Sweet Baby Octopolish!

As I'm sure we're all quite well aware, I'm a super sucker for Clarins 230-type shifty shimmer, and holy octopus did this pigment explode in popularity this year.  Not only did we get tons of toppers, but also more than a few really creative base colors to showcase the shift, and even a couple of long-lost fan favorites brought back for another round! indoor, bright CF lighting Alpenglow was a limited edition release back when Dreamland was called Smitten Polish.  She re-released it on a limited basis this year for the Dreamland Lacquer FB fan group, so pics here are the version labeled Alpenglow II.  window-filtered early morning daylight The name Alpenglow is utterly perfect for this polish - an alpine evergreen with a warm glow.  The base starts out as a distinctly yellowy green jelly that then becomes deeper and magically less yellow with each coat.  Smooth and even at 2 coats, it looked good enough to stop... but that 3rd coat deepened the color...

Ever since I did plaid nails, I've been wanting to do more textile-themed designs, and the holiday season inspired me to make it red & blingy. outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight Starting with one of my all-time fave black polishes, Blue-eyed Girl Together Dead and Lonely , I then stamped with SuperChic Realm of Erotica using the XXL-4 plate. outdoor, overcast & shady daylight Realm of Erotica looks more true red in the bottle, but is in fact cool-toned berry red - my sunlight shots show this as just a hair warmer due to the warm tint of the light, but this shade shot is color accurate.  I've ended up liking this polish a whole lot more as a stamper than as full-coverage , with the bonus that the blinding linear holo is fare more apparent in thin stamping layers than at full thickness. outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight Happy solstice and all winter holidays to everyone! ~Michelle

Baroness X has been making some truly amazing creations as one-and-done batches, sold as the monthly mystery polish. indoor, bright CF lighting Bifrost, the June 2017 mystery polish, is a pale icy blue that leans only very subtly toward aqua.  There's a delicately sparkling linear holo effect in there, plus an overlay of a 230/UP "sister" type shimmer pigment that tilts from the sort of fuchsia-pinky that my camera mostly refuses to see properly over to a soft minty green. bright afternoon sunlight The green flash + the delicate holo effect is above, while the pink flash seen in direct light is below (though, again, IRL the pink was more dramatic): outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight Bifrost had a perfectly lovely formula that went on smoothly at 2 coats and proceeded to wear very nicely for the several days I had it on. indoor, bright CF lighting I've stamped here first with white stamping polish using a full-nail snowflake design from Kads 005...

A couple of years ago, Color Club came out with their versions of some duochrome colors that so many of us were in love with, and people who had never been introduced to this magic had their heads explode.  The stand-out must-have was We'll Never Be Royals, which I snapped up as an alternate to my much beloved Hits Unconventional (only hopefully with a better formula). outdoor, overcast daylight Royals is an utterly swoon-worthy plummy wine that shifts over to royal purple then sapphire blue on one side, or scarlet red on the other.  At extreme angles, it hits all the shades hinted at by my 2 quick pics here (work was KRAY this week, and with the super short winter days there's literally not enough hours in the day to get a good pic sometimes).  My ring finger is 2 coats of Orly Ingenue - a gorgeous cool gold microflake packed into a neutral, nude-ish pink base that's extremely wearable while being super blingy.  On all Royals nails, I've used a fan brush ligh...

The holiday season is barreling down on us, and while I'm not one for santa & painting everything red & green, I am all about dressing up my nails for holiday parties.  This weekend, my book club was having a white elephant gift exchange, and I was inspired by another blogger's fantastic plaid nails to bust out plaid stamping plates of my own. indoor, bright CF lighting For the base of this rich holiday plaid, I'm using OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, a deep sapphire pearl shimmer that's aaaaalmost a one-coater.  Two plus topcoat here, of course, with the usual caveat about the need to paint super carefully when dealing with a blue this saturated so you're not later trying to sandblast your cuticles.  Pro tip: I've recently discovered that my electric toothbrush does a killer job at getting the last little specks of these really dark polishes out from under my cuticle edge when used with just plain water the next morning.  For the plaid design, I'v...

With the drop in temperature, and sorta warmer days but definitely cooler nights, it's the time of the year where thermals are best. indoor, bright CF lighting Ghastly was my instant must-have from this year's Halloween release by Baroness X.  It's a Thermal that goes from black when cold to barely grey when warm, layered with pastel iridescent flakes and a "sister pigment" to the Clarins 230 type that shifts from green to aqua and blue.  The overall effect when the polish is cold is of a deep blackened emerald, or a subtle smoke jelly when warm. indoor, CF lighting, showing cool color For the most part, this polish stayed somewhere in the middle for me.  Most of the time, it stayed more charcoal than the deep black seen in the bottle, then light dove grey rather than actually clear. window-filtered overcast daylight The transition color was plenty pretty, especially in the right light, with the little sparkle flashing off the iridescent flakies....

It's rapidly getting colder around here, with less leaves on the trees, and a quick slide toward winter barreling down on us.  Definitely time for something vampy-dark! indoor, bright CF lighting Girly Bits Darkly Dreaming is a deep forest green jelly sprinkled with fiery copper shimmer.  It's a very wearable, earthy green that never tipped into looking black in lower lighting.  The first coat went on a bit streaky and uneven like saturated jelly polishes often do, and the 2nd coat didn't quite even that out for me.  Though I liked the slightly lighter color at 2 coats better, a 3rd coat was needed for opacity and evenness, which also brought it to the same color depth as what you see in the bottle. outdoor, afternoon sunlight In lower lighting, the deep base color swallowed up most of the shimmer, with just a little glimmer flashing out here and there, while more of the glowing embers look flashed out with light shining directly on it. indoor, CF...