Royal Under Fire

 

 

 



Good Friday to all!! Well, hope everyone had a good week. So, this is my first true hurricane season down in Louisiana, so it's been a crazy week with Issac! I live in the northern part, so we just got some wind and rain but nothing serious, unlike the south and Mississippi. I work at a bank that operates out of Hammond, which if anyone paid attention was hit hard (it's not far from New Orleans). So, we have worked but the lower part of the state hasn't been. It's been weird watching it all unfold just a few hours south of us.

Anyways, that hasn't changed anything in my life, so now I bring you all the famous Max Factor Fantasy Fire, which is called the dupe for the also famous VHTF and VE (very expensive!) Clarins 230, as you can see from Chalkboard Nails. So, this will work for now...however, this polish was one of my biggest lemmings! So, I was SOOOO excited when I found it on ebay for a decent price. I ordered 2 mini bottles (which is the only size made...hmmm) from the UK. I couldn't wait to get it on!!!

 



 



 

So, for my look I wanted to use an undie that would bring out the beauty in the most awesome color, which I think is purple...so I used blue. My fav blue- Revlon Royal. It only took 1 coat of this bright bold color and 2 coats of Fantasy Fire to create this most beautiful array of colors I've had on my nails so far! I LOVE this look!! I think I saw this combo. You get a different look with whatever undie color you wear. But, whatever you choose to mix this polish with, it's beautiful and defintely works well with any color! My camera sucks and doesn't even begin to show off the beauty of this look!  If you have Fantasy Fire or Clarins 230 what combinations have you tried? Show links if you have them! I am anxious to try something different since this combination isn't anything new, but this is definitely my favorite look.

Summer Neon Comparisons

Hello to all! How's everyone's weekend going? I haven't done anything but clean and polish. I'm almost to the point where I'm ready to do something on the weekend ha. Next weekend is a concert somewhere in a field (from my understanding) by Frank Foster- his new album release concert.  He's this guy that my husband graduated high school with (mind you he had only 10 people in his graduating class). You can check him out on Facebook here. It's not really my kind of music, but he's very talented and a good friend of Allen's, so we enjoy watching him become famous. Pretty cool.

Anyways, since this summer has been all about neons I wanted to compare a few for you all. I seem to have collected quite a few yellow neon colors that I have been staring at on my shelves and thought I would try them side by side to compare.

                             

So I chose to compare China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard, Milani Totally 80's, Nina Ultra Pro Solar Flare, and Orly Glowstick. These are shown as they are on my nails from left to right.

First up is China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard. First of all, I loved this collection, as did most people I found. I loved all of the colors I have from this collection. This is def a neon in my eyes but doesn't have that complete semi-matte finish neons usually have, but rather an almost shimmer finish to it and only required 2 coats with no undie- like most other neons.

Milani Totally 80's is one that I bought but haven't tried until now. It did require some white undies and was very sheer and needed like 5 coats for an opaque look. This is actually a more green than yellow color. This was the only color that has a creme finish to it.

Nina Ultra Pro Solar Flare. I've yet to find this brand anywhere but Sally's. They did have a summer neon collection come out, but not much is said about this brand. I think it's just as good as any of the other brands found at Sallys (China Glaze, Orly, etc.) This was the only color I bought from this neon collection. I had it on my toes early summer and got a lot of compliments and it is a very bright, very much a neon. All the qualities- requires white undies, very sheer, so bright it hurts, semi-matte finish. 

Orly Glowstick and Solar Flare look exactly the same when side by side. Same qualities and a few dollars more in price. I love Orly but sometimes the application can be a little frustrating. The brush is long and thin and seems to make it harder to apply this neon since semi-mattes and mattes have a tendancy to dry quickly. I also used a white undie along with about 5 coats for an opaque look- even witht the white underneath. I still found the latter two polishes a bit streaky looking and wasn't quite pleased with the outcome.

So, there you are. 4 yellow neons from this summer. Just for review purposes I used Orly Bonder as basecoat and Seche Vite on top. I like all these colors and loved the neon polishes that were released this summer, but I'm ready for some fall colors, as I've already shown you with my previous review of Zoya. So, did anyone else like these colors or have any others they would add to this (other neon yellows)? Tell me what your favorite summer color was?

Well, as always I like to leave you with lil something. I was playingn around on YouTube this morning and found the "Yes Dance 2" from Rob Hoffman. I don't think it's as funny or original as the first, but nevertheless, it was a good laugh.

Never really seen a hot straight guy in a tutu...gotta watch!

Zoya NYFW Fall 2012

Hope everyone had a good week! So glad it's Friday! Yay. We have lil man and my boogie this weekend, so I swatched lots of polishes last weekend so I'm not trying to manage two kids, a dog, my husband, and my nails.

