Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 One last holiday nail art look to close out the year! indoor, CF lighting for both Baroness X has been releasing tons of seriously amazing fluid polishes for at least a year now, things that make beautiful marbled designs with a little extra oomph.  Fancy Gloss is known for their soft sheer crelly line (less so than for their thermals, but Got Milk is a frequently recommended fave white polish for a lot of folks).  Put 'em together and we get this! I started my Christmas tree look with 2 coats of Fancy Gloss Got Milk, a soft (not stark) white that's flawlessly leveling on each coat and gave me zero issues with application.  Then I made a sheet of fluid art marble with OPI Christmas Gone Plaid, Sinful Colors Under 18, and Baroness X Glam - a bright metallic gold flake/foil that also happens to crate this cool effect.  When the marble sheet was dry, I peeled it off my silicone mat, snipped it into tall narrow triangles, and applied with a touch of sticky basecoat...

 It's a short week at work, with a few little fun things going on - ugly sweater contest, door decorating contest - and while this year doesn't have many folks really in a festive mood, I was ready for a little holiday nail art.  The contrast between my colors makes the green look much darker than it was IRL, but this is OPI Christmas Gone Plaid, a nice deep (but nowhere near this dark) pine green, stamped in white using a Christmas tree design from the Powder Perfect Woodland Creatures plate.  The white nails are Bee's Knees A Mantis Shrimp's Favorite color, with the ring finger wrapped in thin red lines from the workhorse Maniology M053 basic shapes plate topped with a bow from Curali 011, and the pinky finger an ornament from Curali 011 Happy Holidays! ~Michelle 

Sometimes when I do themed nails for book club, the design is inspired by the text, while other times the simple graphic design of the cover demands to be re-created - this month's book was firmly in the latter category. indoor, bright CF lighting for all The cover of Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen features a barely turquoise blue background graced with a golden leaf, and little gold coins (gold coins being a plot point in this Hallmark movie of a book): An old dead thermal with just a hint of shimmer was just ideal for the base color here.  The gold leaf is from KADS Nature 036, using El Corazon Fragrant Mimosa for that bright metallic gold flash.  Pahlish Goldsmith - a topper version of their fantastic crushed gold flake polishes - provided the perfect dusting of little gold coins in just one light coat.   While I wasn't a real fan of the book, I did love this nail art look and wore it happily all week.  Goldsmith is a real winner, and should probably be in heavie...

 I've blogged a couple of times before about my birdwatching and nature nerdery, but this weekend's amazing sights truly inspired me to create some art on my fingernail canvases. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight for all While out in the woods this weekend, my birding buddies and I came across this utterly magical grey-morph Eastern Screech Owl.  S/he's been seen in the area for a few weeks now, and we were beyond lucky to catch a glimpse of this creature emerging into the twilight I was struck by the pale green eyes, and the earthy grey-and-brown camouflaged colors, and wanted to recreate that look with my nail art. I'm using the owl eye image and the feathers from Creative Shop 50, stamped in a chocolate brown crème over Aliquid Make a Wish.  The plate only comes with one eye, though, so I attempted to reverse the image by immediately rolling it off onto another stamper as soon as I'd lifted it from the plate.  Success!  The outline of the eye and iris were ove...

 Again this week, I needed a specific base color for a planned stamping look... and when I found the ideal soft grey, it turned out I'd never gotten around to wearing this one! indoor, bright CF lighting Aliquid Lacquer released Make a Wish waaaay back in 2013 - it's sat around untried long enough to have developed a bit of ugly bottle syndrome (the chalky white clings to the inside bottom of the bottle, but doesn't impact the color. indoor, bright CF lighting Wish is a lighter grey, ever so slightly blue-leaning, with a dusting of tiny copper-colored microflakies and a ghostly green contrast shimmer.  I'm showing 2 smooth coats here, and despite the age of this bottle I had no problems with formula or application. indoor, CF lighting Rating:  a solid 3 of 5 stars, a modern neutral with a little something extra sprinkled in there.   Where to buy:  though she flies under the radar, Aliquid is still open, and you can purchase directly . ~Michelle 

And here's that design I needed a deep purple base for: outdoor, afternoon daylight for all photos On top of my base mani of Glisten & Glow Monster Mash, I've added a 2-step layered plaid design that just happens to perfectly match one of my fave pairs of cool-weather tall socks.   I'm using two of my most workhorse-solid stamping plates here.  The light grey woven-design plaid  is from Hehe 028 (such a great plate that every time I use it I feel the need to check Hehe's store to see if there's anything else I need), then the red accent lines are from Maniology M053 (a plate that everyone needs in their stash, since it's nothing but basic shapes you can use to create any geometric design).  I mattified the whole thing, because  much like last week's autumn leaves, most plaid cloth isn't at all shiny! For a really long time now, I've only occasionally done nail art.  My nails are always done, but with the state of the world I just don't often ...

 With a stamped design planned out, I needed the right base color, and remembered to snap a few photos of this new-to-me polish before layering it under the stamping... indoor, CF lighting for all photos Glisten & Glow is my fave topcoat, hands-down, long-term, but I have a scant few of their polish offerings.  Monster Mash was released with last year's Halloween-themed PPU, and is a deep smoked-amethyst purple loaded with subtly shifting gold microflake shimmer. Monster Mash was nearly opaque on the first coat, and I'm showing two as per usual.  I loved the way this looks - all the shimmer and mystery of OPI First Class Desires or a England Incense Burner , but definitively purple and not near-black.  Rating:  4 out of 5 stars.  Frankly, I was only looking for just the right purple for my planned mani, then unexpectedly fell absolutely in love.  This color is vampy without being outright goth, very flattering on my skintone, and had a lovely form...

