Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Sometimes, after dark and funky colors, you need a grownup sort of palate cleanser.  But, sheesh, never TOO grownup!  Brazilian brand Up Colors' Mutação was just what I needed. outdoor, bright sunlight Mutação (in english, Mutation) is a warm, autumn-in-a-bottle, subtle duochrome that gently shifts from copper to brown to red. outdoor, bright sunlight It's only this orangey-copper in very bright, direct sunlight; much more often it was a lightly shimmery earthy red/brown. indirect, window-filtered sunlight In most indoor lighting, it had a somewhat softer and cooler rosy color. indoor CF lighting The duochrome isn't super strong, with this being more the sort of polish where you notice your nails are colored a little differently when you're in different rooms of the house, rather than one where you're constantly tilting the nails to check out the shifts.  This was the only pic where I got more than one color at once: copper to the left, r...

I needed a little summertime flash for my pedicure last week, and loved Sinful Colors I Love You enough that a matching mani was definitely in order. bright CF lighting Though the brightness of this light makes the polish look a little too sheer, it's definitely the most color-accurate of any pics I got - yep, the dreaded purple camera curse strikes again.  ILY is a rich purple jelly that tips over to the red/plum rather than the blue/royal purple side of things. indirect, overcast light It's got a lovely glassy shine even before topcoat, and is packed with a pretty, almost glassfleck sort of sparkle. indirect, overcast light The shimmer here is very subtly duochromatic, shifting from purple to bronze (which didn't change the overall appearance of the color). I brushed on a gradient of Sinful's Nail Junkie for accent nails - since both polishes are jellies, no sponge was needed.  I painted the nail tip in one color, then the base in the other, mak...

The first pic of ILNP's ultrachrome flakie polishes was of one or two coats of Supernova over bare nails - the rainbow that was captured in that picture was enough to send any polish hound's heart skipping a few beats.  Instead of trying to layer it, then, I went with 3 coats solo. indoor, CF lighting Supernova is an extremely shifty blue- or green-based flakie in a clear base.  Though I partially dabbed the 2nd and 3rd coats for maximum density (without sponging it on), when dry this was nicely flat and needed only one layer of topcoat for perfect smoothness.  The bottle shot above captures all the possible colors for this chameleon - blue, green, aqua, purple, fuchsia, and gold. outdoor, overcast light It's absolutely one of those glance at your fingers all the time sort of colors, and it needs no special tricks to show off 2 or 3 colors at once, either on camera or IRL. bright sunlight bright sunlight This is about as close as I could get to reca...

Like plenty of super pretty things that I end up kicking myself over later, CrowsToes' Vanaheim has been sitting around my house untried for a year now. indoor CF lighting Vanaheim, home of the nature and fertility spirits/gods of Norse mythology, inspired this super-shifty glittery green as part of the 2014 9 Realms collection.  In most lighting, this is a richly saturated emerald green, with twinkling near-metallic gold flashes. outdoor, direct bright sunlight indoor CF lighting With a tilt of the hands, though, this quickly shifts down to a mossy, silvery grey-green. outdoor, indirect bright sunlight And up through teal to blue and all the way to purple. oooooh that blue glimmer! purple much clearer IRL An up-close look at the bottle gives a glimpse at all the colors possible therein. indirect, filtered sunlight It is, of course, the glittery blinged-out version of  Hey Jude , which explains why I liked it so very much. indoor, br...

Since Rico Suave wore so well but I was ready for a switch-up, it was a great basecoat for another go-round with Sally Hansen's Sterling Silver. I've  posted on  these  polishes before , and though the formula is tricky, these are fantastic.  This pic was in overcast, rainy, watery daylight, so let me assure you the mirror-shine silver was BLINDING in the sun.  Nice! ~Michelle

Continuing my apparently permanent trend to let things languish untried fo-evah in my stash, here's one from the winter 2013 Llarowe collection, Rico Suave. bright CF lighting The faded denim look means that Rico is in fact kinda gender-neutral as polish goes (I could totally see a guy wearing this).  The base is a dusky, slightly smoky blue that's packed with 2 kinds of very fine shimmer - both metallic gold dust, and the Clarins 230/Fantasy Fire-type red-to-green shifting pigment that I'm a permanent sucker for.  The first coat is very sheer and somewhat streaky, but it's flawlessly opaque and self-leveling by just the 2nd coat. indirect overcast sunlight In low lighting, the gold + smoky blue looks overall like a teal polish, but in some angled light, the subtly grey tint to the base gives it a deeper, dusky look.  Most of the time when viewed straight on, the color-shifting pigment shows up as tiny red embers sparkling out from between the gold dust. ...

I'm a sucker for anything that's 2 things at once, especially when one of those things is green, so Game Over from Cadillacquer's 2014 Halloween collection was an easy must-have. indirect late afternoon sunlight Game Over is a creamy, rich brown, sprinkled with a jade green shimmer and a lightly sparkly holo.  It's the sort of holo particle that lines up to an arc of rainbow flame, yet is far more delicate than most of the in-your-face things you'd actually call "linear" holos. direct bright sunlight The pale green shimmer translates as both a silvery dusting in the shade, and as a bold flash in bright light. shady morning sunlight bright, direct sunlight Though the bottle looks distinctly mahogany brown (i.e., with a decided reddish cast to it - both bottle pics are accurate to what it looks like), on the nail it was a medium brown without any warm tones.  In shady light, it looked a bit too...um...organic for my tastes.  In bright l...

Try as I might with a cheaper version , I could never quite shake the lemming of what appears to be the most perfectest of all green crèmes, OPI Damone Roberts 1968. indoor CF lighting DR1968 is a ever so slightly dusty, ever so slightly greyed green crème.  It's described as having "a hint of brown that makes it wearable for all skin tones," and while I wouldn't ever call this BROWN per se, the color was absolutely as flattering as a pastel green can be.  I'm kinda pinky in some of these pics, but this polish never lobster-handed me IRL. indirect, shady sunlight Let's just get this out of the way:  the formula is a beast.  It's a little too runny, and simultaneously a little too thick.  3 coats are utterly required to get the streakiness to even out, and when the light glazed across the tops of my nails, I could still see an irregular texture to things even post-top coat.  Cleanup, thankfully, was super easy and very forgiving. indirect, s...

With my recent vintage OPI duochrome haul, I've been trying to talk myself out of a ridiculous ebay splurge for one of my lemmings, OPI La Boheme.  While I'm sure I have a  better than the original  alternative already, the pondering has reminded me of another candidate for Boheme-ish awesomeness, the even more difficult to get a hold of Ninja Polish Divinity. outdoor, shaded sunlight That first pic right there is everything you need to know about Divinity: it's nowhere near a La Boheme dupe for 2 major reasons - it's a purple base and not a red one, and the Clarins 230/Fantasy Fire-type red-to-green pigment is way stronger and not just a suggestion.  Yes, this baby easily goes all the way from bronze-gold to emerald green. bright sunlight window-filtered bright sunlight  In direct light, that shimmer is a gorgeous smoldering ember red, almost chunky enough to be called glassfleck, and the red plus the purple base means that this most often look...