My first RBLs

Okay, so I had thus far resisted the lure of Rescue Beauty Lounge. BUT, several weeks ago they were taking pre-orders for re-releases of No More War and Scrangie. I HAD to do it. I ordered both. They were calling me.

Now... the formula on these IS just as good as everyone says. But I used Seche Vite as my topcoat with these and HOLY SHRINKAGE. I even wrapped my tips when I wore Scrangie (I NEVER wrap my tips, I'm WAY too lazy for that) and it didn't help. So when I wear either of these again, I'll try a different topcoat. Seche Vite seemed to shrink this worse than almost any other polish I've ever used.

So, of course now I want MORE RBLs. I don't, however, want to go broke, so I'll try to ease myself into a collection... one $18 bottle of polish at a time (and I usually think anything over $7ish is pricy).

Here is No More War. It's so ugly it's cute. This was two coats. I will say that the first coat was rather "eww," but it evened out beautifully on the second coat. Scrangie was the same way.


And here's Scrangie, the much-talked about polish named after the famous blogger. :D

Confetti

I seem to have amassed quite the collection of untried polishes. I need to work on that.

I found time this morning to do quick swatches of the Confetti polishes I picked up at CVS on Friday.

Honestly, I liked them. Two of the ones I bought were 3-coaters, but the other two were 2-coaters. It's not the greatest polish I've ever used, but it's worth the $1.99 pricetag and the color selection is decent.

Moonstruck. (2 coats)


Fashionista. (3 Coats)


My Favorite Martian. (3 Coats)


Smitten. (2 coats)

Spotted at CVS

Anyone ever seen these before??!



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Two (somewhat) similar blues

I wore these polishes, like, two days apart and didn't realize til I uploaded the pictures (and had a hell of a time telling them apart) how similar they are.

This is China Glaze Frostbite. True story -- my hubs went to Sally's with me several weeks ago and picked this one out for me. He's so precious! :) This was two coats, but it probably coulda used three.


And this is one of Orly's new polishes, Royal Navy. I wouldn't exactly call that base color "navy," but the blue-green shimmer in this is really gorgeous. I love it! It's what made me able to tell these two polishes apart.

Funky French

Ok, so I don't usually do french manicures of ANY kind. I can never seem to get the tips straight, so I just don't do it.

I caved and did this one a couple of weeks ago. I really liked it! I used Orly Liquid Vinyl for the tips, Essie Blushing Bride for the nailbeds, and covered it all up with some Seche Vite and Cover Girl City Lights topcoat.



We also finally got our wedding rings last week. Yes, we've been married for nearly two months, but we waited til the last damn minute to order our rings from http://www.etsy.com/shop/fabuluster. Like, seriously, we ordered them the week before our wedding. So we got married with the cheapest bands we could find and ordered these to replace them. I LOVE THEM! Mine has J's fingerprint on it and his has my fingerprint on it. :)

Storage and collection

Today I actually organized and counted my nail polishes. I only have 222. That's not TOO bad, at least, it's relatively not too bad. I mean, there are people out there with wayyy more than I have. But I'm dealing with limited space, and I DO destash every now and then.

I DID have them organized by color, but that was starting to be a little bit of a pain. Today I organized by brand. Which was also a pain, because there are a lot of brands I only have 1 or 2 of, so my last two drawers are kinda, uh, interesting.

First of all, this is what I keep my polishes in. It's a 3-drawer organizer you can find at Michael's. Apparently it's a knock-off of some Ikea organizer, but the closest Ikea is in Atlanta and while that's only like an hour or so away, I'm way lazy. There's a Michael's here. And they constantly have 40% off coupons. I got both of these for somewhere in the vicinity of $15 to $18 apiece. A worthy investment, I say!


Okay, so we have here some remover, some acetone, a bag with all my Konad/Fauxnad stuff in it, a UPS, a modem, and an external hard drive. Beauty and geekery! My favorite! Also, if you notice, on the right you can see one of my prized possessions -- my Sushi Cat mug I found at Goodwill for a buck. It was so inexplicable I HAD to have it.


Drawer 1: Treatments and topcoats and nail art, oh my. This drawer is never really organized. I have too much of this stuff. I also have the inability to ever finish a whole bottle of basecoat or topcoat. This is the result of that.


Drawer 2: Cotton balls, some mini sets, and untrieds.


Drawer 3: OPI, Essie, and Zoya. I'm not a huge OPI fan, although everyone else seems to looove them. Same with Essie (although I have started to realize that DARK Essie colors are way better than the pastel crap).


Drawer 4: China Glaze, Orly, and Finger Paints. I heart China Glaze and Orly. My favorites.


Drawer 5: Non-drugstore brands that I don't have very many of. We have Goldie, Del Sol, CHI, Tip Toe, Butter London, Kleancolor, Color Club, Rescue Beauty Lounge, Claire's, Icing, Nina Ultra Pro, Manglaze, random asian brand, Chanel, and LA Splash. Yes, it also makes me LOL to have Chanel and RBL in the same drawer as Kleancolor and Color Club. But what can you do?


