Sweet Baby Octopolish!

The weather has been so weirdly variable lately, that while the sun is shining, holos are most definitely called for. indoor, bright CF lighting Aaaaaaahhhhh, Femme Fatale's 2013 holographic collection (you bet your butt I'm sounding like an old lady going on about "back in my day").  At the time, I only picked up 2 or three of the 10 piece set, and over the years I've realized that was wrong of me, and now I'm still hunting for a couple of them. bright afternoon sunlight Ruby Hare is a raspberry pink-wine linear holographic with a metallic contrast shimmer overlay.  Ini direct light (above), you get a blinding flash of warm electric pink, while angled light (below) gives you a warmer coppery shine in the middle of the holo flame. outdoor, bright sunlight Just like all her sisters, Ruby Hare has a dead-perfect formula.  Nearly opaque in just one coat (2 shown here), ideal thickness, perfect brush, zero cleanup issues or cuticle staining.  Thi...

I think by now most indie nail polish fiends are aware of the phenomenon that is Polish Pickup - each month, makers create an exclusive polish based on the selected theme, and the store is open only for the first weekend of that month.  For most offerings, you have time to pick what you wanted (and you need a bit of time since the current roster of participating makers is huge!), but there are always a few here and there that are "capped" to a finite number the maker selects. indoor, bright CF lighting Lemming Lacquer created Ghosts of the Vault for the January 2018 PPU, and it sold out tout suite.  I was lucky enough to score a bottle from someone who changed her mind, and my excitement over getting it moved it to the top of the try-me pile. outdoor, bright sunlight GotV is an indigo jelly, the sort of blue where you doubt your eyes and change your mind from "blue" to "purple" with every look.  It's filled with "red/copper/gold shift...

I was off to a party this weekend full of snark and comments from the peanut gallery while watching the royal wedding.  We had a blast, I had a funky hat, and of course thematically appropriate nails! outdoor, overcast daylight I started off with a single coat of a sheer nude jelly polish - everyone should have a "my nails but better" color in their stash to be a perfect neutral/nude when you need one.  It's sheer enough that you can easily see my free edge through it, so not really contributing to the overall color here, but it adds a gloss and uniform tone to my nail bed that makes the rest of the art just pop. outdoor, shady daylight All of my nails then got a lace design with a rose motif from Stampholic 1 using El Corazon white stamping polish.  For accents, I've used the 3-step fully blooming rose image from Clear Jelly Stamper's 05 Renaissance Rose plate, first in MoYou London Frosted Lips for the base, then Pretty Serious Santa's Sunburn fo...

Sometimes, even in the warming springtime, you just feel extra vampy.  Or maybe that's just me? indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale released Enchantress as part of a valentine's trio in 2013, and then I managed to snag a bottle from her during a sample sale a few years ago - you'll see most pics of this polish in her older square bottles rather than her current rectangle ones. window-filtered overcast daylight Enchantress is a deep, earthy plum purple base that's been filled to the brim with a subtly duochromatic teal to blue shimmer.  This shimmer is more greenish teal-leaning than most of my photos show (cameras go nutso with both purples and teals on occasion, so GAH!).  The plummy base color shows through the shimmer at some angles and is always at least a little present, especially right on the edges. outdoor, afternoon sunlight In all lighting, the shimmer is really prominent and has a heavy metallic glint.  The total effect is like a sexi...

My book club has been around for 15 years now (though I only joined in the last year or two), so one of the original members hosted our "literary quinceañera" this weekend, with margaritas & a taco bar.  I happen to have a vibrantly patterned shirt, with bright threads zig-zagging over cream all around the neckline, and figured I should do my nails to match. indoor, bright CF lighting I started with Don Deeva Captain Yayo, a sheer white crelly that is utterly loaded in iridescent gold microflake shimmer.  It's sheer and needed 2 and a half coats to get to the level of opacity you see here, but each coat went on evenly and dried very quickly, so no application problems at all. indoor, bright CF lighting I selected stamping polish colors based on the bright jewel tones from my shirt: Esmaltes da Kelly Wendy & Joanna, Emily de Molly green, all tied together with Born Pretty gold stamping polish. super matchy-matchy! For all the stacked arc desi...

With the warm and summery weather lately, I felt like grabbing a bright summery color to match. indoor, bright CF lighting KB Shimmer released Show the Mahi in 2017 along with a handful of other beach-themed polishes.   This one is a deep royal blue jelly that just barely leans toward teal, liberally sprinkled with an assortment of iridescent color shifting glitters in a couple of sizes and small metallic aqua holographic glitters. window-filtered daylight The overall effect is rainbow confetti in a tropical ocean, or beach balls floating in a swimming pool - it is indeed super summery! window-filtered overcast daylight If you're comfortable working with jellies, Mahi will give you no troubles at all.  I try to get the first coat of any jelly as thin as possible, paying no attention to streaks and evenness, but paying a lot of attention to trying to get the edges done as nicely as possible from the start, so as to avoid the saturated pigment melting into...

I really love brown nail polish - such a richer, deeper neutral than nude or baby pink - but I almost never reach for it while being drawn to bright greens and purples (letting my colorblind partner pick the color doubly means that neutrals are left forgotten). indoor, bright CF lighting Burnished Ossein was an "oops" batch of Femme Fatale's that I've still never quite figured out the intended color for... probably one of the Enchanted Fables, since many of those were also gorgeous contrast shimmers.  Oops or not, this polish is very much in her "house style" and is a beautiful neutral. indoor, bright CF lighting What we have here is a creamy milk-cocoa brown, with decidedly plummy red undertones - the edges of both bottle shots above show what the base color looks like without the impact of the shimmer overlay.  The gorgeous shimmer was always present on the nail, though, adding a cool gold wash in low light and a bright metallic sparkle in full...

I was headed out of town for a meeting this week, and as per usual for this group I'm both kinda known for having fancy nails, yet don't want to go too flashy at a professional thing... indoor, CF lighting Kenyan Sunset was made for the Hella Holo Customs FB group back in August of 2015, when Dreamland Lacquer was still Smitten Polish.  It's an utterly luscious berry-leaning red with a very bold linear holographic effect, where the linear flame's blue line pops prominently in bright light. outdoor, bright sunlight Kenyan sunset was approximately opaque in just one coat, with a smooth formula and a good brush.  I am showing 2 coats + topcoat here, and the color deepened up just a tiny bit with that 2nd layer.  I stamped accent nails using half of a stylized flower design from Uber Chic 6-02 and Born Pretty silver stamping polish.  In some of the macro pics here I catch a little bit of edgewear and unevenness, but some of these pics are after 5+ days of wea...