Pink Glitter Sammich

I was just checking in my blog post draft folder and I have probably close to 30 potential blog posts. Yikes! I'm so behind. I paint my nails, buy new things, play with makeup, take pictures... and never feel like editing them and writing up blog posts. I don't know why! I guess because I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say and I'll just bore everyone. I still don't know how I used to manage to post EVERY day.

It's been so long since I wore these polishes that my nails had time to grow out from being nubbins and be really long to go back to being nubbins (their current state). It's been so long I almost didn't remember what polishes i used. But luckily I took a picture to remind me.

First I did a base of a nude polish, Zoya Kennedy. Then a layer of Revlon Sparkling, a pink tinged base with pink hex glitter, and small pink and holo glitter. The second glitter layer was Sally Girl Later (I've also seen it called Chunky Gold Glitter) which I wore in this post. The last glitter layer was another Revlon polish- Starry Pink (also known as Popular) which is silver hex and smaller glitter in a milky pink base. I followed all this with a coat or two of Seche Vite.

Foie Gras and Gold Glitter Nails

 So, nail polish. I'm still obsessed with it. And it's only been a little over four years. I am so fickle when it comes to hobbies and tend to abandon them all pretty quickly. Nail polish is the one thing I've stuck with in my life. When I think about it, it's such a funny thing to have as a hobby, but I love it. :)

This mani caused the most compliments/comments I've ever gotten on my nails. I say comments and not just compliments because there are always those people who say things like, "Wow, that sure is bright" or "That glitter really stands out" and you know they absolutely HATE what you're wearing. Haha. I don't care though; it makes me happy!

This is one coat of Sally Girl Later (gold glitter) over 2 or 3 coats (can't remember!) of China Glaze Foie Gras.

The gold glitter! It's so blinding! Seriously though, if you have a Sally Beauty Supply near you, you need to pick up this little guy. Yes, the bottle is TINY, but at only 99 cents it's affordable to get an extra bottle or two. Or three. And this was only ONE COAT of the glitter. No fishing around for glitter or dabbing the glitter on for this one.

Finger Paints Warm He-Art-Ed Swatches

Ack, I'm so sleepy. I took a four hour "nap" yesterday and I'm still sleepy.

Finger Paints is a brand that is sold at Sally Beauty Supply. I think their polishes are fairly underrated, probably because of their limited availablitliy. I bought this one, even though I don't care much for neautrals, but I loved the coppery bronze shimmer with the cool taupe base. This one is really hard to get a good picture of. In the sun the shimmer turns gold and the base looks more greenish brown, but most of the time it looks more like the first picture. And the copper shimmer is a lot more visible in real life.  I really love this polish. This polish and my friend Maribeth have both contributed to my new appreciation for neutral polishes. The only thing is that this polish has perhaps the dumbest name ever, due to the dashes- Warm He-Art-Ed. For me, I want to read the last part as "He Farted." But that is because I have the sense of humor of a 11 year old boy.

Finger Paints Warm He-Art-Ed in the shade

Finger Paints Warm He-Art-Ed in the sun

Finger Paints Warm He-Art-Ed with flash

Available:

• Retails for $4.99 (or $4.49 with Sally Beauty Club Card) from Sally Beauty. You can purchase this color from their website here.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Recent Purchases and An Upcoming Giveaway

Hey guys!  Here is a rare double post from me.  Some days I don't feel like even thinking about writing blog posts and some days I feel like writing 500.  Today is one of those 500 days, but I'm going to restrain myself and settle for 2!

Oh, I made a Facebook page for the blog.  There isn't much going on over there at the moment, but if you want, you can head over and "Like" me- Lacquered, Painted, Polished on Facebook.

You may have guessed from "hint" in the title, but I have a giveaway coming up soon!  Soon as in, I'll be posting it in the morning!  I know I just had one a month ago, but I had a few things left to give away and I had such a fun time doing it last time I had to do another.  My boyfriend told me I shouldn't do one so soon after the last one. But I told him that I already had the stuff for it. He eventually just said, "Well, tell your friends that they can't be expecting a giveaway every month because I already have one woman (meaning me) spending all my money and I don't think I can afford any more."  He makes me laugh.  He pretends to be all crotchety, but he's really just a huge goofball.

Anyway, here are a few things I've bought recently.  Some of it may look a little familiar tomorrow when you see the giveaway, as a few things are meant for it.

These are mostly Finger Paints polishes I bought from Sally Beauty Supply.  Most of them were on clearance for $1.99.  I also couldn't resist picking up the turquoise China Glaze Crackle. The Sally Girl mini polish is for frankening.

