TMI Tag

I thought for Friday I would take another one of my favorite YouTube tags and type up the questions for a post.  I've seen this going around some of my favorite channels like crazy the past few weeks, and really wanted a shot at it.

QUESTIONS!

1: What are you wearing? – A green Hello Kitty shirt and orange pants.  They're polish making clothes, and I'm not planning on leaving the house today.

2: Ever been in love? – Not properly in love.  I've been in one sided love, which sucks.

3: Ever had a terrible breakup? –No, but then again, I’ve never really had a serious relationship.

4: How tall are you? -5’7”

5: How much do you weigh? – More than I should.

6: Any tattoos? - Nope, it's just not part of my personality.

7: Any piercings? Just my ears. I used to have a second hole in each ear, but they were uneven.  So I let them close up.

8: OTP? –Amy and Rory, Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Chuck and Blair.

9: Favourite show? -Since I'm adapting this tag for my blog, I feel I can change the rules a bit.  Ruling out design shows which are primarily what I watch on the actual television. My favorite American shows are Big Bang Theory and The Vampire Diaries. Most of my TV viewing is online and British.  Besides the obvious Doctor Who, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, and QI. I really love Miranda, and The IT Crowd.

10: Favourite bands? –Since first seeing this tag I've tried my hardest to come up with a favorite, and I'm coming up blank.  There are lots of bands that I like, but none that are my FAVORITE.  I really like Muse, System of a Down, Silverchair, Queens of the Stone Age, Bastille, Fall Out Boy, and Green Day just to name a few. I really like hard rock and alternative rock.

11: Something you miss? –Living in the UP.

12: Favourite song?- Again, I can't just pick one.  Right now my top six are- I see Fire- Ed Sheeran, Story of My Life- One Direction, Happy- Pharrell Williams, Things We Lost in the Fire- Bastille, Stay the Night- Zedd, and Hey Brother- Avicii

13: How old are you? - 27

14: Zodiac sign? -Gemini

15: Quality you look for in a partner? –Passion, Beliefs, Kindness, and Humor.

16: Favourite Quote? –I’m horrible with quotes.  There aren't any that really stick out to me as being one that I live my life to.

17: Favourite actor? –I've thought about this and even spent a little time in denial, but it has to be Benedict Cumberbatch.  Forget that he's gorgeous, the man's a chameleon.  He can change himself entirely depending on the roll.

18: Favourite color? – I love color, but I think I have to say cerulean blue or lilac. It used to be bright pink, but I've moved on.

19: Loud music or soft? –Loud unless I have a headache, then soft for sure.

20: Where do you go when you're sad? – I don’t so much go somewhere.  When I’m sad, I listen to music or watch a show that makes me laugh.  Usually it’s a QI or something similar that snaps me out of my sadness.

21: How long does it take you to shower? –Usually about 15 minutes.

22: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? –I've gotten myself down to about 30 minutes on a busy day with no makeup, and that’s from bed to door.  If there’s makeup involved about an hour.

23: Ever been in a physical fight? –No, and as strong as I am, I’m still a wimp.

24: Turn on?-Glasses, smelling great, and a foreign accent.

25: Turn off? –Rudeness and foolishness.

26: The reason I joined YouTube/ started blogging? – It all started with someone who wanted to review some of my products.  I watched the review and thought I could do better. So there you go. I started blogging because I wanted a place to write some random thoughts.  It wasn't until early 2013 that I got the idea to review polishes.  I had a bunch that I had collected and thought I should do something with them.

27: Fears? –Bees and tornadoes

28: Last thing that made you cry? – Stress, I got stressed out because I was tired.

29: Last time you said you loved someone? – I told my Bubby I loved him, and he answered with a resounding meow.

30: Meaning behind your YouTube/Blog Name? –It’s my brand name, and I thought what better way to get my name out there than to name all of my social media pages with it.  The one exception is my twitter.  I don't know what I was thinking when I used my name. The meaning behind the LynBDesigns name is that Lyn are the last three letters of my first name, B is my middle initial, and I design things. It actually started out when I was really into designing clothes.  I can't sew, but I loved to draw designs. I thought I needed a brand name and it's stuck since then.

31: Last book you read? –Miranda Hart’s Is it Just Me?

32: The book you're currently reading?- The Magician’s Nephew, An Abundance of Katherines, and a cheesy Christmas romance book.  I like to read a lot. 

33: Last show you watched? – Actual show, Being Human.  Online show, 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.  I'm a sucker for Jimmy Carr and Jon Richardson.

34: Last person you talked to? – My dad.

35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted? – That would be Jeremy, he's my nephew.

36: Favourite food? – I love food and can’t narrow it down to one.  So here are a few of my faves.  Pizza, hamburgers, mac and cheese, stroopwafel, and shortbread. Really just comfort food.

37: Place you want to visit?- It'll shock you, but London.  It's been a dream of mine to get there for almost 15 years.  I also want to go back to Chicago.  I went in November last time, and it wasn't ideal for photography what with the rain and darkness.  It got dark there at like 4pm.  

