Celebratory Mani for my Readers!

Hi Guys! I am super excited right now because I just learned that I am on Spa Beauty School's Top 50 Nail Blog List! How awesome is that?! I must say thank you so much to my lovely readers because you are what make it possible!!

Here is a mani I did a couple days ago:

This is Sinful Colors - Hot Spot with Revlon - Slipper, a glitter topcoat made up of red glitter, red glitter, and large holo hexagon pieces. It looks so American, doesn't it?! :c)

China Glaze Fight Like a Woman - Fall 2010

In support of womens' battle against breast cancer, China Glaze has released a set of empowering pink shades. Check them out>>>

Encouragement - Soft soft, almost white, shimmery pink. I loved wearing this one. I had it on for a looong time. It love the softness of it and how shimmery it is. There are little glints of green in the shimmer that I just love. This is three coats.

Endurance - Bright, glass-flecked, super fun raspberry! I want to call this Cosmo. Raspberry Cosmo. So fun! This is three coats.

Empowerment - Cotton candy, pink creme. I like the soft look of this and it's rare that I like pink polish so much, but this one really grew on me. I actually wore it twice. :cO weird. It's soft and squishy which gives for a great end result, but the application was not what I would have liked for a creme. It was a bit streaky and took three coats.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)

Fight Like a Woman will be available in September in beauty supply stores and beauty salons.

Jungle Boogie Recipe and Challange

Close-up of Jungle Boogie

I got the goods. I asked the lovely lady who created Jungle Boogie how she did it. I do have to apologize for not giving her credit to begin with, but it was just soooo amazing I guess I couldn't guess that it was a franken. It is just so well blended, and such a good mix of colors it was unbelievable to me I guess.

Bottle of Jungle Boogie

Here is at least some of what is in Jungle Boogie:

• nail art stripers in various glitters: blue, green and fuchsia
• Variety of Nubar glitters: Especially Grass Green glitter and also Lime glitter art stripers and some Disco Blue. The whole Nubar-Sparkles collection would work for this, or Color Club-Glitter Vixen, especially Object of Envy, since Jungle Boogie looks mostly green, and OOE costs much less than Nubars.
• And the icing on the cake: The bar glitter is Wet n Wild-Black Magic. It's a Halloween color, but it comes out every Halloween and lucky for us it's right around the corner!
  

Wet n Wild - Black Magic

Close-up of the bottle of Black Magic... for fun :c)

What I was thinking, because the recipe for Jungle Boogie could vary so much from person to person, I was thinking it would be awesome if you guys want to try and make it, if you show me your "Jungle Boogie"!

Share a pic of your creation along with the recipe you use! Perhaps someone will like your blend enough to try! Submit it by September 16th to Lacquer Laine's email address with a picture, recipe, your name, location and what you have named your blend if you want to give it one. There are so many possibilities to mixing "Jungle Boogie", I cant wait for you to try! and I can't wait to see them!

Elaine
:c)

OPI Swiss Collection, Fall 2010

For Fall this year, OPI went for another one of their signature "location" collections. This time the theme is Switzerland. I would love to go to Switzerland. Do some skiing! It's on the list of places to visit. Hope I get there one day. For now I will wear these and pretend.

Glitzerland - This is a super shimmer, foil-ish finish shade that we have been seeing a lot of lately. This is a very flattering slightly yellow, warm gold. This swatch is three coats. I thought at first it might be a dupe to China Glaze - Swing Baby, but it's not:

They have the same finish, but Swing Baby is a neutral, champagne color, and Glitzerland is a yellow gold. Different enough to own both.

Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous! - Oooh! This is a foxy charcoal shimmery, foilish shade. It is so seductive! I love the deep charcoal color but it is also so sparkly! Awesome shade. This swatch is three coats.

Yodel Me On My Cell - This is a mesmerizing aqua shimmer It is definitely blue, but has the slightest smidge of green to it too. I really love this. I believe I did three coats for this swatch because a couple nails had bald spots after two.

Ski Teal We Drop - This is a dreamy smooth, medium to dark teal creme. Not much more to say but AWESOME.

I'm Suzi & I'm a Chocoholic - I thought this was going to be the shade I liked the least, and it is actually the one I like the most! Weird. I love this shade but hate the name! Chocolate is brown, not red! The first coat is more red and by the second coat it is much more brown, which I liked. It is so smooth and dreamy. I love it! The pic makes it look more red in the bright sunlight, but it was pretty brown otherwise. The pic also doesn't make it look as creamy and dreamy as it should because I smudged my topcoat.

The Color to Watch - This color I didn't have high expectations for. It was thin and needed three coats, which I expected. I did end up liking this on my nails and actually wore it, which I did not expect. It is delicate, interesting, pretty but not flashy.

Overall I am impressed with these shades. I would wear them all. Great shades for fall, which is right around the corner. I wish there were more two coaters than three coaters, but for a great color it's worth it. Plus the Pro-Wide brush helps speed up application so doing a third coat isn't so bad.

