Last Weekend's Haul

I received a coupon in the mail from Kohl's for $10 off, with no minimum purchase requirement. I had also seen in their sales circular that they carried the Elle brand of nail polish which is exclusive to Kohl's. Each bottle costs $10. They have two dozen colors of nail polish. I forgot to take a picture of a display, but click here to see a picture of the display on a post by kenseysimone in PurseForum. I saw many pretty colors when I went to Kohl's last Saturday, and I eliminated near dupes using my nail wheels where I have swatched all my nail polish colors. I chose a duochrome almost metallic wine color called Imperial Purple. It was FREE because of my coupon. Yay!

I did read online, though, that the Elle line of nail polishes was developed by Estée Lauder's BeautyBank division. Estée Lauder has resumed animal testing if what I read online is correct. So, for those of you who only want to purchase cruelty-free products, you may want to avoid buying these polishes. They are Big-Three Free, and they are available online on Kohl's website.

Then last Sunday I saw in the paper that Walgreens had the Sinful Colors polishes on sale for $.99 (down from the regular $1.99). I had been waiting for them to go on sale. I got Nail Junkie, Kissie, Irish Green, Call You Later, and Glass Pink.

Six new polishes last weekend, and just $5 plus tax. Yay!

I liked the Elle polish so much that I used it for my manicure the next day.  I have a review of the polish and comparisons to similar polishes I own here.

This is a photo of the side of the Elle bottle of Imperial Purple.

Another side shot showing the second prominent color that this duochrome flashes.

Sinful Colors Call You Later

Sinful Colors Glassy Pink

Sinful Colors Kissy

Sinful Colors Irish Green.  THIS IS *NOT* COLOR-ACCURATE.  The picture below of the bottom of the bottle is more color-accurate.  This is a very vivid neon-like green.

Sinful Colors Nail Junkie

Look at the duochrome on Imperial Purple!

Imperial Purple is so beautiful!

Here is the more color-accurate picture of Irish Green.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Nail Mail and Beauty Mail!

I left work a little early today because I was feeling ill, probably from the lunch today in honor of our administrative assistants for Administrative Assistant Appreciation Day.  It was just the best day for me to find nail mail waiting for me at home!  And, I got beauty mail, too!

The nail mail is very special because it's from a fellow blogger here in Florida, Jody of SoFlaJo.com, who also has her own indie line of polish.  She sent me a mini bottle of Blue Martini from her newest Happy Hour Collection for me to try.  Blue Martini is a blue jelly filled with multiple sizes of diamond glitter, short tinsel, and round holo glitters.  All of Jody's polish is made from natural pigments and glitters with bases free of Toluene, Formaldehyde, and DiButyl Pthalate.  Mini bottles are $5 on her site, and full sized bottles are $10.  Her shipping charge is low, too, and she has promotions at times where shipping is free!

This nail mail just means so much to me in so many ways.  This is the first time I have received a sample of polish to review!  I can't believe she gave me a bottle to review when my blog is so new, and I don't have anywhere near as many followers as a lot of other blogs. And, I was waiting until the end of the month (pay day) to place an order for some SoFlaJo polishes, and Blue Martini was my #1 choice!  How does Jody know me so well???  You can see the Happy Hour Collection here.  She has done an amazing job with pictures of swatches on a nail wheel of the polishes by themselves and also layered over other polishes.  Go look!!!  Her macro shots of the polish colors are so sharp and amazing!  I wasn't able to take pictures even half as good as hers of the Blue Martini polish.

I'll be buying Pink Lady and Grasshopper (and maybe some more from this collection) after payday.  This week is a no-blue-or-glitter-manicure week for me because of an important hearing tomorrow morning and a conference/seminar on Friday, but as soon as this week is over, I am going to do a manicure with Blue Martini, maybe layered over black. I've never worn black polish before, layered or alone.  Double firsts this weekend!

Here are some pictures of the awesome nail mail from Jody of SoFlaJo.com:

The bottle was very secure in bubble wrap and was sealed with bright and beautiful , colorful tape!

