Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I had time to squeeze in one more holiday-themed mani using the fantastic Curali 011 stamping plate I've used for all of these this year, each with a totally different theme. outdoor, partially sunny daylight I've started here with 2 coats of Glitter Gal White Gold Sparkle, which is nicely somewhere between yellow gold and silver, and has loads of sparkly holo microglitters.  This does leave a subtly sandy texture, so a good thick layer of topcoat is needed to smooth things out. outdoor, sunny daylight My accent nail is the adorable deer pattern from this plate  - those of you with longer nails will also fit the pretty garland under his neck, but the entire deer head & antlers worked fine on my medium-short nails.  The rest are done in a trailing holly garland pattern that I debated using as a french tip or down the middle - I think either would be pretty adorable.  Both the deer's nose and the holly berries were then dotted in red. outdoor, sunny dayl

I'm hoping to make this work out like I did for Halloween, which is to say, crossing my fingers there's enough time for a few holiday looks before the 25th rolls around. indoor, bright CF lighting We had a holiday party at work this week, so I wanted to go with something definitively festive and not just winter-themed this this round.  I've started with 2 coats of Picture Polish Kryptonite, a lovely deep pine green somewhere between emerald and hunter. outdoor, overcast daylight To most of my nails, I've added this adorable repeating motif of evergreen trees from Powder Perfect's Woodland Creatures plate in basic white.  My accent nails are a slightly cartoony drawing of a Christmas tree from Curali 011, also in white, filled in using metallic gold, and then dotted with shimmery red to stand in for ornaments after placing it on the nail. indoor, bright CF lighting Curali is a new to me brand that I'd had my eye on for a while.  When I finally

Well, there's no denying that winter is about to show up - we had our first real snowfall this week, and the winter solstice is in just a few days.  Snowflakes and a turning season go hand in hand, so... outdoor, shady daylight For my base, I've used 2 coats of Rococo Sno Baby Luxe, a soft white shimmer I really loved last time I wore it. outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight My snowflakes are all from Curali 011, individually placed so that each nail is a little different and random, using MoYou London Mystique and Cult Time Traveler. outdoor, shady daylight Hope you're staying warm where you are! ~Michelle

Wow, I am just all about grabbing the new sparklies lately, or else everything recently arrived is somehow super good at jumping to the front of the line... indoor, bright CF lighting I do not remember for the life of me where I saw Moon Shine Mani's gorgeous peacock-teal aurora bomb The Boy Who Lived.  I mean, certainly on facebook, but that just goes to show you that if you're trying to stick to a no-buy, you gotta stay off the internet, because just look at this .  outdoor, shady/overcast daylight I'm wearing 3 coats of this absolutely shimmer-packed jelly, which wore well (especially considering I loved it so much I wore it all week... hence some of these pics showing my mani rather grown out).  indoor, CF lighting The best quality of aurora pigment comes very close indeed to matching the shimmer OOMPH of true Clarins 230-type stuff, and this is no exception.  Oh yes, check out the rainbow around the rounded corners of the bottle shot above - all of th

It's been plenty frosty for a good month now, and my nails are just a scoch longer than usual, so it's thermal weather! indoor, bright CF lighting Emily de Molly has made a handful of really pretty tonal thermals lately (I've debated quite a bit over which of the berry to purple ones I most need), including More or Less.  This one is a deep forest green when cold: window-filtered daylight That shifts over to a soft cadet blue when warm: window-filtered daylight In addition to a scattering of ultra teeny holo glitters, there's a very fine golden shimmer running throughout that I think helps visually blend out the transition between the states. outdoor, bright afternoon daylight The result is a smooth, subtle transition from blue to green, more a gradient look rather than a starkly demarcated "funky french tip" effect. window-filtered bright afternoon daylight I'm wearing 2 smooth coats here for total opacity.  The formula was v

Lately, I've been feeling more like playing around with my stash than wearing untried colors - this has resulted in a lot more short posts with just a few pics, but some of these looks have turned out just like I wanted them, and this one was a real fave of mine.  A colleague at work this week has been wearing the most adorable black & white plaid blazer, and after I told her I was just jonesing to do her nails to match, I went ahead and did mine. outdoor, overcast daylight for both My base here is Bee's Knees A Mantis Shrimp's Favorite Color, a stark white crème.  As per a recent suggestion on how to get white polish to be perfectly even in just 2 coats, I started with one coat of the white, then one coat of matte topcoat.  When I went in for the second coat of white, this resulted in a complete disaster of streaks and pulling, and I needed 2 more coats of white (so the same 3 coats I would have done anyway).  After being mightily annoyed by this "tip,"