Other shades in OPI Swiss:

• Color So Hot it Berns
• Cuckoo For This Color
• Diva of Geneva
• From A to Zurich
• Just A Little Rösti At This
• William Tell Me About OPI

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

Jungle Boogie

**UPDATE** TO ALL LOVELY LADIES - Thanks for the comments! I am in love with this! I tried to find it earlier on Nubar's site too and didn't find it so I was guessing it was discontinued. Then it hit me. I received my bottle as an extra from a sweet swapper in Latvia. There wasn't an original label on it either. She put a label on herself that said "Jungle Boogie" and in the letter it mentioned a franken, (a homemade mix of several polishes) and I am kind of slow sometimes and didn't realize this was the franken! If I can find out what she used I will let you know!
:c)

After having "safe" work appropriate colors on all week, I was dying to get something loud, sparkly, blingy and obnoxious on my nails yesterday as soon as I got home. So I reached for a new baby I got recently. It's Nubar - Jungle Boogie. (not. see above)

It's a full coverage glitter (my fave!) and it is comprised of very small green, blue, yellow and purple glitter. The over-all color is mostly green but it's really set off with a few red and yellow string glitter in there. The string glitter isn't overpowering, and it isn't even half of the total glitter, but it is noticeable, in a bit of a subconscious way. It's evoking an emotion out of you when you look at it, but you don't know why. It's amazing.

I have so much to bring you once I have a second to swatch. It's been crazy over here! I still have China Glaze - Fight Like a Woman, OPI - Swiss, Ms. Manicure kits, and some newish Sinful Colors. Have no fear!

Love,
Elaine
:c)

Icing Swatches

I love to look at all the polishes displayed at Icing stores. They have so many brights and shades in every color. They just look so fun! So of course while I was there I had to grab some of the pretties. I was mostly attracted to loads of holo glitter!

Hot Pants - This is a light to medium blue that falls somewhere in periwinkle to cornflower. It is very delicate and calming. This formula was on the thinner side. i believe I did 3 or 4 coats but now I can't remember which.

Paparazzi - (sun/blurred) Now it's time for holo! This is a orangey, cinnamon base with what appears to be a hint of pink or peach. The holo glitter in this is very packed and sparkly. It reminds me of China Glaze - Ginger but on steroids.

Blackout - (sun/blurred) I had to grab this because it appears as though they reformulated it. This has been available for some time. It is a black with small, sparse, holo glitter. It was very apparent in store that there was a remake because they had bottles of both versions. The older one looks cool, but the glitter is very sparse. The new one had so much prismatic glitter in it that it looked like a smooth-type holo, a la OPI - My Private Jet, or Nubar - Reclaim. Once I got in on I realized it was not like those beauties, but it is still cool. Very outer space looking. If you are concerned about getting the correct bottle of Blackout, it will be the one that looks like this:

It's obvious.

Glamorous - (Sun/blurred) - Oh my stars. This was so amazingly, blindingly, blingy and prismatic in the store I had to have it. (It should also be mentioned that this has been added to my "Top 20" on the right hand side of the page.) I was hoping that it would be full coverage but I should have known better. The swatch above is 4 coats and it's obviously not full coverage but it is EXTREMELY sparkly.

I had to have Glamorous on as a full coverage so I did a manicure with it over China Glaze - Millennium, a silver chrome. The best, most blinged out, disco ball-esque mani ever!

What do you think?!

China Glaze - Awakening, Halloween 2010

For their Halloween Collection this year China Glaze really stepped it up and gave us something unique. Instead of the typical, uninspired set of orange, black and white creme that comes in every Halloween set released by every nail polish company, they gave us a collection that is... well... frikkin' AMAZING. If you are on a "no-buy" stop now because I am telling you up front, that every one of these is a must have.

Zombie Zest - This is a very dirty, murky, olive green with a bright green, glass-flecked shimmer. It makes me think of Zombies coming out of a swamp. This is three coats. It is a bit on the thin side but it's nice because it lets all that glass-fleck to shine through.

Mummy May I? - *Love the name* Wow do I appreciate everything about this polish. The base is a dark, jelly-ish, plummy, raisin. Then there is pinkish, purple glitter thrown in. It is a great effect because the glitter is not overpowering so you can love the twinkles of purple glitter and the vampy base. This swatch is two coats with top coat.

Ick-A-Bod-Y - I love this name too! And I love an orange and I love glitter so there is no way I could say anything bad about this. In fact, I have more good to say: The base is an awesome, weird, blackened green and also, this is a glitter-packed polish. This is only two coats and it is pretty much full coverage. Wow. I really want to wear this for a week. Or until Halloween.

These are going to be available at Sally's and on e-tailers so keep watch and don't miss them! There is no reason to wait. They will go quick and you don't want to miss these.

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.