OPI - Pirates of the Caribbean

I know what you are thinking when you read that title. Is she flippin serious? That collection came out months ago! I know I know. I just kept putting this on the back burner and waiting and waiting and I am not quite sure what I was waiting for but here it is! :c)

I do need to apologize to you, my sweet loyal readers. I have become of a bit of an absentee blogger. I am working lots and lots of hours these days and it is very hard for me to find time to do the most simple activities in my life, let alone post. It is always on my mind, and I am still doing my nails and taking pictures, it's just hard to sit and do posts and edit pics as frequently as I would like :c(

Okay, enough with the sob story. Let's look at some swatches!

Mermaid's Tears

Steady As She Rose

Planks a Lot

Skull and Glossbones

Sparrow Me The Drama

Stranger Tides

Silver Shatter (over Mermaid's Tears)

Dr. Remedy Swatches and Review

Dr. Remedy is a new line of doctor inspired cosmetics dedicated to using clean, hypo-allergenic, anti-fungal ingredients. The birth child of two New-York based podiatrists, Dr. Adam Cirlincione and Dr. William Spielfogel, Dr Remedy's proves quintessentially perfect for any person looking to better the condition of her skin and nails.

Healing Heather Gray - This is a gray creme. This shade of gray is nice and neutral. Not too dark or light, not too warm or cool, it's very flattering and soothing.

Revive Ruby Red - This is a pretty, ruby red shimmer. This is pretty, but I felt like I probably had enough red shimmers so I gave this to my sister.

Desire Dark Brown - Yummy. This is a dark chocolate brown creme. This reminds me a lot of OPI - Suzi Loves Cowboys but it's a bit darker.

Dr. Remedy polishes are available on remedynails.com and are $16. There are other colors including blues and purples and they also have a base coat and cuticle treatment.

What do you think?
Elaine :c)

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.

OPI -Texas Spring 2011

For Spring/Summer this year OPI has released a set of 12 timeless shades perfect for the warm weather months to compliment fingers and toes. This is broken down into two distinct six-piece sets. The green/blue/gray/brown shades then the pinks and purples that are all a jelly finish that OPI is dubbing "Sorbet".

Don't Mess With OPI - This is a grass green creme. Is it similar to Jade Is The New Black? It's close. JITNB is more blue toned leaning toward that tennis court green and DMWOPI is more grass green. Although it is different, I would hope that if they did a green reme, or a green at all, they would do one that was more unique. The formula of this is a dream: super smooth. I got it on in two easy coats.

Austin-tatious Turquoise - This is a shimmery teal. Very beautiful. What I love about this is the base is a cool, jungle green sheer and then it's packed with the teal shimmer. Then to take it one more level, the shimmer has a purple duochrome. This polish is more complex than just teal shimmer. What I don't love about this is the formula. This is 4 coats.

I Vant To Be A-lone Star - I vant to be alone with this. I mean.... this is a hot color. This is a gorgeous clean silver with a pearly shimmer finish. Bright, clean, flattering, shimmery and just mesmerizing. This may be my fave from the whole set.

It's Totally Fort Worth It - Is it? If it's worth it is going to be different for everyone I suppose. This is a taupe-gray sheer with flecks of pinkish shimmer. I like the idea of this but it is very sheer which is a deal breaker for me. This was four coats. If I were to wear this for a full mani I would layer it over gray creme.

San Tan-tonio - haha! I have been dying to get this just for the name! I love it! I love the color of this too. I can't really think of color I have that looks like this. And if I do I don't like them on me. I actually like this one. And the formula rocks as well. Perfection.

Suzi Loves Cowboys - Oh my. This is delicious. It makes me want to eat my hands. I feel like my nails are little drops of dark chocolate.

And now for the sorbets>>>

Ya'll Come Back Ya Hear? - This is a bright, tangerine orange jelly. Very fun and happy, but it's a jelly so it's still got some visible nail line (VNL) after 4 coats.

Big Hair Big Nails - Red/orange jelly. This is a sort-of coral shade. I want to call it something else though. Maybe... guava? I was thinking guava and it hit me that it was like a jelly version of China Glaze - High Hopes, which is described as guava. So I guess that is a good description.

Do You Think I'm Tex-y? - This is a jelly raspberry. Clean and bright and decently pigmented so less VNL than some of the others.

Houston We Have A Purple - This is honestly pretty similar to DYTIT? but darker and I guess more purple than berry. It makes me think grape slush.

Guy Meets Gal-veston - This is a bright coral jelly. I really like this one. I can't wait to put this one on my toes.

Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em - This may be my favorite of the sorbet finishes. This is a hot pink jelly. I think it's the richest and most pigmented of the sorbets and just the most fun! I am a lover of hot, hot pinks like this though!