After a couple of deep, saturated jewel tones and while I was pondering what to wear next, the man suggested silver.  A-ha, an untried Femme Fatale sample was filed under silver! indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale occasionally (once or twice per year) releases samples that were prototypes, studies, or things that just never fit into a collection.  I have a handful of gorgeous one of a kind polishes from these sample sales, and always grab another 2 or 3 when the opportunity comes up.  window-filtered overcast daylight Geralt is sample number 82 from the June 2017 sale.  It's a warm tarnished silver with bronze contrast shimmer, linear holo, and the teeny holo glitters that are signature Femme Fatale.  The quantity of bronze shimmer meant that this often read like old gold or even light brown, especially since once I put it on all the glorious sunshine we had evaporated into rainy overcast for days. window-filtered overcast daylight The formula was a hair thic

I think we all know that I'm a complete sucker for polishes that contain shifting Clarins 230-type pigment, or any of the so-called "UP sisters," and when a fortunate happenstance was sitting on my desk along with this beauty, well, it jumped right to the front of the line. indoor, CF lighting Bee's Knees recently released a whole collection of UP and sister UP polishes themed around the Seven Wonders that the witches perform in season 3 of American Horror Story, each named for a different act of magic from the show.  Concilium is a plummy eggplant purple jelly, loaded with a green to blue shifting shimmer. outdoor, bright sunlight For some of her other sheer polishes of this type, Bee's Knees has also offered matching undies in a more opaque crème or crelly formula, though I generally prefer the squishy translucency of jellies on their own.  This polish does build up in about 4 coats, though, so was sold solo.  By luck, another polish that arrived on

I had time this past weekend to play around with magnetic polishes, so pulled out Femme Fatale's first magnetic effort ever. indoor, CF lighting Amanita was part of the December 2018 "Enchanted Forest" PPU, and has a whole lot going on in this bottle.  The deep sapphire blue jelly base is filled with iridescent flakies, a dusting of aurora shimmer, and a metallic green magnetic shimmer. window-filtered overcast daylight Also sold with that round of PPU was a new  "top coat for magnetic polishes" from DRK nails, which promised to "help you achieve a great magnetic effect even with weaker magnetic polishes."  When I held my strongest magnet to Amanita's bottle, I could easily get the mixing balls to snap right up to the glass, but after lots of shaking I still got only the most subtle magnetic line in the bottle.  To be fair, the listing from Femme Fatale did say that it was intended as a "medium" magnetic effect, not a super dr

Halloween may be over, but I'm now totally in the mood for warm, rich fall colors, so when the man suggested red, I grabbed a deep, dark one. indoor, bright CF lighting Mercury in Retrograde, from the 2018 April PPU, is so far my only Supernatural Lacquer.  This beauty is a slightly blackened red with scattered holo and ultrachome flakies thrown in. outdoor, overcast daylight It also has a fairly amazing coppery shift when the light hits just right. indoor, CF lighting I'm wearing 2 coats here, which brought this to complete opacity.  The formula was slightly thicker than I usually like, but it leveled perfectly and stayed where I put it without pooling or running, so I'll call the thickness a plus here. outdoor, overcast daylight It's the sort of thing that has a slightly different appearance in all lighting conditions, with either the flakies or the duochrome effect or the holo shining a little brighter in turn. indoor, CF lighting outd

I wanted my last Halloween look to match up to a super cute shirt I just picked up, which has a spiderweb design on the collar and sleeves.  As soon as I saw this fantastic design by Tiana Locket , I instantly knew I had to do something similar for one of my Halloween looks, so here goes! outdoor, afternoon daylight for all pics The beautifully shifty base here is three coats of ILNP Peace, a gorgeously vampy multichrome that I rather liked the first time I wore it .  One to two coats over black would have given the same oomph, but I usually prefer these shifters to shine on their own.  Case in point about the black base:  my accent nails started with a single sheer coat of Glitter Gal Light as a Feather, then a steeply curved french tip from Maniology M053 first in black, then with 2 stamped coats of Peace.  It's only in specific lighting angles that I could tell the difference over black vs solo, but by itself, Peace was a lot easier to clean up.  The smiling little s