While making a quick trip to my local Ulta (an hour away lol) I managed to find the hidden Zoya Fall 2012 for NYFW. They didn't have the famous 3 polish Gloss Collection, which I suppose I'm just going to have to buy online, but all the other polishes were on sale. Since I'm on a tight budget I only got 2. It was so hard to choose, but I finally went with Evvie and FeiFei. I love how they come out with shimmers and cremes in the same collection. They are ALL awesome!

 



First is Evvie. I loved this color because it wasn't a gray and it wasn't a green, but an inbetween color that I think will be great for fall. I used Orly Bonder as my basecoat then 2 coats of Evvie and Seche Vite to finish off. 

 

Next, is FeiFei. I LOVE this color! This was my first choice! It's a pretty sheer color so I used Essie School of Hard Rocks as my undie color. I then used 2 coats of FeiFei and finished off with Seche Vite, of course. I thought this combo turned out beautifully and am currently wearing FeiFei again, but with another combination of undie colors. I am happy with my 2 choices but wish I could get the whole collection, but will have to settle with a couple at a time.

                              

I recently signed ourselves up on mint.com, which is a free budgeting website that is owned and created by Quicken, a well known budgeting software often used by businesses. Anyways, I have to budget my spending on polish and plan to only spend $40 a month on polish, which will be hard, but is necessary. I have decided that I will splurge on the Zoya Gloss Collection, so...that's half of my monthly nail budget...oh well.

Well, I hope all you lovely polish ladies have a wonderful weekend!! Happy Polishing!
Once again, I wanted to share this awesome, one of my most favortest videos EVER! Rob Hoffman's Dancerface. I've shown him before, but this one is one of the most hilarious things I've ever watched!

"THAT is Dancerface...the phe..nom...e..no..."

Fergie Gone Neon

Happy Monday to all! Hope everyone had a good weekend. School has started for most people. Addie starts 4th grade on Wednesday.  Her school is so small that she just moves next door. There's one teacher/class per grade. So, as you move up you just make a "U" around the school..ha. Kinda cute, I guess.

Well, I am working on another little quiz, but I'm going to make it harder...that was way to easy, but I was just seeing how it would work. It was a test run. I will try to have one in a couple of weeks.

So, I am still working on getting better at nail art or just stamping...that's not really nail art, I guess, but it's something I'm still having to work on. So, I thought I'd bring a little example that I conjured up ha. I did some tweaking on my cuticles (they got a little dry between swatches and I guess I didn't really notice until I started editing my pics...srry!)

I used Wet 'N Wild from Fergie's new line Glowstick. It is an almost neon green shimmer that applies easily with 2 coats. I say "almost neon" because neons have been so popular this year that to me true neons hurt your eyes when you see them such as Orly Glowstick, which I also have, but just haven't swatched. One of those that I saw it once and had to have kinda polish (hence the name...) This is still a pretty color and looks nice as a shimmer.

I used Orly Bonder as a base.. 2 coats of Glowstick. I used Color Club Revvvolution,which is my fav gray holo, as my stamping polish and one of my new stamps from Cheeky Monkey CH16. Then finished off with...yup, thick coat of Seche Vite. Have you tried any of the Fergie Line yet? If so, what's your favorite color? What do you think of them?

 I wanted to show you a vid of Fergie but wouldn't upload, so I am bringing you some Dave Chapelle...almost the same, right? Does the name Tyrone Biggums ring a bell to anyone?? Well, watch below if you want a good laugh:

Essie Action In Action

Well, hope everyone is having an awesome weekend! I'm just chilling at home watching "The Hunger Games" and having a nice drink with the hubby:) doesn't happen very often! Yet, I still can't resist the tempatation to blog! Here's why:
So, I had my little quiz last night and one of my winners asked for Essie Action.  I told her that I had the polish, but had tried to wear it once and it was so difficult and streaky that I gave up and almost threw it away. It has been sitting on my shelf until she now. So, I did a little googling reviews of Action...turns out it is a difficult polish but very pretty. So, I had to give it another try and some attention. This is what I got:

3 coats, no topcoat, direct sunlight

I have to say this has been the most difficult Essie polish I've ever "worked with". The brush didn't want to work with me, but I messed with it and it started to cooperate. Then the polish itself...well, I had to add a steel ball to the mixture and it seemed to help the streakiness. First, I have to say that in the bottle this color looks like a pastel, but there's nothing light about Action. This collection Poppi Razzi Summer 2012 for Essie brings 4 "neons" that have a semi-matte finish, which you can clearly see above. I didn't buy any of the other colors in this collections, but from what I read about the other colors, only one besides Action, is the only other polish that presents itself like a true neon.