I've had several cards with store credit for Sephora for the longest time.  I was saving them to buy the new MUFE liquid eyeliners but I got tired of waiting for my Sephora to stock them so I just bought other stuff.  I've been wanting the Lorac palette for the longest time but I knew that I would never use the bronzing luminizer tube.  So that is going in the giveaway.

So there ya go!  Keep an eye out for my giveaway in the morning!

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

EOTD: Pink Champagne and I Jump On The Low-Buy Bandwagon

 First, for those who just like the pictures, here is an EOTD I did using Sally Girl eye shadows that I swatched in this post.  I'm not sure why I decided to call it Pink Champagne.  I don't think I've ever drank champagne, much less pink champagne.  I'm not in a creative mood right now so this is what it's going to be called.  So there!

All eye shadows used are Sally Girl.  On the inner two-thirds of my eyelid I used Soft Pink and on the outer third I used Rose.  Above that I used Cinnamon widely in the crease with a small amount of Espresso in the crease to darken it a bit.  I used Gun Metal to highlight the inner corner and my brow bone.  For the upper liner I used Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Hazel eyes pencil in the pink color over black liner. Below my lower lashes I used Physician's Formula Glam Eyes gel liner from the green eyes trio in a silvery color.

And here is the ranty bit.  I have a few purchases I've already paid for coming in the mail and quite a bit more that I've bought previously still waiting to be posted about, but after those I'm putting myself on an extremely low-buy.  I'm saying low-buy instead of no-buy because I don't want to hate myself if I fail (and I probably will.  Just being realistic.).  The whole reason I started this blog after wanting to for about 2 years is because I recently acquired tons of free time.  While free time is always nice, I would rather be back at school, which is what I was doing before I had to drop my classes this semester.

About two and a half months ago I had to have emergency surgery that I am still currently recovering from.  Because of it I'm unable to either work or go to school.  I'm so lucky that I have insurance that was able to pay for the majority of my hospital bills. (And really, it is a bit of a miracle that I have insurance.  After not having it for over 6 years I finally got on it 2 months before my emergency.  If I hadn't have had insurance I would tried to tough it out through the pain, which would have killed me. Literally. So talk about good timing.)  But still, I owe the hospital over $1700. (And that's just from the hospital.  I still have to pay my doctor, the anesthesiologist, and the lab for my lab work.)  They told me my only options were to pay the balance in full and get a 20% discount or make payments over 2 years which would be $70 a month or so.  Yeah, I can't do either of those things.  So my bill will go to collections and eventually my credit will be ruined.

I live with my (fantabulastic) boyfriend and he has been supporting me while I go to school.  But he can't afford to pay for my millions of bills despite having a great job because he has his own hospital bills to pay for.  We're only 24 but both have had major surgeries in the past year.  We're so lucky, haha.

So yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do.  So needless to say, not very many makeup purchases on my horizon.  Whew, that was long!  Thanks to all of ya'll that made it to the end.

Thanks you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Underrated Product Alert- 99 cent Sally Girl Eye Shadows

I can't remember where I first heard someone rave about Sally Girl Eye shadow singles sold by Sally Beauty Supply.  At just $0.99 each ($0.94 with your Sally card) I was skeptical at the quality.  But I'm a sucker for a bargain, and if these turned out as good as I hoped, they really would be a bargain.

And let me tell ya, my initial purchase of 2 or 3 has since ballooned into my current collection- 22 eye shadows.  I'm about half way there to owning them all as Sally Beauty lists 43 different shades on their website.  The colors range from light lavender shimmers to matte teals to satiny chocolate browns. When Urban Decay's Naked palette came out I bought a bunch of Sally Girl neutrals just to satisfy my lemming for it (Well, I ended up buying the palette anyway, but these shadows are still awesome).

One my favorite things about the shadows is that each one has little plastic slits on the side so you can connect them together and create your own custom palette.  This is a really good idea, especially for someone like me who always seems to put her makeup on at the last moment.  You can put coordinating colors together in a palette for a quick, no-thought-required look.

One gripe is that the plastic packaging does feel a bit cheap and weightless.  This doesn't bother me too much a because one, they ARE only 99 cents each and two, I would much rather have an effective product in okay packaging than an okay product in beautiful packaging.  Also, some of the names are completely off for.  For example, Gun Metal is a pale cream color and Peach is a dark brown.  It's kind of odd, but doesn't really bother me either.

