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)

Cool Hidden Kiwi Treasure

Hi! This is a quickie NOTD post. This is China Glaze - Kiwi Cool-Ada with a new release from Sally Hansen layered on top: Hidden Treasure, a rainbow flakie polish in a clear base:

Have a good one! Be back soon with more!
-Elaine
:c)

NOTD: Milani - Hi-Tech

It was such a sunny day I just had to do a holo shade. That is the best NP for a sunny day! I chose Milani - Hi-Tech and oh baby this is amazing!!!

This is an outrageously bright, lime green that is impressive right there but then add the amazing holographic particles and whoa baby! This even very prismatic in low light, not just sunlight.

If you have seen the Milani 3D Holographic line in store and thought they didn't look that impressive don't trust it. In the bottle they look sort of holo. On the nail they really shine. And they are well pigmented. I have tried 3 of these shades and all of them got on in two coats.

Here is the blue one, Cyberspace I snapped a while back:

I loved this on me too. I also tried the purple one, Hi-Res, and loved that too! I may have to give in to the other three now too. :c)

Pretty Mint Mani

Hello! Here's a little something cute I did. This is Essie - Mint Candy Apple and I decided to "cute-ify" it. I added the bursts with Konad plate M5 and white polish, then added the bright blue rhinestone over one of them and then a little silver glitter with LA Colors Art Deco - Silver Glitter. I wanted to do it to all the nails, but decided to do it to just the ring finger first and see how it looked before doing anymore because I was afraid if I did it to all of them then it would be too much. I think this looks just right!

What do you think?
:c)
-Elaine

Happy Anniversary!

...To Lacquer Laine! Today my blog turns 1 year old! Can you believe it!?

I wanted to do a few things for my blog for it's anniversary. The first is that I wanted to finally show my face. I didn't upload a picture of myself to my profile when I started and after a little while I realized I like the faceless attribute of my blog. The anonymity was... nice. You guys were reading for the nails! Not my face. I really like this especially since I am typically the type to be in front of a camera as well as behind it and post tons of pictures of myself on other internet media outlets. I don't always look "nice" in my pictures... I actually look like a goofball most of the time. But either way, I love pictures and always have and I have thousands from every year since I was in middle school. Thank goodness for the digital age! Now they are all stored on my external drive. Saves space! Anyway, I love to take pics and have taken a few photography classes. I am always the unofficial photographer for gatherings and parties. I don't even go anywhere without a camera. Ever.

The second thing I wanted to do for today was feature a particular nail polish, which I am wearing, because I credit it with leading me to blogging. It's NYC - Chinatown from the In a New York Minute line. It may seem like an odd choice. It may seem more likely that I'd wear one of my top 20 shades, or something really fabulous like a Lippmann glitter, or something high end like RBL, but no. My $2 drugstore polish is my anniversary shade.

I have always had a thing for my nails. And I have loved to do them. And I have also always loved bizarre shades. I just always had a very controlled, small sized stash with interesting shades. Well about Thanksgiving/Christmastime 2008 I started picking more and more shades, and when I graduated and realized I would have full time work, I let the buying go completely full on and kept picking up more and more shades with no cap on what I bought. And I was happy about it! I did not know about nails blogs, or Makeup Alley, or discount NP e-tailers. I was just browsing in stores and ebay.

Well one day in the early spring last year we had an unusually warm day so I rode my bike to an out of the way Target. I spotted the whole new line of NYC polishes and immediately picked the must unique, interesting shade. This ended up being Chinatown. The story doesn't end here, though. There was only one bottle left, and the brush was broken off. I kept looking for it in drugstores and other Targets to no avail. Finally I turned to the internet to help. Well what are you going to find if you search "NYC Chinatown"?! The wrong Chinatown, that's for sure. After some manipulating with the words "NYC", "Chinatown", "nail polish" and whatever else I did, I had a match. It led me to Steph's Closet. A beauty blog. And mostly devoted to NP. And guess what? She had swatches of all the shades! This opened the door. Nail blogs? I surfed and surfed finding more and more nail blogs. This upped my hunting game drastically. I had so many new things to look for! And now I knew about e-tailers like TransDesign and Head2ToeBeauty. Whoa boy! Then I got a Konad set. Then I learned how to water marble. My head was spinning. My collection was growing. And one day I realized that I had so much I could share, I thought it would be awesome to start my own blog. That was one year ago.