One good fall leaf deserves another, and this time I went a touch darker in the same red-bronze-gold color palette.   indoor, bright CF lighting About 5 years ago, Parrot Polish released a multichrome collection that was themed around lady pirates.  Always a sucker for a beautiful shifter and not having anything like this one, I picked up Lady Elizabeth Killigrew from the set. outdoor, shady daylight LEK appears to be the same color shift as my beloved Mysterious Mars stamping polish that I used in my last look - in direct light, it's a warm brick- or brown-leaning red, which shifts to coppery bronze and gold at angles, and green at the farthest end of the shift.   indoor, bright CF lighting This is a truly old-skool type duochrome polish, where the shifty shimmer itself is wholly responsible for the color, and the base is a barely-there sheer grey.  This means it takes 3 coats to get to full opacity, but thankfully each coat goes on smooth and even. ...

We've had a few frosty nights and the leaves have most definitely been turning, so I was feeling the idea of seasonally themed nails lately. indoor, CF lighting for both I've started with a base of Dollish Polish Penny Penny Penny, which I've only  just realized that I've never shown by itself, whoops!  PPP is a soft warm-leaning off-white crelly full of metallic copper glitters in a couple different sizes, which already looks a little like autumn leaves falling all across the nail.  I've then used El Corazon Mysterious Mars (possibly my all-time fave stamping polish) and some leaf images & a cute "hello fall" from the Marianne Pro 25 Stamping plate. Hope your autumn season is a colorful one! ~Michelle 

 It seems I'm yo-yo-ing between dark and sparkly lately... so why not both at once? indoor, bright CF lighting Danglefoot Polish is a new-to-me brand based out of the UK, with this sparkly/vampy treat the first of theirs I've tried.  Mohawks, Fishnets and Eyeliner (hereafter MFE, of course) was released with the May 2019 80s-themed PPU. window-filtered bright daylight MFE starts with a deep black base with excellent opacity - I'm showing 2 coats here, with a ring magnet applied to the 2nd coat and the topcoat.   outdoor, bright daylight There's a super shifty multichromatic shimmer in here that grabs and reflects every photon of light nearby, plus a light scattering of silver holo flake that adds a flashy glimmer in bright light, but is only visible as flake in lower light. indoor, bright CF lighting When in low light (below), or when the light isn't directly aiming at the polish (my index finger in the bottle shot above), the shimmer fades out to a subtle overlay, ...

 I reached for a metallic color this week, and after looking through the bins of silver and gold, spotted just what I wanted in the copper section. indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish continues to be one of the absolute queens of shimmery goodness.   outdoor, afternoon daylight Forgotten Things starts with a super sheer, barely smoke-tinted base.  It took 3 thin coats to build up to opacity, so it would very easily serve as a topper - this would look smashing over any shade of grey all the way through to black, or a very dark red. indoor, bright CF lighting In direct light, Forgotten Things is a beautiful, rich copper.  It quickly shifts over to bronze at a slight angle - easily evident across just the curve of my nails - and hits a bright peridot green at longer angles.  Scattered across that is a really nice holo flake, whose silver vanishes into the metallic base in low light, then leaps into bright rainbows in bright light (below). outdoor, afterno...

Halloween is over, but I'm apparently not done with being vampy & mysterious...  indoor, CF lighting This mani started with 2 layers of Jessica Street Swagger, a deep, every so slightly brick-leaning, truly dried-blood red crelly.  The last time I wore this , I got away with a single coat, but this time around I painted much thinner layers and needed more like one-and-a-half.  It's still got a dead perfect formula that dries to a very nice shine on its own - it's polishes like this that teach me why there are folks that choose to wear unadorned crèmes and crellies on the regular.   outdoor, afternoon daylight Punching up my plain red, I've added a single heavy layer of Ethereal The Dark Mark, a very dense aurora shimmer topper in a barely grey base.  The end result is a sexy blackened scarlet with subtle shine and shimmer indoors, that explodes into color-shifting fire when I stepped out into the sun.   outdoor, bright afternoon daylight Becau...

 One last fun Halloween look for this year! outdoors, overcast daylight Once upon a group buy, I snagged this truly ginormous stamping plate of no particular brand, labeled only as XXL-03, featuring a huge sugar skull in the center (big as your whole hand) surrounded by every possible iteration of skulls, bats, and assorted Halloween goodness.  It was well worth whatever I paid for it, and I bust it out at least once per spooky season.  For this round, I've used a fairly realistic-shaped skull pattern (bonus!  The plate came with a tinier skull to fit my pinky nails!) in various crème colors to match a super loudly colorful skull shirt I recently discovered on Amazon. It was a hit combo at work and for passing out candy to the kiddos trick-or-treating. Hope your season was fun, ~Michelle 

 Ok, the last one was pretty traditionally "spooky" but for this round I wanted to try out the "spoopy" vibe of cute Halloween. outdoor, indirect/overcast light for all I started with a really simple tutorial from What's Up Nails , picked an orange crème, purple jelly, and green crème to make it a Halloween color scheme, then painted freehand exactly as shown in the tutorial.  Stamped black bat shadows topped with the same shape in silver from the KN 15 stamping plate tied it all together.  I totally love how this turned out, like a splash of crayon color, and the negative space is something that always looks so chic that I really ought to play with more.  ~Michelle