It's like she delivered a mini-party to me!  The bottle has a very pretty label, and it has a very nice color-coordinated ribbon around the handle.  And, there was party confetti and a magic wand in my favorite blue color again!  The wand has a hibiscus on it, I believe.  That's a very pretty flower we see a lot here in South Florida.  And, the confetti is awesome!  I scrapbook, so I will be using the confetti in a layout, maybe a layout about receiving this first polish ever to review!

I tried to get some bottle shots of the polish, but Jody's pictures on her website are much better.  Here's the best I could do with my iPhone's camera:

DIAMOND GLITTER!    Oooooh!!!

And, although the swatches on a nail wheel are better on Jody's website, here are some pictures I took at home, because, of course, even feeling ill, I couldn't wait to swatch the GORGEOUS bottle of happiness that Jody sent to me!  On top is the polish by itself, two coats, and below is just one coat of the polish over one coat of black.  Can you believe how gorgeous it is over black and how much glitter is packed in one coat?

Application was super-easy.  You don't have to worry about not getting enough glitter or having to fish for any particular shape of glitter in the bottle!  And, there is no problem with placement of the glitter; it goes on evenly with the first brush stroke.

I compared the Blue Martini polish to a few other polishes I own.  There were no dupes, and nothing is as dazzlingly beautiful, not even close.

Top left is Blue Martini over Wet N Wild Black Creme.  Top right is Blue Martini by itself.  Below that is Sinful Colors Kissy on the left and Nail Junkie on the right.

On the left, top to bottom, is Essie School of Hard Rocks, Revlon Radiant, and OPI Austin-Tatious Turquoise.  On the right is Blue Martini over black and by itself.  The closest polish I own is Revlon Radiant, and it is nowhere near as beautiful as Blue Martini. Revlon Radiant doesn't have diamond glitter, either!

And now for the Beauty Mail!  I can't believe I got Nail Mail *and* Beauty Mail all on the same day!  The beauty mail was the free Beauty Bag from Target that I mentioned in this post on April 6th, the day I ordered the free Beauty Bag.  The samples I got were different from the samples in the picture of the offer from Target, but they are very nice samples.  Here are some pictures of the Beauty Bag and its contents:

The bag is pretty, and it's nicely padded, so I will probably use it to transport nail polish when I go on trips.

On the upper-right of the picture above, that's a coupon booklet with discounts for beauty products at Target.  I looked through it, and there are some nice $1 off and $2 off coupons for brands like Cover Girl and Maybelline.  But then I got to a coupon that made me stop and pull out my camera again:

Oh my!!!  I may be a lover of nail polish, but I'm a magnetic polish junkie!!!!  I have 15 bottles of different magnetic polish from different brands.  I cannot wait to see these Sally Hansen magnetic polishes at a local store!  Please, if any of you see these polishes in your local stores, let me know where you spotted them!  Wow, these will be the first magnetic polishes available at my local Target, Walgreens and CVS stores!  Up until now, when I've asked salespeople whether they will be carrying any magnetic polish, I have had to explain to them what magnetic polish is because they had never even heard of such a thing, let alone heard of them planning to offer it in the future at their stores!

Oh, thank you so much, Jody, for your incredibly thoughtful, sweet, and very special to me nail mail!  I am no longer feeling sick, so your nice surprise cured me!  :-)

Thank you for reading my blog!

Elle Imperial Purple

Late last week I received a coupon in the mail for $10 off at Kohl's, no minimum purchase necessary.  I also saw that they had a new collection of polish that came out in April, and the polish cost $10 per bottle.  You see where I'm going with this.  FREE POLISH!!!  Yes, absolutely free.  Didn't have to pay anything out of pocket.  I ultimately chose a polish called Imperial Purple, a red-leaning purple metallic shimmer chameleon, and I have had the polish on since Sunday night, so three days now.

Here are some bottle shots I just took a few minutes ago.  They show the multichromatic aspect of the polish and are color-accurate.

Here it is in all its Imperial glory.  This is the color that the polish flashes when in bright sunlight and also indoors under bright light.  You can also see the shrinkage from my Seche Vite top coat on Sunday and the two coats of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat on top of that (one coat each morning on Monday and Tuesday).  I'll gladly pay the shrinkage price to have nearly instantly dry nails, though.  There's a little tip wear, too, from typing and housework.

