Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 As is the case with so many people, with the world in this state I'm really not feeling festive this holiday season, and haven't been inspired to do a lot of seasonal looks.  Then I saw another polisher showing off a look with Bluebird Lacquer Centaur of Attention, and BAM ready to go! indoor, bright CF lighting Bluebird Lacquer released Centaur of Attention several years ago for PPU, and reds not being my usual jam, I passed.  I skipped it again when it was up for PPU rewind month the next year.  This year, after so many devastating swatches and with the declaration this was the last run for the color, I caved, and YES. outdoor, overcast/shady daylight This is the 3.0 version of Centaur of Attention, and per some comparisons on facebook, each version got progressively just a step darker, richer, and more holo than the one before - seeing all 3 versions side by side made me beyond glad I'd passed until this round.  It's a true neutral red, neither leaning warm/brick no

Glow in the dark polishes are one of my absolute fave "special effects" - they never fade out or die with age, and they amuse the heck out of my inner 3 year old when I go to bed at night with spectral light waving around on my fingertips.   indoor, CF lighting I grabbed Lucky 13's recent PPU offering Can I Keep You? because the sparkly effect is so much like the picturesque movie version of new-fallen snow, and I had plans to turn this into a winter scene... but then decided that might be too much of a repeat of last week's mountains & pine trees, and ended up liking the shifty glass fleck look on its own. outdoor, afternoon sunlight Can I Keep You is a sheer, lightly greyed-out base that I think dries down a touch darker than what's in the bottle.  It's most definitely not stark white-out white, but a far more wearable neutral.  A light dusting of scattered holo adds to that holiday-card snowfall look (and would probably be amazing as sand on a beach man

Last week, someone in one of my nail art FB groups posted a gorgeous mani with stylized layered pine trees in bright jeweltone crèmes, which reminded me: hey, I have a ton of nature-themed stamping plates that include different pine trees... indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish releases new stuff each Friday, and more often than not includes a weekly mystery.  These are truly unknowns - no hints at all as to color or finish - and though I tend to avoid such things, her creations are so unique it's hard to pass one of these by if there's already treats in my shopping cart.  This one, Softy, is an indeed soft lavender with pearly lilac shimmer and a light scattering of very fine holo dust.  I'm showing 2 coats here, but might go with a 3rd if I was going to wear it solo.  outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight I loved the twilight-sky glow of Softy so much that I abandoned plans for candy-colored trees and kept the rest natural.  My ring finger is part of a mountain range ima

 This week, 2 things happened that in combo can't be denied: the weather turned cool, and my nails were longer than I usually wear them, so a thermal polish was clearly necessary. indoor, bright CF lighting Deminator - named for the creator of Baroness X herself - is a pink (warm) to purple (cold) thermal that also has a healthy smattering of iridescent flakies and a hefty dose of Clarins 230 red-to-green pigment. outdoor, overcast daylight I have at least one other pink-to-purple thermal, which is probably why this one was untried for a while.  That other one feels candy-colored, a bit more girly than I typically go for, so this one was on hold while I thought it was super close.  Not so!  Deminator's base appears to be ever so slightly dusty, just a touch greyed out, so instead of bubblegum-to-grape, this looks on me like mauve-to-eggplant.  Just a touch more adult and a lot more wearable on my skintone.   outdoor, bright sunlight As with other thermal + 230 polishes I've