Overall this is a kick-ass collection. The non-sorbet polishes are gorgeous. You can't really go wrong with blue, green, gray and brown. As for the sorbets, I am pleased that although OPI gave us a whole lot of pinks and berries, they at least made them different. I love the squishy, juiciness of a good jelly. The color choices for all of these really made me think of sorbet and gelato. The only down side is that they take several coats, however that isn't anything new for jellies and when I want to wear a jelly, I deal with more than the usual two coats.

OPI - Texas is available now. Which ones are you going to get?!
:c)

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.

NYFW: Fashion's Night Out with Deborah Lippmann

Kick off the week at Fashion’s Night Out on September 10, 2010 at Barney’s New York from 6-10 pm with fashion manicurist Deborah Lippmann.

Stop by New York City’s iconic department store on Madison Avenue (at East 59^th Street) and receive personal nail consultations with Deborah Lippmann. She can help select which colors are best for your skin tone and pick out shades for any occasion. She can also provide tips and tricks on how to find the right nail shape for you and how to give yourself a professional quality manicure at home.

Her new fall colors – Bad Romance, a GaGa blackened fuchsia, and Across The Universe, a blazing blue and metallic green glam in sheerest navy – will be on display for sampling and for purchase.

The nail polish trend-maker styled Lady Gaga’s nails for Vanity Fair’s September cover with Waking Up In Vegas. The putty-licious gray crème is a super-sultry rendition of the popular grey-nail look.

The first time the pair met, Lippmann applied Ruby Red Slippers to the popstar’s nails—an encounter that inspired bold new addition to the Deborah Lippmann line, Bad Romance. Lippmann set out to capture all the elements of Gaga’s larger than life persona in a bottle and thought “What would Gaga do?” The result? Bad Romance—a moody, dark yet brilliantly provocative glitter polish. The chunky sequin shade reflects Gaga’s signature statement-making style and the bold message of the namesake song.

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!

Rebel Debutante Swatches - Spring 2010

Hello all! I went ahead and got myself the 7-piece set of one of Color Club's newest releases: The Rebel Debutante Collection. I didn't get the blue and neon green though. It's so weird they released a collection of 7 + 2. I know it's been done, but I couldn't resist swatching all of these for you. I can't let a whole collection (sort of) keep from being swatched and posted.

Who Are You Wearing? - I love shades like this! It's a soft, slightly gray, white creme. The only drawback was that I had to do 4 coats of it and it still looks a bit streaky.

High Society - This is a "greige" creme. I like the look of it a lot and it's a great alternative to Deborah Lippmann's Waking Up In Vegas which I compared here. It's on the thin side though and needed three coats.

Best Dressed List - I really liked the look of this tan in the bottle but I don't find it flattering on my nails. :c( Too bad. It reminds me of a baby deer. This is two coats.

Charity Ball - I was so excited to get this shade. I love an odd polish color and this one definitely is. Question was, though, is it going to be ugly-pretty or just plain ugly once I got it on? Well I can say that I love it on me! It's so odd but works. This is three coats.

Uptown Girl - Dusty, grayed purple. Always chic. This is two coats.

She's So Glam - I don't normally go for pinks and definitely not Barbie, bubblegum pinks like this, but I have to admit the truth: I really like my nails in this. This is three coats.

Ms. Socialite - And my favorite! This is a very rich, red sided purple creme and I love it! This swatch is two coats. It has the best application of all these shades too. Very smooth, pigmented and easy to apply.

So overall I can say that this isn't the most exciting collection ever. I wasn't jumping up and down over it's release like some collections, especially Color Club collections, but I do like almost all the shades. I think they make a nice addition to my collection and they are all pretty chic and work safe at the same time. The formula is on the thin side, but manageable.

What do you think?

Deborah Lippmann Spring 2010

Hey kids! I have swatches of the spring release from Deborah Lippmann for you today! I tried them out over the weekend and they are fabulous. I feel like they are sort of trendy which I would normally loathe, but I can't hate on pretty polish!

If you look closely at this bottle shot I am sure you noticed the "Lippmann Collection" has now changed to "Deborah Lippmann" but she still stuck with that pretty, elegant bottle. *whew*

I'm Not Innocent - I surprisingly really love this shade. I didn't think it would happen. I thought it would be really thin and sheer but it's not! It needed three coats (shown here) but that is fine for a light color, in my honest opinion. Especially if you love it! This is a true peach creme. PEACH. Not China Glaze - Peachy Keen peach. This is what I think of when I hear "peach". Very soft, not stark, feminine and pretty. I think this is a huge winner.

There may be shades that are close to this, but I don't own them. I found two in my collection that looked close: OPI - Samoan Sand and Color Club - Coastal Creme:

From left to right: Samoan Sand, I'm Not Innocent, Coastal Creme. All are shown with three coats. In the bottle Samoan Sand looked like a dead dupe but once I got it on I was way off. It's far more sheer and Coastal Creme is far more white and stark. Unique shade!

Waking Up In Vegas - This is a "greige" creme. It definitely fits in the greige (gray-beige) category that is popular right now. It dries rather matte though so it will need a top coat if you want it shiny. I wore this one for a full mani and loved it! I had the girls at the hair salon drooling. When I look at it I think of clay and I like that.