You can see some of the multichromatic effect in the bottle.  The color on my nails is one of the colors that the polish flashes indoors.

My husband didn't think I should get this shade of polish because he thought I already had similar ones at home.  I showed him my nail wheels (I carry them in my purse always) with swatches of all my polishes.  I do have similar polishes, Hard Candy Beetle and Ludurana Aurora Boreal Fascinante, but they are different.  Here are some bottle comparison shots, left to right, Ludurana Aurora Boreal Fascinante, Elle Imperial Purple, and Hard Candy Beetle:

You can see that Fascinante and Beetle are more similar to each other than they are to Imperial Purple.

This is the picture where Imperial Purple and Beetle look most similar, showing their pink/purple flash.  Beetle and Fascinante are lighter colors than Imperial Purple.

The next few pictures of Imperial Purple were taken in my car yesterday afternoon, after a day of wear (typing).  I tried to get pictures in the sunlight, but in very direct sunlight my camera just couldn't capture the image of the polish with its blinding brilliance.  So, the next few photos are the best that I could do:

I just could not capture the metallic shimmer in my photos.

Nope, just not possible for me to capture the metallic shimmer.

This photo is in indirect sunlight in the car.  You can see a little of the shimmer near my cuticles.

Here you can see a brownish red flash that the polish also has.

The polish can be all the colors in this picture.

Still not able to capture the shimmer, but the polish does flash these pretty colors.

The shimmer in this polish is camera-shy, but it's the life of the party when the camera is not around.

The next two pictures were taken in my office.  You can see two aspects of the beautiful purple color of the polish in bright light.

This is my first post with pictures on which I used the iPhone's auto-enhance feature and also for some pictures the iPhone's crop feature.  I will keep trying to improve the quality of the pictures.

This was also my second time using a brush and acetone for cleanup.  I improved on my left hand, the one in the pictures, but that is because I used my dominant hand, my right hand, to clean up my left.  Using my left hand to clean up my right hand, I didn't do as well.  I hope to get better with more practice.

Getting back to the polish, I hardly ever buy a polish and wear it right away.  Something about this color just really appealed to me, and that's strange because I don't like purple polishes.  This one was just red or wine-colored enough, I guess.  I also needed to pick a relatively work-appropriate color to wear this week because I have court hearings this week and a conference/seminar to attend, too.  And, this not being blue or green or glitter or magnetic or nail art, it was safe enough, and yet there was enough hidden excitement to it with its multichromatic flashes to make me love it.  Yesterday I realized the color also reminded me of a favorite toy I had as a child, a little Matchbox-brand-type miniature car, a Jeep, with a little Lucy figure (from Snoopy) behind the wheel.  It was just like the little cars boys played with, but clearly made for girls.

I really loved the polish and at first thought it would be in my top 10 immediately.  Both in my nail wheel swatch and on me, the polish was opaque at one coat.  I used two coats, though, because I need a second coat to cover spots I miss with my first coat.

In the pictures above, I have a coat of Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth (discontinued), two coats of Imperial Purple, a coat of Seche Vite, and one or two coats of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

I had bubbling of the polish even with just one coat on my fingernails.  I didn't have bubbling on my nail wheel swatch, though, so I think the issue may be with the way my base coat interacted with the polish.  Surprisingly, the coat of Seche Vite made the bubbling disappear.  I did get shrinkage with the Seche Vite, though, as you can see in the pictures.

The polish doesn't dry immediately.  Normally, that's a good thing because I can go over my brush strokes when I mess up or miss a spot, but I'm not used to polish that doesn't dry right away, so I smudged a few nails on my right hand.  I do my right hand first with my left (non-dominant) hand, pinkie to thumb, and then I paint the nails on my left hand, again pinkie to thumb.  My left hand is the one I photograph usually.  Painting it last means that I get all my practice mistakes out of the way on my non-photographed hand.