In general these shadows are very good quality for the price.  They tend to kick up a bit of power, but for the most part are pigmented and blend well.  All of the mattes have what looks like micro glitter in the pan, but it doesn't really show up much (if at all) in swatches or on the eyes.  Despite not being as silky as high end eye shadows, they still don't look chalky or powdery.

These are all swatched dry on bare skin (no primer or anything).

I separated the shadows into four palettes-neutrals, pinks and purples, blues, and greens.

Neutrals

The colors are:

• Gun Metal- pale cream satin shimmer
• Bronze- light brown shimmer
• Taupe- greyed-brown satin shimmer
• Cinnamon-  light reddish brown shimmer
• Auburn- coppery red shimmer
• Espresso- medium brown shimmer
• Peach- dark matte brown with sparse multicolored microglitter

From left: Gun Metal, Bronze, Taupe, Cinnamon, Auburn, Espresso, Peach

Pinks and Purples

 The colors are:

• Soft Pink- cool light pink frosty shimmer
• Rose- purple toned medium pink shimmer
• Lilac- pastel blue-toned purple matte with silver microglitter
• Caramel- pinky-purple shimmer with multicolored microglitter
• Burgundy- a mauve purple with pink shimmer
• Eggplant- dark muted purple satin shimmer

From left: Soft Pink, Rose, Lilac, Caramel, Burgundy, Eggplant

Blues

 The colors are:

• Mint- frosty pale blue shimmer
• Teal- turquoise blue shimmer with silver micro glitter
• Aqua- swimming pool blue matte
• Blue Marine- teal blue with gold shimmer
• Navy- navy blue matte with silver micro glitter

From left: Mint, Teal, Aqua, Blue Marine, Navy

Greens

 The colors are:

• Cream Cocoa- off white shimmer with a touch of green
• Olive- golden olive shimmer
• Green Apple- bright grassy green shimmer
• Glow Green- bright matte yellow-green with micro glitter

From left: Cream Cocoa, Olive, Green Apple, and Glow Green

Here is an eye look I did with a few of the mattes.

I used a base of Too Face Shadow Insurance.  This is Aqua on the inner half of the eyelid and Glow Green on the outer half.  The crease is Peach (which is actually a dark brown). Below my lower lashline I used both Peach and Glow Green.

I have zero experience with matte shadows and I found these fairly easy to work with.

Pros:

•  Pigmented
• Easy to blend
• Very inexpensive
• Good range of colors
• Easy to make your own custom palettes

Cons:

• Packaging feels a bit cheap and flimsy
• Shadows kick up quite a bit of powder

Available:

• Retail for $0.99 each (or $0.94 with Sally Card) at Sally Beauty Supply stores or on their website.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Wait, Where Did All My Money Go?! AKA Recent Hauls

Phew, trying to get new content for a blog is draining... my bank account!  I know buying makeup is a sacrifice I must make for the betterment of my blog and to benefit all you guys.  Because that is totally the only reason I buy makeup- for the blog. Yeah right!  But it does make a good excuse to buy more.  I tell my boyfriend, "But I NEED this... for the blog!"  And he usually gives in.  He's a good boy.

Here are some things I've bought this month.  Plan on seeing swatch pictures and all that good junk soon.  Oh, here is a link to my mall haul from last week.

I LOVE these Sally Girl eyeshadows.  I have about 25 now and I really like how you can connect them together to make your own palette.  Plus, at 94 cents with your Sally Card (99 cents without) these are a steal.

I bought these during HauteLook's (personal invitation link) Urban Decay sale.  Everything I bought was $5 each.

Out of everything this is what I'm most excited about- my Persephone Minerals order.  Seriously, I can't WAIT to show these eyeshadows; they are absolutely beautiful.  I'll probably make this my post for tomorrow.

And last but not least, Urban Decay's Naked palette and Stila Make Me Blush Cheek Color.  I can't believe my local Sephora had Naked in stock.  The SA said that they got in a shipment of 50! I've always been "meh" about the Naked palette but I finally swatched it myself and fell in love.  Plus, I printed out the Beauty Insider 15% off coupon and was able to use it in store.  Yay!  And, I've been wanting that Stila blush FOREVER.  Here is the printable 15% off coupon if anyone is interested.  Coupon is valid until April 21st.

Okay, I think it's time to stop spending money now!  I know this probably seems like a lot but i haven't bought anything for myself in a really long time and just went a little crazy.  A few night ago I bought Sleek's (a British drugstore makeup brand) Avoir La Peche collection from their website.  International shipping was a little steep at $13.50, but after seeing tons of swatches I had to have it!

Also, just because I can, here is a picture of my parents' beagles making out.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!