Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Plenty of times, I've seen someone else's swatch of an untried in my own stash that just puts it in a whole new light.  This week's WOW moment was the potential of layering, and the apparently rather divided internet opinion on Sinful Colors Devil's stare. indoor, CF lighting Devil's Stare is a fiery coral-red jelly liberally sprinkled with iridescent shards and microglitters - it's pretty clearly the hot version of Green Ocean.  Since that one is kinda meh on its own but amazing as a topper , I felt more than a little foolish to not realize the same was true of Devil's Stare until Manigeek's efforts to  make what she thought was an ugly polish pretty . indirect daylight And poof!  A mani idea was born.  My middle and ring fingers have 3 coats of Devil's Stare, while all other fingers have one and a half coats of Llarowe Hot Summer Nights, a vampy blackened wine shimmer.  Devil has a sticky formula that needs a little dabbing to get a dec...

The frosty weather certainly has me in a blue polish mood. I mean, if my fingertips are already going to be blue... indoor, bright CF lighting Chirp was Femme Fatale's September 2016 color of the month, which tells you that I have a huuuuge pile of untrieds to sift through.  Chirp is a lightly greyed-out lavender with a vibrant aqua-blue shimmer overlay, and a dusting of very tiny holo microglitters. outdoor, direct bright sunlight The formula here had a very nice consistency but was a touch sheer, needing 3 coats for total opacity (2 was good, 3 was perfect).  Sales swatches had this color a more vibrant lavender, so it's possible this has faded some in the past year+, but the bottle still matches the swatch stick I made when I got it, so I don't think that's the case.  indoor, window-filtered daylight I recently picked up some Marianne stamping plates from an international group buy.  The design here is from Professional No 10, which is a series o...

Once upon a time, I sent my partner off on a walmart quest to find some of the Hard Candy anniversary polishes, and while the picked-over selection made for only partial success, he grabbed a handful of these slender test tubes in colors he liked.  I always have a soft spot in my heart for these now. indoor, bright CF lighting Cosmic Love Affair is a deeply saturated sapphire blue glassfleck in a navy blue base.  The shimmers shift over to purple at angles, with nothing in between and nothing beyond - a true duo- and not multichrome. indoor, bright CF lighting at a long angle to the bottle While the macro pics make this look like a glitter, nope, these shimmer particles didn't give me any grief during removal, and the formula was utter perfection - a one coat wonder, as long as you paint carefully to avoid the drama of a mess cleanup on a blue this dark is going to be. indirect daylight To compliment the blue-to-purple midnight, I've stamped using El Corazon H...

Well, one good Tonic deserves another, and I'm yet again inspired by The Polished Koi's amazing nail art looks. indirect, overcast daylight First, I started with a gradient base of Tonic Rose and One Million Flowers, with the design in reverse on my ring finger.  These two blended gorgeously, I think because the amount of holo and the metallic shifty shimmer overlay in both is so similar - each of these pretties have a rosy pink flash that shifts over to a warm coppery bronze. bright afternoon sunlight I'd initially planned on stamping with Rose to get a fading into the background look that only appeared on the paler One Million Flowers.  While Rose did stamp just fine (and would be gorgeous over a white, black, or deep purple crème base), the similarity in that shifty shimmer that made them blend so well also made the stamp blend too much into invisibility. outdoor, overcast daylight El Corazon Mysterious Mars to the rescue!  My fave multichrome stampi...

Right about the time I was evolving into the polish fiend I am today, magnetic nail polish was a hot thing... then for a few years now, it most certainly wasn't.  Well, since the amazing magnetics from Russia showed up, this business is now very much back on-trend, with multichromatic magnetic polishes now blowing the doors off several shops lately. indoor, bright CF lighting Tonic made Zeppo as one of the December 2017 customs for the Multichrome Madness facebook group.  It's a super deep not-quite-black base that's full of this luscious plum wine magnetized shimmer - plenty pretty on its own even if you don't feel handy with the magnet, but since it's the colors that are drawn to the magnet, the effect is galaxy-like bright patterns on a black background. indoor, CF lighting But wait, there's more!  That plum wine shifts nicely over to bronze, then gold, then picks up a bit of green at extreme angles, all really striking on that black velvet frame....

We keep having these little snippets of warmer weather, and I'd be more than happy if wintertime was done with.  When the man suggested a green polish, I went straight for the super springtime Shleee Fire King. indoor, bright CF lighting Certainly named for and inspired by the jadeite-colored milky glassware line, Fire King is a beautiful slightly greyed jade green.  Overlying the base color, there's a vibrant pink-to-gold shimmer that's at least partially made up of microflakies. same indoor, bright CF lighting - check out the gold shift Depending on the lighting conditions, this one will appear a little more saturated green or lean a little more softly greyed.  Even in low lighting, though, that flake shimmer is luminous without being super flashy. indoor, window-filtered daylight The formula here was a little thin, a bit streaky on the first coat, and really needed 3 coats to get to this degree of opacity - nothing at all unusual for a pastel shade....

I finally broke out of my blue streak this week by gazing longingly at a whole double handful of red polishes with contrasting lime green shimmer that are being released by multiple brands, each one different from the next.  In my efforts to stop the madness and be content with the 80 bajillion polishes already in residence here, I grabbed a red I hadn't properly photographed the first time I wore it, and a topper for that contrasty sparkle. indoor, bright CF lighting My base color here is Dance Legend's Anna Gorelova collaboration The Soothsayer.  It's a gorgeous red that's bright cherry when warm and deepest darkest dried blood when cold.  It's from a 2014 collection, and still transitions just as quickly as when I first tried it almost exactly 3 years ago, further proof that some thermals are far sturdier than the promised 6 months. window-filtered daylight Baroness X is one of the reigning queens of gorgeous things made with Clarins 230/UP shifty sh...

MOAR BLUE POLISH!  Seriously, It's not that common for me to go on a color-kick that lasts 3 manis, but here we are with the next gorgeous blue in a row. indoor, bright CF lighting Aspen is a deep navy-sapphire base absolutely jam packed with a drop-dead-gorgeous contrasting shimmer that shifts from warm burgundy red to blazing copper-bronze; though it looks Clarins 230-ish, I never saw it get to emerald green.  late afternoon direct sunlight Additionally, there's a truckload of silver holo flake in here.  Usually, silver holo flake looks more silver to me and only sparks rainbows in very bright sunlight, but nope, this was as blingy as if filled with glitter and not flake.  Though this particular flake does make things just a bit textured, 2 coats of topcoat smoothed it right out, and I had no particular trouble with removal. Overcast daylight - note there's still a  hint of rainbows even sans sun The contrasting shimmer makes this polish a dr...