Clean up was easy, and I had no staining from the polish.  I did get a crack in the polish in a day, but I use a top coat daily, so you can't even see the crack anymore.  Still, I get the feeling that this manicure won't last as long as my manicures usually last (7 to 10 days).

Isn't it a gorgeous color, though?

The Elle line of polishes is exclusive to Kohl's.  You can get them in the stores or online at Kohl's website.  The Elle line is made by Estee Lauder's BeautyBank, though, and from what I understand, Estee Lauder just resumed testing on animals.  I know that is a deal-breaker for a lot of nail polish lovers, so I wanted to let you know.  For now, I buy all brands of nail polish, but I may change my mind in the future as I learn more about the issue.

UPDATE 4-29-12:  The polish lasted a week without a chip.  I did have shrinkage from my quick-dry top coats, and I do have some tip wear, but it's pretty amazing that the polish held up without a chip, especially as I did laundry yesterday and cleaned the house for hours without gloves.  Below is a picture of the polish a week from when I did the manicure:

Thank you for reading my blog!

Blogger Appreciation Award, Versatile Blogger Award, and A-Z Getting to Know Me

I got the Blogger Appreciation Award on this post from Miranda of the Splat (by Arfblat) blog.  THANK YOU, MIRANDA!  If you follow the link to her post, you can see the other blogs she gave the award to.  Looking at these lists of blogs is a fun way to discover great new blogs to follow.  I knew I had to follow Miranda's blog when I read her tag line below her blog title:  "I like to paint my nails, play with my puppy, and be silly from time to time."  She must be my long-lost twin!!!!

The Rules for the Blogger Appreciation Award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award with their blog link in your post.
2. Answer the Four Questions below.
3. Give the Blogger Appreciation Award to other bloggers.
4. Let the blogger know you awarded them (through comments, tweets, e-mails, etc.)

The Questions:

1. How long have you been blogging?
2. What are 1-2 reasons why you started blogging?
3. What types of blogs do you like to follow/read?
4. What is 1 thing you would like to improve on as a blogger/on your blog?

The Answers:

1. I have been blogging since Saturday, March 31, 2012, so, that's exactly 22 days. Yikes, it hasn't even been a month yet!
2. I started blogging to share information about nail polishes so that other people might benefit from my experience.  I like to read other blog posts on the nail polish I'm about to use.  Sometimes I get tips that way about taking a little more care with application or not using a particular top coat with that polish, etc.  I would like to be able to provide that kind of helpful information to other people who love nail polish.  Another big reason is to be able to connect with other people who love nail polish and to be able to discuss nail polish with them . . . so my husband can get a little break from my nail polish obsession.  ;-)
3. I follow nail polish blogs, of course.  I also follow a few blogs on technology for lawyers, more specifically iPhone technology as best used by lawyers.  I also follow some scrapbooking blogs.
4. I would like to improve my photos.  I just today figured out what a fellow blogger meant when she said she uses auto-enhance on her iPhone pictures.  I would like to have more time so that I could learn more about photo editing.  I don't know if I ever will, though, because it's hard enough to find the time to work out of the home and in the home and also find time to blog . . . not to mention reading other bloggers' posts, which I do first every day!!

The Bloggers:

