Night look alike. I frankened the franken of all frankens. I think I did a damn good job! Sorry to toot my own horn and all but I think it's pretty close.

The idea hit me when I purchased LA Colors - Silver Glitter. It is a clear base with silver glitter. To me it looked like it might be a match for the glitter in SSN. It was small and silver, and not holographic/prismatic, and not too small... it seemed like a match. Now for the blue part. That hit me when I got my hands on the new Wet n Wild Craze colors. I purchased Nocturnal, and it seemed to me to have a bit of a jelly consistency, despite being dark. I didn't think it would work out to well to mix them at first, to be honest, (plus I was concerned about using my Nocturnal since it was so small) so I just layered them. Here is the results:

On the first and middle fingers I used just one coat of Nocturnal and on the ring finger I used 2. I wanted to see how it compared because I was concerned that 2 coats would be too black. It actually looks okay, but nothing compares to how it looks when I mixed Silver Glitter and Nocturnal together:(make sure to click the picture for the enlarged size!)

Yeah.... I really, really have to pat myself on the back for this one. I do not have, nor have ever seen Starry Starry Night in person, but I think this looks pretty darn close. This is absolutely quelling my need for this elusive, beautiful polish. I've named it Evening Twinkler.

I started with an empty mini bottle, but soon realized this would need a larger bottle. After purchasing a replacement Nocturnal, I emptied a full size clear Wet n Wild and filled it with half Silver Glitter and half of Nocturnal. I must tell you too, that this was the best franken I have ever made formula-wise. It is soooo smooth and these two polishes mix together VERY easily and without balls. It took about 5 seconds. I have never seen polish mix so easily and apply so easily after being mixed. I strongly recommend everyone makes this!!! It is so cheap and easy. And if you want it a little bit darker (which I may) {nah. I like it just fine!!} you can a couple of drops of a black creme polish to darken it.

Wet N Wild - Nocturnal can be found in drugstores, and I found my LA Colors - Silver Glitter in a small independent beauty store, but I have also seen it on Cherry Culture.

Happy frankening!

Nubar Modern Matte Giveaway!

Beauty Judy of the blog of the same name, is giving away a brand new set of the entire Nubar Modern Matte Collection! You can enter until September 6th and you can see the full rules here.

You must be a follower of Beauty Judy's to enter.

Good Luck!