Well, I started off with Orly Bonder, hoping this would help the polish stick to my nails. This is a very thin polish and is streaky and dries quickly. So, this is a tricky polish and needs precision and patience. It took 3 coats to get the polish a more opaque look. This is with no top coat, simply b/c I just loved the satin look this polish naturally gives! (again, I can't make my pictures bigger...what up Google??)

Next, I added a thin coat of Seche Vite (unlike my usual thick coat of goopy Seche).  The gloss added to the neon just make it sparkle...well, see for yourself:

Here it is with topcoat in the shade:

So, as with all neons, I wanted to try a white "undie" color, Circus Reverso, to see if it was any brighter. I didn't find that that it is, but I only applied 2 coats of Action instead of 3. But, here we are with no topcoat:

And in the shade, white undie, 2 coats, no topcoat:

Lastly with Seche Vite:

And in the shade:

So, my conclusion is that is a difficult polish, but if you have the patience and right tools, this can be a beautiful manicure! I love neons and this definitely is one of my favorites for the summer. I'm glad that Iris asked for this polish, because I don't know that I would have given it a second thought! Hope you found this helpful! Let me know what you think. And if you own this polish, how did it work out for you?

POLISH QUIZ WITH A PRIZE!

UPDATE UPDATE: SINCE I MESSED ON THE WAY TO COMMENT, THERE ARE 2 WINNERS. I COULDN'T DISMISS SINCE I HAD MESSED UP! SO SORRY! WELL, CONGRATS TO LETITIA AND IRIS!
So, I had sooo much fun doing this and I will do another one really soon!!!
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UPDATE: YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ACTUALLY COMMENT NOW! SORRY ABOUT THAT! I THOUGHT NO ONE LIKED THIS IDEA..HA. FIXED!!

Hello lovely polish lovers!! So...I've been doing some thinking on blogging and what it means to me. Long story short...I would like to bring a little more to the table than just pictures and opinions. So...to start off on what something new, I thought I would give a...quiz! School is starting, so what better way than to integrate learning into polish?? Now, most (or all) of you polish professionals won't have a hard time with my first quiz. Below are pictures and all you have to do is leave a comment with the correct in answers, in order. I don't care what the name of the polish is...just the brand. Easy, right? The first person with the correct answers gets one these polishes of their choice (not necessarily that particular color), but the brand as a prize! These's not catch other than in order to comment you have to be a follower. So, hope you like! This is something new, so if this is fun and successful then I'll do more like this!

 

These should be pretty easy...this time. Now, that last one is a bit old school and not available in stores....
Let me know if you like this! I had fun doing that and have more to come!! Have fun!

Just to clarify, the rules are:
1. You have to be a follower to comment.
2. List the  BRAND NAME in order.
3. Give your first name and email at the end of the comment.
4. The first person to list all correctly and follow the above rules wins one of these polishes of their choice.

*as always, should you have any questions, please email me at sassylacquer@hotmail.com

Fun With Studs and Bows

Hello Monday polish people! I  haven't really been doing much swatching lately. I don't know what's up with my body, but it's just been one thing afer another since we came in from vacation. I feel like I'm just getting a head cold now, but alas! It is not enough to keep me away from my polish! I went to the doctor this morning and have a sinus infection (so basically a cold), except they gave me 2 shots and 5 different meds. I'm also having a bad flareup with my eczema, so I'm a little doped up and still feel like crap, but I'm still here:)
I've been doing a lot of rearranging and organization, as I've been showing some pictures, trying to get all my polishes and things in the place where I want them, but I keep changing my mind! Damn freewill...ha.
Well, I am trying to incorrporate more nail art into my manis, but I'm still in the kindergarten phase haha. Please let me know how I can improve...whether it's my nails, the way I paint, ideas, my pictures I take...whatever!

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 So, I used Orly Bonder as my basecoat then used 2 coats of Cult Nails Spontaneous, a gorgeous purple with purple micro glitter, which I left as the top color on my ring finger. Then I used 1 coat of OPI Significant Other Color, which I think is a very sheer, beautiful duochrome of pink, green, and kind of this orangy-red, I guess more of a multi-chrome. I thought it would be a more pink color, but this is defintely a duochrome, where more than one color is the primary color, even though the bottle appears pink/purple.

I then tried to get crafty and use some studs I bought off of the Cult Nails website. I used the 2012 Cheeky Monkey plate CH1, which I got on Amazon on sale now for $15.99, 26 plates in all.  I used Konad's stamping polish in black for the bows. And of course I finish it off with a thick coat of Seche Vite.

(my blogger all of a sudden won't let me enlarge or add captions to my pictures).  Don't mind my middle finger (I "bleeped" it out because it's partly broken!) eep! Well, I feel like crap, so I'm going back to bed. Let me know what you think, and has anyone else been experincing problems with blogger, also? Well, toodles mah noodles! Hope everyone has a great week!