1. Elfleidy's Stuff  I *love* her blog.  She's from Florida, too, like me.  She is very active on her blog.  Her pictures and her nails are SOOOO PRETTY!!!  She's AMAZING with nail art.  She has 40 official GFC followers.
2. College Polished  Kim lives in Florida, like me.  And, she's a full-time law student, so she will be a lawyer, like me!  And, she has a little doggie, a little Maltese!  I not only love Kim's blog, but she's super-sweet, and she has been very supportive of my brand new little blog.  Her blog is just so fun to read and so easy to read, and she posts great pictures.  Kim has over 130 followers.  She has some giveaways going on, too.
3. Glitter Puke!  #1, what a name for a nail polish junkie's blog!  Leah is another South Florida gal, like me.  I love reading her blog.  You can tell she is such a good person.  I have loved her recent posts to bring awareness to Autism this month.  She has 80 followers.  She has a giveaway going on.
4. Fierce Makeup and Nails  Norelis is also from Florida.  She *and* her manicures are fun and upbeat, and she has lots of pretty photos on her blog!  She has almost 1,000 followers, so if you're not already one of them, you might want to see what 1,000 other people love by checking out her blog.
5. Lace & Lacquers  Lacey writes a great blog, very informative and thorough and fun to read, with lots of frequent posts.  She is *not* from Florida; she's in South Carolina.  She has been very supportive of me as a new blogger, and she has been very helpful to me and given me great tips.  She has almost 140 followers!
6. Absolutely Cee  Cee writes another great blog, with frequent posts.  And, she is AMAZING with absolutely adorable nail art.  She should change her blog name from Absolutely Cee to Absolutely Adorable Nail Art.  ;-)   She is *not* from Florida.  She is from New York, but she has in-laws in Florida, and I have in-laws in New York!  Maybe one day we'll get to meet!  She has been another daily source of support for me with my new blog.  She has almost 100 official followers through GFC!  Go be her 100th follower!!!
7. Denny's Digits  Oh my gosh, Victoria has the prettiest nails, and she uses beautiful indie polishes, and I love her haul posts!  She is *not* from Florida.  She is from Wisconsin!  She has almost 50 official followers through GFC.  

VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD:

In addition to getting the Blogger Appreciation Award from Miranda (a name I love, BTW--I would have named a daughter Miranda had I had children), I also got the Versatile Blogger Award from Victoria of Denny's Digits.  THANK YOU, VICTORIA!  If you go look at her Versatile Blogger Award post you could find other blogs you have been missing out on!  I have already gotten the Versatile Blogger Award recently from Cee of Absolutely Cee, so I will just link to my post where you can see the rules, 7 things about me, and the 10 bloggers to whom I already gave the award.

A-Z GETTING TO KNOW ME:

Miranda did this cool A-Z post here on her Splat (by Arfblat) blog, and Cee saw it and did a similar post here on her Absolutely Cee blog, and I thought it would be fun to do.  By now probably a lot more of my fellow bloggers have done a similar post, but I'm behind on reading blog posts. I get about 60 to 100 blog posts per day on the blogs I follow, and I read every single one of the posts.  I have 179 posts still unread right now, though.  I also have comments on my own blog posts that I want to answer, too!  But, for now, here is my A-Z:

A is for Age:  42

B is for Breakfast today:  Bagel sandwich with scrambled eggs and bacon and cheese with a side of home potatoes.

C is for current Craving:  Strawberry twizzlers.  I often crave what I *don't* have in the house.

D is for Dinner tonight:  Pizza with sausage and onions and extra cheese.

E is for favorite type of Exercise:  Walking with or playing with our dogs.

F is for irrational Fear:  I have many of those, but I guess fear of insects is the most irrational as I am a bazillion times their size and could squash them , . . if I was not irrationally afraid of them.

G is for Goals that you have for yourself:  to lose weight and get back to exercising with Wii programs for the Wii Balance Board.

H is for Hometown:  Miami, Florida.

I is for something Important:  My husband and our doggies.

J is for current favorite Jam:  Hmmm.  I had to think there for a while.  Tom Jones, "If I Only Knew."  If anybody else reading this has heard that song, please let me know.  Heck, if anyone reading this blog knows who Tom Jones is, let me know.  ;-)

K is for Kids:  I have two furbabies.  They are Chinese crested hairless dogs.  (We have allergies).

L is for ???:  I don't see L in the other two A-Z posts I've read, but for me it's for Lacquer-Loving Lawyer, the name of my blog!

M is for most recent way you spent Money:  Me, personally, on nail polish this morning at Walgreens.

N is for something you need: TO WIN THE LOTTERY so my husband and I can retire!

O is for Occupation:  Lawyer, but you knew that already.  ;-)

P is for Pet Peeve: Injustice.  I just am deeply bothered by injustice.

Q is for Quote:  "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Plato?

R is for Random fact about you:  Spanish was my first language. I learned English around the 4th grade.

S is for the most random place(s) you have ever Slept:  I get up in the middle of the night a lot and go sleep on the couch . . . under an A/C vent.  I get hot flashes.  :-(

T is for favorite Treat:  Cheesy fries with bacon and ranch dressing dip on the side.