38: Last place you were? – On vacation, Chicago.  Physically, my bedroom/office.

39: Do you have a crush?- I tend to have celebrity crushes, and yes, there are many. I haven't had a crush on a real life person in ages.

40: Last time you kissed someone? – It’s been a really long time.  

41: Last time you were insulted? – Hmm, a couple weeks ago.  Running your own business can be a dangerous thing if you have a thin skin.

42: Favourite flavour of sweet? – Vanilla or caramel.

43: What instruments do you play?? – I’ve dabbled in clarinet and saxophone, but generally nothing.

44: Favourite piece of jewellery?- I have three favorite pieces, my heart bracelet (I never take it off), my whale ring from the aquarium, and my alligator earrings.

45: Last sport you played? – I’m not at all into sports, and I honestly can’t remember the last one I played.  Does bowling count?

46: Last song you sang? – Earlier while I was filling orders I was belting out show tunes and Evanesence. 

47: Favourite chat up line? -I don't have one...

48: Have you ever used it?-Since I don't have one, it's safe to say I've never used it.

49: Last time you hung out with anyone?- I'm too busy to hang out with people other than my family.  So, it's been a long time.

50: Who should answer these questions next?- Whoever wants to do this. 

Rue 21 Nail Deco

*Purchased with my own money.

There comes a point during the winter when I get tired of dark colors and wearing a coat.  Usually this happens in March, but this year it struck early. Like the last week of January early.  I don't know what caused it, but I need a trial separation from winter. Winter I love you, but I think we need to see other seasons. Cue the bright nail polish colors.

I've had this color for a while, but never really knew what to do with it.  I'm not really an orange person.  On night I NEEDED something bright and after a mega fail with Orly's Glowstick I wanted something that was opaque in fewer that five coats.  That brought me to this beauty, a neon orange with tiny holographic glitter, and pink shimmer.  I think, YES!

I haven't been into a Rue 21 for a while but the last time I was there neon polishes were everywhere.  This color was taunting me on every flat surface, there was no way I was leaving the store without it. So after months of sitting in my collection collecting dust I gave it a shot.  And I love it.  I loved it so much a photo of it made it's way onto my instagram.  My user name is @lynbdesigns if you're wondering.

On a slightly different note, I've found m watermark again.  It had gotten lost in the chaos that was my photo folder. Now that it's back, I feel more like a blogger.  I know, it's weird.

Back to the polish, I used just two coats of this to get full coverage.  That's a rarity for me.  I then wore it for three days, and was nervous to take it off.  I thought for sure there would be staining. Happily, there wasn't staining. Just nice normal colored nails. Yay!

Overall, this color might convert me to an orange lover.  I love the colon in general, but it's tricky for me to pull off on my nails.  I've been told by several people that I look good wearing darker orange colors of clothing, but I on't really see it. One thing I know for sure is that neons will be bug for me this spring, even if the rest of the world has moved on.

What's your opinion of neon polishes this year?

Maybelline Gilded Rose

*Purchased with my own money

You have no idea how much I LOVE this polish.  I just knew that it needed to be mine as soon as I saw swatches online. It's a shimmery slightly colorshifty golden base loaded with both gold and light pink hex shaped glitters.

I paired it with a nice nudey creme base and just let it do it's magic. I couldn't stop staring at my nails when I had them painted with this.  It's even inspired me to create a rose themed polish for an upcoming collection.  

 I did two coats over my aforementioned nude creme color.  You might be able to reach full coverage with this polish if you really work at it.  I know at two coats it was still quite sheer in spots, but I think it would look amazing on it's own.

 

Since I went on such a journey to find this color I'm not sure of it's availability.  First I looked online at Ulta and even on Ebay with no avail.  I finally wound up going to three different Walmart stores before I found it. If you can find this color I HIGHLY suggest picking one or maybe two up.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Sebastian

*Purchased with my own money

When this color came out a few months ago I fell in love. I saw the swatches in a YouTube video and knew immediately that I had to have it. My plan had been to get it while I was in Chicago on one of my many shopping trips.  Guess what didn't happen while I was in Chicago? Shopping, that's what.  I went to Whole Foods twice and fell in love with their pizza, but I didn't get a chance to go to Sephora. So, when I got back from Chicago I placed a massive Sephora order, and finally got my hands on Sebastian.

 I've wanted to try an OCC lip tar for ages, but they all seem too intense. I'm a natural lip kind of girl, and then I found their nail polishes.  It was an aha moment for sure. Sebastian is an interesting kind of tannish nude with a hint of silver shimmer.  It actually has a matching lip tar, and while I love natural lip colors, Sebastian is a bit grey for my liking. I can just see it now, showing up at work with grey lips.  My boss would laugh so hard.

