Essie PAMA

Occasionally I have an extremely strong craving for red nail polish. This is a little odd, as I'm not a huge fan of red polish most of the time. Sometimes though, I just really really want to wear red. Weird, huh. Lately I've been reaching for one of two colors when this has happened - Essie's PAMA or Essie's Tomboy No More. Yesterday I chose PAMA.

You won't find PAMA in the regular Essie collection or in any of the seasonal collections. This is because PAMA is the result of a deal Essie had with a pomegrante liquor company. The deal was that people could get a free bottle of Essie if they signed up for newsletters and stuff from this pomegranate place. It was a pretty sweet deal. :)

PAMA is a very nice darkish red creme. It isn't boring old bright red, but it's not dark enough to be a vamp. My Twilight obsessed coworker did liken it to 'vampire blood' however. The application was pretty good, not too streaky. These pictures are 3 coats with a top coat of Seche Vite.

China Glaze Summer Days

All Lacquered Up has pictures of China Glaze's Summer 2009 collection! I want them all!
http://www.alllacqueredup.com/2009/01/china-glaze-summer-days.html

China Glaze Tempest - meh

Last weekend I was extremely stressed out and decided that I needed a new nail polish in order to feel better. :) I popped into my Sally Beauty Supply hoping to score a polish from China Glaze's Bahama Blue collection, even though they've come out with Romantique since then, as my SBS is a little slow on the whole new collection thing. Alas, the Bahama Blues were gone and Romantique was taking their place. Romantique isn't really my thing so I decided to pick a polish from China Glaze's regular collection. That was hard ... there were so many pretty colors! Eventually I settled on Tempest, a bluey purpley color that looked very awesome and intruiging. Once on the nail though, I realized that Tempest has a pearl finish. I'm not a huge fan of pearl finishes ... I don't know why, they just irritate me. So poop. Also the application was not so great, I had to use 4 coats to get a good opacity and no streaks. Plus I wanted the color to be more blue than it is. This picture makes it look bluer than it is, it's really like a dark periwinkle that learns towards the purple side. So I'm not really digging this color. Its not that I hate it or anything, its just kind of blah.

Sally Hansen Salon Line Shooting Star

Sally Hansen's Shooting Star is a lovely silver. It does not have a typical metallic finish but is more sparkly than otherwise. I will be wearing this during my trip to San Antonio this weekend. I thought that silver would be a good college visiting color - fun enough to make me happy, yet not too out there in case the Trinity people are offended by unusual nail polish. I know that this is a rather silly thing to worry about as the Trinity people probably won't even notice my nails, but then, who said I wasn't silly?

My nail polish ADD

After only 2 days of wearing Essie's Big Spender I got bored with my manicure. I didn't want to actually do a whole other manicure though, as that takes time and I feel wasteful if I do something like that, so I decided to add some purple sparkles on top of my exisiting color. I bought 2 of these little BonBon polishes a few days ago when on a rare jaunt to Walmart ... I didn't even know these things existed. Since they were only $0.98, I had to buy a few. :) Aren't they cute?

Anywho, I slapped 2 coats of the purple one on my nails and voila! Different nails. The glitter is kind of weird, it reminds me of little pieces of sparkly hair, but that's ok, it looks cool on my nail. ;)

The picuture on the left was taken in the sunlight, and the picture on the right was taken indoors.

Essie Big Spender

After the horror of Misa's Runway Diva (which stayed on my nails a record 24 hours) I decided to put on a color I greatly enjoy. Big Spender is from Essie's 2008 Fall Collection and is a beautiful bright magenta creme.This is the one pink from my nail polish stash that I wear very regularly ... I adore it!

p.s. I apologize for my horrible cuticles! They need some love. :(

OPI South Beach Collection Spring/Summer 2009

Click on the links below for pictures from Katie at e-polish blog. When I saw the picture above I was a little disappointed, as these are rather boring looking. However after seeing them on e-polish blog I'm starting to like this collection. I want Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot, Overexposed in South Beach, Done Out in Deco, and Miami Beet. Whether I will actually get all of those is another question. :S

http://e-polishblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/opi-south-beach-collection-springsummer.html

http://e-polishblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/opi-south-beach-collection-springsummer_09.html

Misa Runway Diva - disappointment

Do not be fooled by these pictures. In these pictures Runway Diva looks halfway decent, even pretty. In real life Runway Diva is ugly. Like butt ugly. After I applied it my sister, Jessica, told me, "You put on an ugly mauve!" And she was right. Oh how happy I am that this nail polish was free. Oh how sad I am that I chose this color and not any of Misa's other colors ... such as a color that was actually pretty.