I bet you are thinking this isn't a totally unique shade and could find a dupe for it. Well I thought you might, so I went ahead and did some comparisons:

Sally Hansen - Wet Cement, Deborah Lippmann - Waking Up In Vegas, Essie - Chinchilly, Color Club - High Society

Well I threw in Wet Cement so you could see how WUIV compares to a true gray creme. I think Chinchilly and High Society are leaning more on the beige/brown side of this and are a bit darker. If you think they are close enough you're probably right. I am here to help you save some dough, not spend it! I know it's hard to swallow the $16 price tag for Lippmann. BUT.... and I am sorry... I found the application of Waking Up In Vegas a dream. It was so smooth and creamy and flawless in two coats and Chinchilly and High Society definitely need three as they are very thin. :c(

Final verdict: I love these shades :cO Do you need them? If you can swallow the price tag, sure but if not I would save my pennies for the summer/fall glitters that I have been hearing rumors about! I am very badly anticipating those!

These are available now and retail for $16 each.

What do you think?
-Elaine
:c)


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.

Claire's Mood Polish Swatches

Hello again! I have the coolest s*** to show you today! I have had so much fun with these new polishes that since Saturday, I have already worn all of them. I can't get enough. They are mood changing polishes from Claire's which are essentially just polishes that change with temperature. They have a "hot" color and a "cold" color.

Claire's Mood - Daring/Innocent, Happy/Earthy, Calm/Wild

Daring/Innocent - This is gray when cool and turns to a yellowish, beige cream when warm. I can imagine the hot color would be difficult to pull off and isn't necessarily "pretty" but I do still like it!

Happy/Earthy - This is a bright, grass green when cool and super bright, nearly neon, slightly green-yellow when hot. The times it was green were strange sometimes. In some lights it looked like a dusty green, like RBL - Diddy Mow. It wasn't like it looked darker in some lights because there wasn't the same amount of light; it was seriously like it was a completely different color all together. Weird. I don't think I have experienced anything like that before. I got these in the mail and when I opened them up in regular incandescent lighting I thought it was a dusty, gray green. Until I put it on and saw it in good light! Then it was like, "BAM! IN YO FACE!

Calm/Wild - This is a medium purple with silver shimmer when cold and bright pink with silver shimmer when hot. Very pretty either way! This baby is packed with shimmer!

The formula on these was very good. I did 2 coats with Daring/Innocent and Calm/Wild but had to pull out three for Happy/Earthy.

EDIT: I forgot to mention: these do not dry shiny. They dry rather flat/matte. All of my swatches have topcoat.

Before I tried these I was under the assumption that they would always look two-toned where the nail bed would be the warm color and the tips would be the cold color but I was wrong. They did look like that a lot, but they also just stayed the cold color a lot, probably because I generally have cold hands. And the weather is still on the cool side. I'm sure in the summer when it's sweltering, I will see the hot color more often. They change very easily regardless. It's a lot of fun. You're sitting on the couch will some wine all cuddled up with the dog and your man so they are warm. Then you go to the fridge to get a snack and then they are cold. You reach into the oven to get your chicken nuggets, they get warm. Then you wash a dish, they go to cold. Then you wash another dish now that the water warmed up, they are warm. You let the dog out, they are cold. You take a shower, they are warm. You run around doing your post shower activities, they get cold. You blow dry your hair, they get warm (you intentionally shoot the dryer at your nails for fun and let your man do it too!) There is no end with these things!! They are sooooo fun!

I like these so much better than the solar changers. The solar changers are fun too, don't get me wrong, but they're only fun if you have sun. You don't need sun to play with these and there are so many changes from moment to moment. I especially like washing my hands in public and then using the hand dryers and seeing people doing double takes of my nails. "Wait! They were just a different color...weren't they?" So much fun.

I must say that I don't think the wear on this is too impressive. I only wore Daring/Innocent for about half a day before I wanted to try out the next one so I didn't notice any wear with that one but I wore Happy/Earthy from Saturday night to last night (Monday) so that was about 48 hours, but I started to see some major chippage by the middle of the day yesterday. Not all the chips actually even chipped. Some spots were just lifting and getting ready to chip. But regardless, it should be said because I don't usually find any polish chippy, ever. It did make it over 24 hours though and I am currently wearing Calm/Wild and did it last night and it's flawless. We shall see. I don't really care because it is worth it!!

At one point I was gawking at them to the BF and I said "I wish all polish did this". Can you imagine it? Even he found them amusing. We were sitting on the couch together and I was holding a mug of tea. He looked at my hand and was like "Look at your nails! Now look at the level in your cup!" The mug was filled about half way and the fingers on the lower half of the mug where there was still hot tea were the warm color and the fingers higher up were the cool color. Everyone loves these!

What do you think? Have them? Want them? Love them? Hate them?
:c)

PS - These are available at Claire's stores now!