If you can see my pinkie, it had a smudge. I didn't even know it was there until I edited the photos for this post. So please excuse the smudge. I did three coats, and even at that I could see a touch of nail line.  The polish was a bit thin, but very workable.

Since I took a break from blogging I was afraid that they had discontinued this color while I was away.  I'm happy to report you can get every color from the Moderncraft collection.  I really wish I were bold enough to pull off some of those lip tars. Black Metal Dahlia has bad me drooling since I saw it as well.

You can find OCC at Sephora and on the OCC website. Let me know what you think about the brand.  I'm loving some of their spring nail colors, but can't wrap my head around the bright blue lips.

On another note, I've been thinking about re launching my YouTube channel.  For those of you who don't know, I used to make videos about 3 years ago.  A lot has changed since then, but my love for makeup and DIY has only gotten more intense. I'm tempted to start with my nail polish favorites since I have a bit of experience in that area. Let me know what you think. Should I make videos again, or just stick to blogging?

Nail Rock Caviar

*Sent with my January Birch Box

Who's up for some hard to find, but easy to use caviar nail polish?  I know I am! Okay, not really, but on with the show.

I was a bit dubious of this when I got it in my Birch Box last month. I like the color well enough, but that caviar.  Ugh. I decided that I wanted to try new textures with my polishes this year and gave it a go. These are my results.

So a word about the color, it's a great green called Neptune Green.  I was afraid it would stain, so I used a couple base coats and took it off as soon as I was done swatching.  I didn't want to take any chances.  I get a bit paranoid about nail staining.

I have to admit, they did a great job of pairing colors for this.  I love the pink and teal beads for the caviar effect. It's easy to do, you just stick your wet nail in the little pot of beads provided. After you've done that you press the beads into your nail and you can even top it with a top coat.  I'll admit, I failed to read the instructions, so I didn't press the beads into the polish.  Even though I had a total directions fail, I knew I didn't like the beads.

I wish there were a way to get the look of caviar nails without the caviar aspect.  I love the mottled tiny dots look of my accent nail, but I can't stand the texture.  I'm getting better I can wear a liquid sand or pixie dust type polish like nobody's business, but after five minutes I was picking these beads off my nail.

I tried to find more information about Nail Rock, but everywhere I looked I came up dry.  Their website wouldn't load and nothing was working.  That made me a little upset.  If you're going to put a product into a sample box like Birch Box, it would be nice if there were accurate information given.  I don't think that's asking too much.  That being said, it could just be my internet connection, Lord knows it's not the best.  

Here's what I've found about this product. You can find it on the Birch Box website, and you can try your hand at loading their website.

How I Store My Nail Polish

*Not really sure how to label this one as there are some that were sent to me for review, I was gifted some, and of course I bought a ton of them.

It seems likes eons ago that I got the request for this post, but in reality it was only two weeks. When I came up with this idea I had wanted to get polish racks to hang on my walls, but I figured out that I needed seven to hold the majority of my collection and I just couldn't handle that cost.  In fact, I still can't handle that cost and I don't have that much wall space.  My solution was to use what I had and buy a cheap bookshelf from Walmart.  The total cost of my project was 16 dollars plus gas.

Here's a general overview of my bookshelf situation:

Top shelf: Indies separated into swatched on the left and unswatched on the right.  I know it's really technical.

Second Shelf: Mainstream polishes that are more expensive. OPI, China Glaze, Essie, butter London, and some others that I can't remember.

Third Shelf: These are all my store's prototypes and retired colors.  I had the photo boxes already and just put my polishes in there.  

Bottom Shelf: Books, these are overflow from my three other bookshelves in my room.  I love books as much as I love my polish.

As you can see, the bookshelf isn't really made to hold the weight of all of the polishes. When I got my bookshelf I wanted a way to store more polishes on each shelf and still have them be seen.  My solution small flat rate boxes.  I've used a mixture of recycled ones and new ones, and the best part is, they're free and easily re used for their original purpose.  For the first tier I taped them together with the short sides facing out.  For the second tier I taped them with the long edge facing out.  It created the perfect steps for my display and let me store a bunch more polish.

On my top shelf I used shelf gripper to hold the polishes in place as my Oscar likes to hop up on shelf and into the window above. He still knocks them over and when he knocks a bunch over I take it as a sign that I need to reorganize.  As you can see, these are my indies. They're not sorted more than into swatched and unswatched, and as I look at the photo I can see a couple that Oscar must have knocked over and they got put back by someone who didn't know they were already swatched.  Such is life.

For my last photo I have my most conventional storage option.  My Rite Aid was upgrading to a new Sinful Colors display and gave me this one.  It helped that I went to school with the manager's son. This is reserved to my cheap polishes and ones that I don't have a lot of.  The entire top shelf is Sinful Colors.  I can't help it, they're cheap, but really nice quality.  As you can see, I have room to grow.  Yay for that!

So, that's how I store my polishes.  If you see any you'd like me to blog about let me know. The wall color is Embellished Blue by Behr, just in case you were wondering.