Laughter

For a laugh check out www.scrangie.com/2008/12/glam-is-lie.html. I laughed hysterically, then called my sister to come over and read, and laughed again. I'm sorry if y'all don't think it's funny, but it's extremely funny to me. :)

Essie Damsel in a Dress

Damsel in a Dress is from Essie's Winter collection of this year. I bought both Sexy Divide and Damsel in a Dress from this collection. Even though I was super excited about Sexy Divide when I bought the two colors, I think I actually like Damsel in a Dress more. It is just such a fantastically wonderful color! :) Whenever I wear it I stare at my hands constantly.

The color is very dark purple, I've heard it described as currant, which is pretty accurate as it's got quite a bit of red in it. But in my mind this is almost brown-ish. Not really brown mind you, just a hint of brown. DINAD is not quite a cream, there is very subtle warm shimmer in it. I LOVE it. Oo, almost forgot. This stuff lasts very well, this is my third day of wear and I only have one teensy baby chip. No tip wear or anything. Yay!

Essie Spring 2009

I have info on Essie's Spring 2009 collection! :) I love Essie's stuff, they come out with some really pretty colors. Even though they don't do a lot of the really cool daring stuff like China Glaze there are always 1 or 2 colors in each collection that I must have.


• Eternal Optimist – Spiced Tea Rose


• Flawless – Cherry Blossom Pink


• Status Symbol – Feisty Hot Pink


• One of a Kind – Poppy Red Kiss


• Lacquered Up – Red Hot Crimson


• Mesmerize – Royal va-va Blue

I'm loving Mezmerize, Status Symbol and One of a Kind. Check out Scrangie's blog (http://www.scrangie.com/2009/01/finally-review-essie-spring-2009.html) for pictures.

Cherries in the Snow, quite literally

I was in CVS a few months ago with my sister looking at the Revlon lipsticks and trying to decide which color to get. Being the red-lover that she is, my sister told me to buy Cherries in the Snow. I did.

It's really quite alarming on my pale, pale skin tone, but it's fun to wear anyways. I thought the color was really pretty and would be awesome as a nail polish so I was very happy to find out that it was, in fact, a nail polish as well.

I'd describe this color as a very creamy red creme. But it's an odd red. I was trying to think of a word to describe the color and all I could come up with was raspberry. In some lights it looks like a dark bright pink (I don't want to say fuschia or magenta, it's redder than that) and in others it is a normal bright red. I tried to capture that quality in the two pictures above. Hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about so I don't sound like an idiot.

My problem with this polish is it's chippiness. I applied this on Friday and I had 2 chips yesterday. And it's not like I didn't use a top coat ... I used Seche Vite (which is pretty much the Holy Grail of top coats)! I wasn't working either, which is one thing that often gives me chips. Shelfing books is hard on your nails, weird as it sounds. Anyways, my consensus on Revlon Cherries in the Snow is that it is a fun bright color but doesn't wear well.

p.s. I forgot to explain the post title. I'm so pale that the effect of this bright nail polish against my white skin looks like the name of the polish. ;)

Misa Toxic Seduction

Here we have a color I was very happy about, Misa's Toxic Seduction from their Poisoned Passion collection. (btw, isn't that a funny name?) I ordered it online after learning that Misa was having a fancy nail deal and got this polish for free (except for s&h, :( )! It is a really fantastic foresty green with kind of a greyish quality but also has some goldy sparkles. I lurve it. This stuff applied pretty well, I used 3 coats to get it streak-free, but then that's how many I have to use for Essie. The first picture is indoors, the second picture is in the sunlight. Aren't you happy to see how much better they look than the last post? ;)

First post!

Hello there. I have decided that my nail polish fanaticism has reached a point where a blog is necessary. And so here I am . The Great Lacquer Hunt will mostly be NOTDs (nail of the day) as I am too poor to go about buying entire collections of nail polish at once! However, I do generally buy a couple of polishes from new collections by Essie, OPI, China Glaze, etc. I love 'weird' colors, such as blue, purple and green. Pinks are iffy for me ... I only have a couple. It's not that I don't like pink, it's just that lots of pinks are too sheer and sweet and I'm not into sheer and sweet. ;)
Anyways, the picture I've posted is a bad picture. I'm very sorry about the quality of this picture, but I took it before I figured out how to manipulate my camera and get good nail pictures. My cousin Katie let me borrow this color from her while my family was in Wisconsin last week. I'd never worn orange before (too scared) and so was happy to try it on without having to buy it. hehe. This is the Claire's brand and I do not remember the color name. That's really bad of me, I know, and I tried to look it up on Claire's website. However, Claire's apparently does not put color names on it's website. Boo! But it's the only orange Claire's has!
I liked this color and it applied well. The chip factor was pretty decent, especially since I went to a waterpark while wearing it and only got a couple of chips. I probly won't buy it, but it was fun to wear.