U is for something that makes you Unique:  every single trait of mine is one shared by many, but I figure the best chance of anything unique would be the particular combination of all my traits.

V is for your favorite Vegetable:  I love potatoes.

W is for today's Workout:  Does walking around Walgreens looking at nail polish count?

X is for X-rays you've had:  chest x-rays, neck x-rays, back x-rays, maybe even pelvic, so I guess that's my entire torso!!!  No x-rays of extremities, I don't think.

Y is for Yesterday's highlight:  Having an avocado boba at the local Vietnamese restaurant.

Z is for your time Zone:  Eastern Standard Time.

I look forward to reading other bloggers' A-Z Getting to Know Me posts!

Thank you for reading my blog!

I have 20 Followers!

Wow!  I am so excited about having 20 followers!  I'm almost up to 1,000 page views, too.  I will have to have my first giveaway soon!  I have to figure out how to use Rafflecopter and do some research on shipping nail polish.  If any of you other bloggers who have already done giveaways have any tips, I would be very grateful to you if you would share them with me so that I can have a good giveaway.  I already have the giveaway prize, too.  This is very exciting for me!  THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY BLOG!

China Glaze Magnetix Magnetic Polish in Pull Me Close

This polish has immediately made it into my top 10 favorite polishes.  It's a very pretty grayish light blue.  The application was very easy, the dry time was fast, the magnet worked well, and the brush--thin and long--was perfect for me.  The polish dried shiny and was crazy shiny with Seche Vite on top.  What I loved the most is that unlike a lot of my other polishes, this polish did not have any shrinkage from either the Seche Vite or my daily coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.  The cleanup was very easy and minimal, too.  This was the first time I used the E.L.F. Concealer Brush I bought on vacation to clean up the stray nail polish with acetone.

They sell the polish at Sally Beauty, but I bought mine online through a discount e-tailer for a very low price before my local Sally Beauty stores started to stock the magnetic polish.

It was difficult to capture the color in my photos, so I'm including lots of photos.  In the photos the polish looks a lot more blue, even in the bottle, and less gray than it is IRL.  In the pictures below, I'm originally wearing one coat of Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth (discontinued), two or so coats of China Glaze Magnetix Pull Me Close, and a coat of Seche Vite.  Each day I added a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.  I have pictures below with one to four days' wear.  Thanks to the lack of top coat shrinkage, I didn't have to do any patch jobs with the polish like I do with so many other of my manicures.  I've been typing a lot and cleaning, and the polish is wearing really well.

These first pictures are just one coat of the polish, no magnetic effect applied yet, no cleanup, and I wasn't able to capture how pretty the color is on its own, but I tried!

The next few pictures were taken in my office the next day.  The one with the dark background is under my desk using flash.  The blue is much bluer than IRL in these pictures.

These next few pictures were taken in my car after a day of wear:

I took the next few pictures in the car on Tuesday, after two days' worth of wear.  I did a little more cleanup practice with a brush and acetone that morning, too.

I took the next few pictures yesterday, after three days of wear.

These last pictures with the bottle I took a few minutes ago, so after four days of wear.  The color is actually lighter or more gray IRL.  I feel like the daily extra top coats may have blurred the magnetic effect a little, but I'm not sure.

UPDATE:  the picture below is after a week's worth of wear on the manicure, just before I was about to take it off and paint my nails a new color.  There is barely any tip wear, and it's still shiny and looks O.K.  Sorry about the bathroom lighting; it's not the best lighting, that's for sure, right?

To see more pictures and read another review of this polish, go here to a recent post on Elfleidy's blog.  She is another nail polish blogger here in Florida.  I read her review just a few days before I did my own manicure with the polish.  Her pictures are so nice!

On a different topic, I've gotten some awards from other bloggers and saw a very cool A-Z post that a lot of the bloggers I follow are doing, and I am working on my own post about the awards and with my A-Z information and will have that for you soon!  This first week back at work after coming back from vacation has gone by very quickly, and I've been busier, so I haven't had as much time to blog.

Thank you for reading my blog!