Drawer 6: It's like CVS puked all over this drawer! All my drugstore brands. This is like, 1/4 Sally Hansen. Also have Rimmel, L'Oreal, Revlon, Maybelline, Wet N Wild, Petites, Cover Girl, blahblah... your normal drugstore fare.

How interesting

For the first time in ages, I decided to see what search terms were leading people to my blog. Obviously, most of them were nail or nail polish related. Here are the ones that made me laugh my ass off:

1. Only god can judge me now (that's right, because nail polish bloggers are HARDCORE, bitches)
2. Assnude (Yeah, one word. I have no idea either. I sort of want to use this term a LOT now. Assnude! Assnude! Assnude assnude assnude! Yeeeah!!! My inner 12-year-old is giggling her ass(nude) off now!)
3. Nasty toenails (I TOLD YOU my feet were jacked up!)
4. Butt ugly (Yeah. Butt ugly assnude.)
5. Lissa's Feet (Ok. I've had random strangers on Flickr add pictures of my feet to their favorites before. Usually these people are foot fetishists and go around adding random pictures of feet to their favorites on Flickr. This is just getting creepy. Plus, I have ugly feet.)
6. Lissa Rinna nude (Pretty sure they meant "Lisa." I bet they were sorely disappointed in this blog.)
7. What is apocalypse (Valid search, not sure why my blog shows up on the results... unless my blog is a sign of the apocalypse!)
8. Thick and nasty (Uhhhh... huh huhuhuhhhuhuh. Yeah. That's what SHE said.)
9. Lissa nude (REALLY hope those pics aren't on the internet!)
10. Only god can judge me in Chinese. (So people can judge you in other languages? KICK ASS!)
11. Black vulva (Again... I bet they were disappointed.)
12. Bubble butts galore (More like disappointment galore!)
13. Leprechaun couple (I need to meet these people.)
14. Butt ugly women (Well, opinions are like assholes... I may fit this category!)
15. Only god can judge me in Arabic (Ok, so no Chinese and no Arabic. I'll judge you in Italian, then.)
16. Bacon bubble gum (INTERESTING concept. I wanna try it!)


Okay, I was gonna go to 20, but really, it's a lot of variations of "only god can judge me," "bubble butts," and "leprechauns." WHAT THE HELL. There was also a "nude over 50" in there.

Sorry, I'm not over 50. YET. I will be 32 in 3.5 weeks. CRAP. True story -- I drank excessively the entire day when I turned 30 in 2008. So I woke up the morning of July 15, 2008 and vomited excessively. It was a particularly unpleasant welcome to my 30s, but I was NOT HAPPY about turning 30, not one bit. Now it's okay. I'm happier in my 30s than I ever was in my 20s, I'm more stable both emotionally and financially, and things are okay. But still, nobody likes to get older. :)

Weekly post!

Man, I seem to have so little free time lately. But I'm still taking pictures of my hands every day, the pictures are just slow in coming. :D My apologies!

Sooo, today I have my last Zoya I got from the exchange in APRIL (yeeeah, I realize it's nearly July). This is Freja, which I thought I'd like but really didn't. Also, I had middle nail issues. I smudged it the first time around, then I redid it really quickly, which caused MASSIVE BUBBLING. Check it out. Also, I'm not sure why my cuticles look so icky in this picture. They're looking pretty good right now, actually.


So then I hated the bubbling, but didn't want to take off the polish. So I put Sally Hansen HD in DVD on top and I fell IN LOOOOVE.


You can see the duochromey goodness in this pic. :)


This one too!


I really hate that DVD is so sheer. But I really love that it layers so well and turns any polish into sparkly gorgeousness!

Random swatchery

Yo! Sorry I haven't posted in a week. I've been, uh, busy. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. Busy.

Lately I've been on a search for the perfect coral and the perfect off-white polish. I have no idea why. Those aren't usually "my" colors, but to be honest, coral is totally growing on me.

Sooo... today I just have some photos of some random polishes. There is no rhyme nor reason to this, just stuff I've worn lately and have never posted here. Enjoy! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more... I'm backlogged once again!

So I finally got around to wearing the last Zoya Sparkle. This is Gilda. Color me underwhelmed. To be honest, the only colors from this collection I NEEDED were Charla, Ivanka, and Mimi. The pinks and reds were just meh.


OMG. This was another polish I didn't like at all. This is OPI Fiercely Fiona from the Shrek collection. Okay. A) Terrible color for me. B) Three icky coats. I put this on, took a picture, and immediately took it off. Like, before it dried. Thank god it was only a mini.


This was an unexpected surprise. First of all, it's orange. Second of all, it's Petites, which is hit or miss, but you can deal with a miss if it only cost $1.50, right? I LOVED this color on me. I think this is what set me off in search of the perfect coral. As you can see, despite the fact that this is called "Passion Orange," it's really more coral than straight orange. I think this was three coats.


