Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I don't remember who/what/where told me about this polish, but I wish I could hug them.  If you need major bling-tastic sparkle goodness on your fingertips, Joss In A Violet Haze is your girl. indoor CF lighting IAVH in the bottle is suuuuuper sparkly silver, with a hint of pink flash and a hefty dollop of holographic zaps.  In lower light, you can tell that this is a little sheer, but IRL, the intensity of the shimmer was more than adequate to make this visually opaque.  I'm wearing 2 coats here, which i thought was perfectly adequate.  3 coats would probably get you to true opacity, and 1 very light coat would make a pretty amazing topper.  About 75% of the pics i took ended up showing only the silver +/- some of the rainbow goodness. outdoor, direct sunlight That rainbow goodness is there A LOT, though.  Those sunlight pics give you the idea on how much shiny sparkle is there, but they stop short of the true amount of rainbows and flash...

When I Love Nail Polish releases new multichromes, they also tend to release the previous batch of multichromes with a bit of holo sparkle added in.  I now have a couple of them that I wasn't too keen on solo, but snapped right up with rainbows.  Here's My Little Glacier Holo. indoor CF lighting My Little Glacier didn't wow me from the first release of multichromes, mostly due to it being so much more subtle than the likes of Birefringence.  I'm quite pleased with the holo-fied version, though of course you could get a similar look with a bit of Northern Lights topcoat on the regular version. outdoor, direct sunlight MLG is most often a steely cold blue that can look gunmetal-silver in some lights.  The holo is a lightly scattered rainbow sparkle, not a POW linear flame.  This one doesn't shift a whole lot, in that tilting my nails into a cascade didn't result in me being able to catch the changes.  There's just a little shift to the edges, w...

Now that the big inspection is over (we rocked out), it's time for AS NOT PROFESSIONAL AS POSSIBLE happening on these here nails, and my picks from the rest of CrowsToes' 9 Realms collection (after  Huginn & Muninn  arrived solo earlier) just showed up! Bifrost, named for the rainbow bridge that connects Asgard & Midgard, is as rainbow-y as its namesake.  It's tons of microglitter packed into a completely clear base.  It's sheer enough to be used as a layering polish, but builds easily to an opaque look without needing undies. one coat, indoor CF lighting, no clean-up At one coat, you can see straight through this - it's only a moderate peppering of itty bitty glittery bits, and the base is totally clear - if you wanted to try this over any other color, it wouldn't change the base shade.  I did a swatch over black, and I don't think it's better, just a different look. The rest of the pics are all 2 coats, which was enough to look opa...

The big inspection in the lab is this week, so though there's most certainly not a polish dress code in science-land, I'm still toning things down to a properly professional level for the next few days. Orly Nite Owl is a soft, creamy, mushroom-taupe that's packed with fine silver microflakes - the particles are bigger than what i typically call "shimmer", but they're definitely not as distinctive as typical flakies.  We could argue semantics as to whether these particles would more technically be "microglitter", but since removal was as easy as application, neither streaks nor scrubbing happened here, i'm going with microflakes.  LOL the polish lingo! outdoor, direct sunlight Nite Owl dries fairly shiny, but is of course amped by a good topcoat. indoor CF lighting In some lights, the silver is more obvious, but the base taupe color is never overwhelmed by shimmer.  This is always a calm, neutral color, that just happens to have...

There's a big inspection coming up soon, so though I'm not on the schedule until later in the week, juuust in case things change, I'm in pink instead of POW for now.  I revisited a polish I liked when I first tried it, but haven't taken pics of, Sinful Colors Dancing Nails. indoor CF lighting, no cleanup Dancing Nails is a warm light red with a subtle copperish or brownish undertone in the bottle.  IMHO, it dries a bit lighter and is pink rather than light red, and I kinda wish that the bottle color was truer.  It's a shimmery foil look, without frosty brushstrokes, and covers opaquely in 2 coats.  It wore about average, with some edgewear and a couple of minor chips showing up by the 3rd day. outdoor, indirect afternoon sunlight It's pretty on its own, but for a little bit of subversive sparkle, I added a layer of Darling Diva's Dangerous Driver. indoor, indirect sunlight D4 is a topcoat that's both holographic and has the red-to-gree...

Takko Lacquer has the kind of culty following that means you better be on their mailing list or else ready to pounce swiftly when Llarowe restocks.  Suzy says e-battles like this satisfies our primordial hunter-gatherer urges, and I think she may be right.  Regardless of how you feel about restock frenzy, it's undeniable that Takko's creator has an eye for color that's the cause of all the craziness. Electric Apple NYC is her ode to the city, and it's utterly sophisticated enough to cut it in the big apple.  The base is an aaaaaalmost too-thick flat, concrete grey  crème  (i'll be thinning it just a very small amount before using it again).  The concrete can pick up a slightly bluish to olive tint, but it's overall an edgy version of neutral.  The starkness of concrete-colored nails is brightened right on up by gold shimmer. It dries a little satiny, so I think a super glossy topcoat is a must. Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  The...

Every time I Love Nail Polish releases another batch of their multichromes, my wallet is going to take a little hit.  Their formula is always great, but the colors .  OMG, I die with these super shifters.  From the most recent release, my first pick was Masquerade.  Ginormously pic-heavy post in 3...2...1... Masquerade is a very sheer charcoal grey base packed with magically light-bending pigment that goes from a rich magenta-wine color, through a lighter pink, then bronze, on its way to a vibrantly saturated emerald green.  It took 3 coats to get it to visible opacity, of the sort where it can look sheer if you hold your fingernails up to the light.  Though it's most often a metallic to slightly brush-strokey chrome, in the sunlight, a sparkly shimmer peeks out. outdoor, bright sunlight The color range can be soft and muted: ok, "muted" for something like this, anyway.  outdoor, overcast/cloudy day It can be mostly wine: outdoor, ...

For 2014, Enchanted Polish is doing "a year of mysteries" - they hold a pre-order monthly (or maybe every other month for 2 at a time) for this month's mystery polish.  You have no idea what you're going to get, but plenty of people wade into the restock fray to jump on the preorder list to get one.  When I happened to catch notice that the preorder was about to happen for March, my birthday month, I jumped right in. March 2014 is a vibrant chartreuse linear holo.  Like both of the other Enchanteds I have, the formula is about perfect - 2 coats to reasonable opacity (I thought it was just the littlest bit sheer on the edges), minimal cleanup needed, flawlessly self-leveling, and super shiny even before the top coat. It's crazy bright, and super holo. still rainbow on overcast days The gold flash in the center of the holo flame is prominent in all bright light, and helps make this definitely a very yellow-leaning green. At some angles, it ev...