Sweet Baby Octopolish!

That gorgeous Tonic prototype just wasn't ready to come off my nails, AND it happened to be a perfect background for this week's cover recreation for book club: Guy Gavriel Kay tends to write not-quite-fantasy novels set in nearly recognizable versions of our past, where the historic background forms a rich tapestry for his detailed character studies.  I've very much enjoyed all of his books that I've read, and this one was no exception.  While I don't much think the cover design of silhouetted birds in flight matches the Italian renaissance setting, it certainly makes a strikingly graphic cover that was an easy inspiration for a nail art design.  I've first added the bright yellow splatter with a dotting tool, then stamped birds in tomato red from Curali 001. Happy reading! ~Michelle

Mystery polishes aren't so much my jam - I have a bajillion untrieds to get through, and when your collection gets to a certain size, you really give everything a critical eye as to whether you already have something similar.  When Tonic announced earlier this year that she was cleaning out the closet of a bunch of prototypes, though, I bought everything I could. indoor, CF lighting This is an easy fave of the prototypes I received - a deep charcoal grey based linear holo with a gorgeous red to bronze to green metallic multichrome. outdoor, indirect daylight Unlike a few others I recieved, this prototype has no number or other marking.  I'm not completely sure what final polish it was an in-process study for - it's not quite Witchy Woman or Ninja Pumpkin, and I'm well aware those two aren't anything alike, but I think this is somewhere in between.  outdoor, indirect/overcast daylight This polish is shifty as all get-out, going from a deep scarlet i...

Lacquester Pearl Grey First Pick was a lovely neutral on its own, but when the equinox rolled around after I'd worn it for a day or two, it also provided a perfect backdrop for some multicolored nail art. outdoor, overcast daylight for both The sun on my left hand and the moon on my right were reverse-stamped in black filled in with metallic gold.  This sun image is from the utterly unique Curali 005 "Esoterical" plate, while the moon is found on MoYou London Mexico 03. outdoor, overcast daylight Since it's still mostly green around here (other than the scattering of ideal fallen leaf props in my lawn), I opted to use a a smaller, rounder leaf pattern rather than the more typically "fall" look of maple leaves.  I applied small dots of green, yellow, red, and brown crème polishes to this leaf image from Marianne Pro 25, then scraped 2-3 times until they were lightly blended to get this look of leaves with randomly changing colors. window-fi...

As per my usual, after one or two or a few rich bright colors, I gotta go with a palate cleanser of some type of neutral just to change things up a bit. indoor, CF lighting Lacquester Pearl Grey First Pick is one of those polishes where the name is 100% accurate.  This is a soft, somewhat sheer grey with a subtle pearlescence due to the scattered holo finish. outdoor, overcast daylight I'm thinking the "first pick" part of the color name is from the generous helping of gold metallic contrasting shimmer - the whole is a lovely neutral jewel that's both cool and warm for those of us that like to wear both silver and gold. outdoor, cloudy daylight I'm wearing 3 coats here, which leaves a light translucency at this point.  While I don't have a super opaque free edge, I love ethereal not-quite-sheer looks of this type, so I don't find the opacity to be a fault. outdoor, indirect daylight Unfortunately for me, Lacquester has gone to the w...

Every so often, my attempts to not order the same things that I already have backfire, and I eventually have to give into the allure of something even though I'm convinced its sister already resides here.  Sometimes, my buying spree works out gloriously. indoor, bright CF lighting Darling Diva released Have You Ever Been Mistaken For a Man? as part of her 2015 Aliens collection, and IMHO was the real standout in a smorgasbord of interesting colors.  I missed it the first time around, but the moment I saw it in a destash it came right home where it belonged, and was promptly nothing at all like other purple holos in my collection. window-filtered direct sunlight Have You Ever Been Mistaken For a Man? is a plummy red-leaning purple, warmer than most other purples around here.  There's a nice linear holo here, but as this is not a sheer jelly type formula, the holo isn't a blinding in-your-face flame. indoor, bright CF lighting This was easily opaque in one...

