Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 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 

 Réveillon is certainly pretty enough on its own, but it is PAST TIME for me to fire up Halloween manis for this year! I'm using the rather realistic looking cobweb pattern from VL-013 in black of course, then overlaid with an adorably skull-headed spider from Nicole Diary 213.  It's a classic Halloween look, and I'm pretty sure I need a spiderweb mani every year. ~Michelle

 Well it's getting to be Halloween mani season, and while I haven't quite decided what design yet, I knew I wanted something kinda neutral and shadowy, so this dusky blue-toned grey got unearthed from Mount Untried. indoor, bright CF lighting Rescue Beauty Lounge released Réveillon with their 2013 Fan Collection, where colors were submitted on and voted by a fan group.  It's a soft, dusty grey overlaid with a finely milled pinky-purple shimmer. indoor, window-filtered daylight I'm showing 2 coats here to get to complete opacity, and had zero problems with the brush or balding/dragging of the polish.  It's a touch thicker than I like, but hey, it's most of a decade old so I won't call that a fault.  indoor, CF lighting Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  It's a pretty and flattering color on me, but by now I've realized that as much as I liked their aesthetic, RBL's formula just doesn't work all that great with my chemistry.  This wore more quickly th...

 I ran away to Cape May NJ this past weekend to go check out the amazing variety of birds migrating through this time of year, so my nails of course needed to match. indoor, CF lighting I'm reaching way back into the vault here - I think I bought this polish back in the 90s.  The brand name is CQ2, and I'm not sure I've ever seen it before or since, with the only name being the number 253 on the back.  It's a pearlescent chromed-out warm gold-to-cool pink duochrome that needed 3 thin coats to get to the opacity you see here.  It's definitely from the days before 5-free, with the distinct paint aroma and slightly thin formula.  I've topped it with a cute birds perched along a wire image from Nicole Diary L-10. American Oystercatchers flying over the sound The birds were occupying my camera, so I didn't get many pics of this nail art look, but I had a wonderful time! ~Michelle 

 The weather is turning a little crisp lately, and my nails are a touch longer than I usually keep them, so clearly it's thermal time! indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale released Welkin at Dusk as an exclusive for her fan group in September 2020, and though thermal nail polishes are really only guaranteed to transition for 6 months, I had zero troubles with this shade a year later.   indoor, window-filtered daylight + office fluorescent lighting Welkin is an absolutely beautiful color combo, transitioning from a teal-leaning blue when warm to a deep indigo sapphire when cool.  There's chunky holo dust and tiny holo glitters nicely visible in any point of the thermal transition, yet this took only 2 coats to result in very good opacity even while in  the warm state. indoor, bright CF lighting Unfortunately for me, I just don't think I've done this polish justice with these pics.  For a bunch of reasons I just didn't devote time to getting good pics, so ...