Thanks Chinatown. :c)

Now back to the other piece of business. My face. I wanted to find a good pic that I looked "normal" in and that I took fairly recently to give you the best representation of me. Not that there is much variation in how I have looked over the past decade. I still have my picture on my license that I took when I was 16 and now I am 24 and look exactly the same!!!! I say "normal" because when I take pictures it is rare for me to just look straight at the camera, and smile nice and say "cheese". I am usually making some sort of face, or dancing or I look like I have had one too many cocktails (not that I had too many cocktails....haha). I would have loved to had a photo shoot with myself yesterday and take some pics but I have a ginormous pimple on my chin. Gross. So I found some other nice recent ones. Are you ready?!

This picture I actually took last week at the White Sox opener. A beer or two in, but I look alright!

The other shots I have are from February at the Chicago Auto Show. Yes February. March only has "maniac Elaine" in its pictures.

Me in something... maybe a Honda?

I NEED THIS NOW!!! Oh the giant wheels! Dream car...

Me and Mustang GT 500. OOooohh

Okay. Do you want a maniac picture? I am sure you are curious. I would be! I'll give you one of me from Madi Gras... with my face painted...





READY?

......................................






I told you! This is what I look like in most pictures. A lush. A doofus lush. HAHA! On the left is my friend Kate. I would have "smiley faced" her, but the mask she did on herself looked so cool I had to share!

Thank you so much for reading and supporting Lacquer Laine the blog and Laine the person for the past year. It means so much to me that my little blog has just kept growing and growing thanks to my readers. I really wanted to do a giveaway for my anniversary too, but I have so much going on with the move I really couldn't add one more thing to my to-do list. I'll do one soon, I promise!

Have a wonderful weekend!

NOTD: 1969

Hello and Happy Hump Day! I wanted to show you guys what I did with the Urban Decay - Summer of Love shades for my nails today.

This is 2 coats of Psychedelic Sister topped with one coat of Love Light. This is super pretty and doing a great job of taking my attention! I love the glints of green and pink from the shimmer and this red is so pretty and interesting! Not your typical red, that's for sure.

Have a great Wednesday! I'll be back soon with another post before the day is out!
-Elaine
:c)

NOTD: A Little Bit of Konad Goes a Long Way

Good morning everyone! I have a cute little manicure to show you today. I think it is really fitting for the gloomy, rainy weather here in Chicago today. I didn't mean for it to match the gray day, however. It just sort of worked out that way! April showers...

I was wearing Diamond Cosmetics - Serendipity yesterday and thought I would add something to it instead of redoing my nails for today. I added a bow with Konad plate M59 China Glaze - Awaken, China Glaze - Millennium and a dotting tool. It's just a nice little added touch to an already great mani.

Have a great day! Hope you have clear skies where you are!
:c)
-Elaine

Nails and Toes of the Day

Hello all!

I redid my nails AND toes last night and I am loving them both so much I thought I would share.

This my mani for today. All day yesterday I was planning on either painting with a green franken I made a while ago, or MAC's newest release, Blue India. Well I had a package waiting for me in the mail and it screamed, "Put me on now!!" This is OPI - DS Glamour and it is the prettiest damn thing I have ever seen! This is a medium to dark indigo holo. Oh so pretty! In low light it looks like denim but it the sun, watch out! This is on fire!


This is the pedi I did on myself. Cute, right? I think this is the first time I have put rhinestones on my toes! It's not too bad! This is a new shade from Diamond cosmetics I showed you here, Tranquility. I then stamped the flowers with Konad plate M21 and Konad special polish in white and green. Lastly I added the little green rhinestone to the center and added topcoat. So fun!

