Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Once upon a time, I particularly liked a C4N exclusive from CrowsToes , and went back to pick up the others in the trio.  While the blue was sold out, this green was right there waiting, and I've been feeling green a lot lately. indoor, CF lighting Emergence is a rich emerald green with many personalities, like her sister Quietus.  First off, all the shimmer in there reflects back as a metallic foil finish with some scattered holo sparkles in bright light: outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight In lower light, golden shimmery microflakes make an appearance: window-filtered overcast daylight outdoor, shady daylight The no-longer-quite emerald green above is not just a difference of the light, but instead is the start of a pretty aqua-blue duochromatic shift, where the sun also catches the glass fleck flash of the shimmer: outdoor, afternoon sunlight Emergence is the kind of polish that looks a bit different with every change of the light, though it's mor...

Lacquester's recent custom for one of my FB polish groups reminded me of all the pretty bottles of untried magic from her I have laying around my stash.  When I pulled out OMG recently , I was actually debating between that one and a handful of others, and this one ended up staying on the mani table until I used it. indoor, CF lighting Dragon Heart Holo is a warm red-leaning orchid purple jelly that is jam-packed with fiery ultrachrome flakes that appear copper in most lighting, a scattered holo effect, and I think some shimmers to bridge any remaining space in between. window-filtered overcast daylight The first coat goes on very sheer but quite even - this would work great as a topper, and would look stunning as 1-2 coats over a darker/richer purple.  This builds up very nicely, and I'm showing 3 coats here. outdoor, direct bright sunlight indoor, bright CF lighting In direct sunlight or any bright lighting, the flakies catch the light as a gloriou...

Of course, the one thing that makes you feel better after a complete nail fail is something gorgeous... and my picks from Femme Fatale's new Anne of Green Gables collection just showed up. indoor, bright CF lighting Once upon a time during a Femme Fatale sample sale, many of us swooned over a lucky fellow hoarder's score of a beautiful thermal called "Forestlord"... and the fan group instantly recognized it when this production version was released 2+ years later.  window-filtered daylight Trees Talking in Their Sleep is a tonal dark-to-light thermal that shifts from dark taupe (cold) to palest nude (warm) that's absolutely full of iridescent green flakies.  These aren't opaque ultrachrome flakes, but are instead the translucent ones that shift a bit toward aqua and blue and transparently vanish in oblique light.   window-filtered daylight showing the base colors when the flakies go transparent In most of the pics I have here, the overal...

Trust Fund Beauty doesn't send stuff out to many bloggers, so there's usually an utter dearth of swatches available when you're deciding.  The site is full of plain bottle shots +/- "dots" of the paint itself, but the gorgeous duochrome that came in my first order   along with the frequent super coupons was enough to have me rolling the dice on a few others with the swirly look that suggested they were duochromes. indoor, bright CF lighting Sigh.  Yeah, I'm showing my fails here, too. Boozy Brunch is not, in fact, a duochrome, and it's not even a contrast or pearlescent shimmer.  It's a peachy nude frosty shimmer that flat out did not look well with my skin tone.  Did I mention frosty?  Because, yeah, there's some 80s type frostiness going on here, which I mitigated by slathering on a thick coating of Girly Bits Shift Happens. indoor, window-filtered daylight  Not even the magic of real and true old-school 230-type shifty topcoat fixe...

My favorite color is green, so I'm a permanent sucker for any unusual or striking green polish.  When Lacquester released a green version of her gorgeous Mortal Coil early this year, of course I leapt right to it! indoor, CF lighting The bottle shot of Lacquester's One More Green (aka OMG, natch) tells you most everything you need to know - we have a luscious hunter green base jam-packed with a contrast shimmer that shifts from red to bronze and a dusting of holo microglitters, and Lacquester has switched to a new bottle design that feels more sturdy and luxe (me likey!).  The one fib here is the borderline lobster hands - this polish looked lovely on me all the time IRL, and only tinted me reddish in this pic.  Even slight color correction or lightening of the photo made the color accuracy of the polish itself off, and I wouldn't do that to ya, so here's my faux-crustacean moment. window-filtered daylight This polish went on in thicker coats than I usually ...

With this spring's disappointingly unpredictable weather (hurry up and stop freezing already!!), the best I can make of things is to consider the unseasonable chill as just an extension of "thermal season." indoor, bright CF lighting Polished by KPT was an absolute queen of gorgeous thermals, so when I found one of her last ones still in stock at Femme Fatale, I snapped it right up.  Lust, from the 2016 Valentine's day box, is a jelly thermal with fine holo flake that shifts from a cooler dark berry red to a warmer almost brick or poppy red. window-filtered bright afternoon sunlight, cold state The first coat was super streaky, not atypical for jellies, but smoothed out with the 2nd, and needed a 3rd to be completely even.  Like most thermals, Lust dried down to a waxy near-matte finish and needed topcoat to shine. bright afternoon sunlight, warm state I found this thermal to not be super sensitive, with subtle changes over time rather than quick dra...

Polish Pickup launched this weekend , and since everything in there is one & done, there's always plenty of FOMO - if I see something gorgeous, instinct says to grab it ASAP.  I'm really trying to slow my acquisitions, so I spent a whole lot of time flipping through my swatch sticks before pulling the trigger on this month's glittering space jewels.  In this targeted shopping of my own stash, I found not one but THREE smoky, muted purples with golden shimmer, which both conveniently saved me from another purchase and also reminded me that all three were untried. indoor, bright CF lighting After debating the available smoked out purples, I went with this borderline glitterbomb from Emily de Molly, Subtle Silence (clearly, anything but).  It's packed with both holo microglitters and a gorgeous greeny-gold shimmer overlay, so while I was at it, Enchanted Polish's Good Life (with matching shimmer) came out for an accent nail. indoor, bright CF lighting B...

Last weekend, a coworker posted a magnetic polish video on facebook, asking in amazement, "what witchery is this?!"  That of course led me to playing around with magnetic polish myself, since it was more than time to test drive one of a handful of Masura polishes I'd scored last year. indoor, CF lighting Russian company Masura made a big splash in the polish aficionado community last year once magnetic polishes became cool again (yay!!) and we caught sight of the striking effects possible with the right polish and the right magnet. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight Mint and Bazil is the name on the underside of my bottle, but most stores carrying this brand have it instead listed with the more conventionally spelled Basil.  In either case, it's a luminous jade green "cat's eye" shimmer in a nearly black-green base.  If you wanted to wear this color alone, it's plenty beautiful enough to skip the magnet, and opaque at one coat.  The opacit...