This was my first attempt at finding the perfect off-white. This ain't it. This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Beige Blast. Three coats, I believe.


Beige Blast alone was boring as hell and a little too sheer, so I Hidden Treasure'd it up.

And another thing!

Just because I feel like all you people ever see of me is my hands...
(Well, this IS a nail blog, come on!)

Here's a pic of me and my husband... this was at the family dinner the night before we got hitched! Notice the major height difference!

Also, I've lost around ten pounds since then. My goal is thirty by the end of the summer. Maybe if I just buy nail polish instead of food... LOL!

Two posts in one night!

Glory be, what is this world coming to?!

So anyway, I've made friends with this chick at work. She calls me to fix her computer, I go to her office, fix her computer, and end up talking nail polish with her. It's a win-win situation. I've pointed her to my blog before, but I have no idea if she reads it regularly (if so, I'm talking about you!), and it seems rude to ask. :)

ANYWAY. She asked me what my favorite nail polish brands are, and I said, "Orly and China Glaze." She said, "Oooh! The Chinese beauty supply I go to has a TON of China Glaze!" I was, to say the least, INTRIGUED. However, I've yet to find the Asian beauty supply in town that has China Glaze. I've hit three of them so far, including the one she mentioned, and no China Glaze to be found in any of them. I DID, however, find Kleancolor -- a brand I'd seen mentioned on nail blogs but had never seen in person. And it was $1 a bottle. They also had some NYX Girls for $1 a bottle. So I grabbed some!

Here's what I got.
Kleancolor in Sapphire, Dark Brown, and Blood (which isn't exactly blood red, but who's counting), and NYX Girls in Wild.


I also picked up this Kleancolor topcoat in Aurora, which is a mix of iridescent tiny glitter, larger round glitter, and star-shaped glitter. I don't usually go for this kind of thing, but it was a buck.


Let me say -- Kleancolor is some GOOD STUFF. All of these except for the topcoat were pretty much opaque in one coat, but I did two for good measure. They also Konad (or Fauxnad) exceptionally well. I REALLY need to get back to that Beauty Supply and buy more of these. I mean, THEY'RE A DOLLAR. COME ON.

This is Sapphire. A bit frosty for my liking, but pretty nonetheless.


This is Sapphire with a topcoat of Aurora.


This is Dark Brown. Completely unoriginal, yet perfectly descriptive, name.


And this is Blood. I was expecting a much darker red from a polish named "Blood." This was the thinnest of the three -- after two coats you can still see the slightest bit of VNL. It still applied exceptionally well for a $1 polish.


However, NYX Girls Wild was the WINNER of this whole bunch. This color is a dusty blue-grey that leans way blue. I thought it was a blue-green duochrome at first, but it's not. It's a dusty blue with GOLD shimmer. I've never seen that combination before! It's way unique and I LOVE IT. This is two coats. I still had the slightest bit of VNL, so three coats may be better. I was lazy.


In this photo you can see the shimmer a little better.



So... I need to get myself back to the beauty supply store that sells these, no?

I'm through buying nail polish

I picked up a bottle of DVD from the new Sally Hansen HD display at CVS. It's official. I'm done. I wasn't gonna get it cause it was super sheer in the photos I'd seen online, but I got it anyway.

It is sheer, but it is MAGIC. I have tried it layered over a couple of different polishes. It transforms them into this foily, glittery blue/purple duochrome awesomeness.

Right now I have it layered over one coat of OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui and I seriously think I might just leave this on all week. I am in LOVE.

Here is a crappy iPhone photo. I'll take a real pic at some point, cause this isn't doing it justice at all!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More comparisons

You know you have a problem when you keep seeing dupish colors in your collection and yet you keep buying more nail polish. I'm hoarding for beauty armageddon.

Here are some taupes (and one brown).

From L to R:
Zoya Dea, Essie Mink Muffs, Orly Prince Charming, Sally Hansen Commander in Chic, and Maybelline Touch of Taupe.

They are in the same order on my hand, from thumb to pinky.


Dea is OBVIOUSLY way different from the rest. (One of these things is not like the others!) So here's a shot of just the four fingers.


As you can see, Mink Muffs and Prince Charming are similar, with Mink Muffs being just a titch darker. Commander in Chic is less brown and more grey. And Touch of Taupe is completely different, and I actually love this color for that reason. It's taupe without being just like every other taupe. And I got it for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. :)


Then I was looking at another mini from that Essie set, and thought that Angora Cardi looked a LOT like Butter London's Teddy Boy. They are quite similar in the bottle.


I just alternated fingers -- Angora Cardi is on my thumb, middle, and pinky, while Teddy Boy is on my ring and pointer fingers.


And in more direct lighting:


They are similar, but not exactly the same. Angora Cardi is more purple and a little deeper. I have no idea what to call this color. Mauve? I dunno. I do like it, even if it is a little boring.

So there you have it. I have one more post planned re: the asian beauty supply, but I probably won't post it til tomorrow or Saturday!