This week I had a lecture/meeting thing going on that meant avoiding anything too flashy or outré was probably a good idea, but bringing at least a little nail game was of course called for. outdoor, bright sunlight I started with two very easy coats of a England Lady of the Lake (as usual when using aE polishes, I wonder why I don't have literally everything she's ever made), a lush cool-toned purple scattered holo.  On my accent nails are two smooth coats of Emily de Molly Iridescent Skies, a very pale silvery lavender holo.  I used the circular stained-glass motif from UR Beautiful 10 and gold stamping polish to create decals filled in with Lady of the Lake and aE Dragon. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight ~Michelle

With some cool snaps lately,and my nails being just the right length, it's definitely thermal weather. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X has really been knocking this year's mystery series out of the park, with each box having one Clarins 230 shimmer polish and one "sister UP" polish, plus a little treat or two.  The August box, Rick & Morty themed, might be my fave so far.  window-filtered daylight Portal Gun starts with a black-to-colorless thermal base that builds in 3 coats to a milky, slightly smoky translucency rather than being clear.  Baroness X has played with different ingredients in these black-to-clear thermals, and this one is a clear winner for me (a stunner compared to the somewhat similar  Ghastly ).  outdoor, overcast daylight The black base of the cold state makes the flakies and sister UP shimmer into a vampy teal-green shifting blue to purple around the edges. indoor, CF lighting As the base warms up and become...

Life has been less than kind lately, with bad news coming left and right.  I pulled out an old fave that I last wore before my pic-taking and blogging days for a little comforting peace. outdoors, overcast daylight Sweet baby octopus do I miss Digital Nails!  I don't believe she's released anything new in the past couple of years, and her social media is silent, which is a real shame considering the level of nerd creativity + gorgeous polish she made.  Digital released I'm a Survivor back in 2013 as a charity fundraiser for Alex's Lemonade Stand, and I loved it then and I love it now. window-filtered bright sunlight Survivor is a lush eggplant purple jelly utterly packed with golden flakies.  I'm showing 3 coats here, with each coat building up the saturation of the eggplant purple jelly base and the density & opacity of the flakies.  Unusually and uniquely in my stash, these flakies appear translucent at the first coat, very thin and flexible, b...

Magnetic polish is one of my super fave nail art looks, but as everyone who has attempted this knows, magnetics take more time and patience than some other techniques.  When I find that I have the time to paint, like I did this past weekend, it's definitely time to grab one of my untried pretties! indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X released Celestial Warrior as part of last year's Black Friday special box - I've grabbed several of her themed boxes over the years, and there's always something to love in there.  This one is a shifting aurora borealis of duochromatic colors in a quite sheer base.  I'm not at all sure that you could get these shimmers opaque on their own, and I'm showing this in 2 coats over black. outdoor, direct sunlight The magnetic shimmer shifts from pink to gold, while the base shimmer shifts from green to aqua to purple to navy blue. outdoor, direct sunlight It's gorgeously sparkly in the sun, and the shifts of ...

Continuing my series of comparison posts to the ever-elusive Ninja Polish Mystic Glacier:  Part 1 is here , Part 2 is here , Part 3 is here , and now we're settling in for Part 4 - the end (for now). Polish collectors place a premium on "OG UP," that is, the original red-to-green shifting pigment by which Clarins 230 launched a thousand ships.  Treasure seekers comb the back stock rooms of auto paint & body shops to find half empty forgotten containers of this magic, makers hoard their last precious grams of the stuff like dragons on gold, and apocryphal tales about the source of the magic (the inventor of this pigment is said to have perished in the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, losing the formula to us forever) to why it's so hard to come by (it's apparently used in printing the hologram images for counterfeit protection on EU currency).  Since it's gotten so rare, plenty of other makers reach for the more readily available "aurora" pigments - ...