Have a wonderful day!
-Elaine
:c)

I Have Been Seduced Toxic-ly

I have to show you my nails of the day. And of yesterday. And probably tomorrow. I see no signs of removal in the near future! It's Misa - Toxic Seduction and it is from Misa's Poisoned Passion collection - Fall 2008. I am sure you have seen it before and maybe you have it, but I just have to gush because it is beautiful and it took me FOREVER to wear it! I swatched it once quickly for a a comparison shot I did a while back but that was about it. I just have too many colors to wear. My ratio of 'worn' to 'unworn' shades is outrageous.

Anyway, Toxic Seduction. Hmmm... Perfect? I love this! I first off love green. It is my favorite color, not just favorite polish color. Favorite overall color = green. And this is a good one! It is a vampy, dark green, mossy base packed with the same vampy, dark green shimmer. The shimmer in this is awesome too. It isn't a super twinkle, twinkle shimmer. It is a playing-it-cool shimmer. It's too cool for school, really. It's not such an obvious, bright crazy green. Typically when I think of green polish I think of bold, bright grass greens and kelly greens and they are awesome, but not always appropriate. This shade feels completely appropriate. I don't feel like my bosses would give it funny looks or someone would say "Wow. Green nails. Interesting." It's just polish as far as they're concerned, but to me it is love. It's seduction. I'm lost in it.

NOTD: Zoya Matte Velvet- Posh

Good Monday morning!! Thank you ladies for all your kind words about my flood fiasco. We have the new carpet down and things are getting better. There is still lots to do, but it doesn't smell anymore. I can walk around without shoes again. This was the first Monday morning going to work wasn't so bad!

Today I did my nails with a new gorgeous color I've been dying to wear: Zoya-Posh. She came during the flood and actually made me smile surprisingly! It looks great! One coat and out the door! Not bad. Mattes may be my in-a-hurry mani choice. And it matches the satiny finish of my red cell phone!
How about that?!

Drugstore Find Con't

Good evening! Sorry it has taken me some time to post. I would have sooner, but I had a bit of an incident at home. Our apartment flooded. Real bad. Dog food bowls and garbage cans were floating to other rooms. It was ridiculous. And now we have to rip out our carpet! Yay. This sucks so bad, you guys. :c( And it appears our dryer was damaged so I can't wash/dry any of the clothes or rugs or towels that got wet. We have done a lot so far. Our place is livable at least. We've had to move most everything out of the living room however to get ready to take up the carpet. But its late now and I don't think I can sleep, and my man is sleeping and I needed to feel happy so I used a new polish I bought right after the two Sally Hansen's I posted a few days ago. It's Blue Me Away! and it's very nice. It is bright and pretty and it's making me feel better. It's a creme and it applies very well. I did two coats here but honestly, I almost left it at one because it looked so good.
I have no sun of course so I am showing you this mani under a few different lights to help show the color. The one above is no flash, just a nearby lamp. It depicts it pretty well. It shows the polishes slight teal side.
This one is right under a regular old lightbulb. Pretty darn accurate, just not very bright.
Being that this is a very pigmented creme with a semi-thick creamy consistency, I thought it may work well for Konading and it turns out I was right! I stamped plate M69 over Sally Hansen-Green with Envy
Have a lovely weekend and wish me luck with my carpet!

NOTD: Del Sol Konadicure

(click for large size!)

Three posts in one day! Woo! This is my NOTD. I did it last night and it came out just as I hoped! It's so delicate I have it on for work today and it looks great.

I did 2 coats of my new Del Sol - Pretty In Pink, did the stamp with M57 and Konad SP- White, and added a coat of NYX-Sapphire for a little sparkle. The Del Sol is too fun! I was worried because the day started out cloudy and blah, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to enjoy the color change. But the sun came out for me, AND I moved to a new office today with a mega huge window so I get to enjoy the color change right at my desk! Yeah!