Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Today I have a quick swatch that I wore for just a day before heading straight into some nail art.  I needed a deep midnight blue base for my next look, and here this was untried in my stash: indoor, bright CF lighting The Terminal Engagement was part of CrowsToes anti-valentines collection from 2015.  It's a smoky navy blue, definitely a touch dusty, filled with chunky coppery & pink shimmer. indoor, bright direct window-filtered light The base is a bit sheer in very direct lighting (above), but the shimmer makes it visually opaque in most lighting IRL. indoor, bright CF lighting This went on in two smooth & easy coats without any issues at all. indoor, bright direct window-filtered light indoor, bright CF lighting Rating:  a solid 3 out of 5 stars.  While not necessarily unique in my collection, this is a lovely color that served exactly the need I had for my next look.  The formula was lovely as always true with CT, and this wore decently well. Where ...

 Continuing  my pendulum swing from dark & saturated to light & airy, I dug into Mount Untried and unearthed this pale pretty spring green: indoor, bright CF lighting Spring 2016 was one of those moments where all the polish world went aflutter over some gawdawfully hard to find must-have, and this time it was YSL's Peace Green.  Though many comps were made, nothing was indeed a true dupe for this it-girl-of-the-moment. outdoor, shady daylight Ever After whipped up her version, 2 Peace In A Pod, to match a swatch stick she received from a fan who had the original.  There's some debate on the internet whether the Peaces are dupes, but no doubt it scratches the itch just fine. indoor, bright CF lighting I'm showing 3 coats here to get to opacity and bottle saturation.  The first coat had me questioning the heck outta this, with that weird formula that some tricky pastels have that's simultaneously too watery and too thick.  It settled out much better ...

A fave brand's upcoming collection includes an utterly gorgeous, rich, deep violet, jam-packed with "ocean" flakies, and I just have to... wait a sec, I'm sure I've bought this before... indoor, bright CF lighting KB shimmer released the gorgeous Ready For This Jelly as an exclusive for PolishCon 2016.  It's a deep, saturated, bottom-of-the-sea violet packed with the "ocean" type iridescent flakies that shift aqua to blue to green.  outdoor, shady/overcast daylight This polish went on like a dream in 3 perfectly smooth coats, giving me zero problems with the brush or formula.   indoor, bright CF lighting Interestingly enough, this polish starts out purple and very sheer on the first coat, yet somehow builds to looking violet and if anything leans slightly more blue than purple.  I've no idea how it leans cooler-toned with each coat, but the end result is stunning and looks just as vibrant as the bottle.  outdoor, shady/overcast daylight If the lu...

 While I was ready to switch back to a lighter shade, I wasn't entirely ready to let go of green, and yet didn't just want a pale version of my last look... indoor, bright CF lighting Dreamland Lacquer released The King & The Queen as their offering for the August 2019 "At the Carnival" themed PPU. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight King & Queen has a soft grey crelly base that leans ever so slightly verdigris, like the palest edge to an old, worn dollar bill.  It's packed with iridescent flakes that flash from pink to gold to green. indoor, bright CF lighting The flakie density makes this polish just a bit thicker than I prefer, getting instantly sticky on application such that getting up to the sides of the nail smoothly and wrapping the free edge is tricky.  And yet, it wore like iron, with no chipping or visible edgewear after several days, so a well-performing formula anyway. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight I'd meant to use this as a base for a sta...

 It's been gloriously sunny with warm summertime weather lately, so I felt it was time to pull out a super linear holo, and it's been way too long since I've had a green mani.  Trawling through my stash I found something that'd been on Mount Untried for far too long. indoor, bright CF lighting Is Vapid Lacquer's Spider and the Fly a summer color?  Heck yes, because anything you want to wear this season is for this season.  That being said, it was released originally as part of a fall collection, and it is perfection for a warm autumnal palette... but these rainbows are all summertime. bright direct daylight I can't quite figure out if Spider and the Fly is an army green vs an emerald green with contrasting bronze-gold shimmer in the mix.  In either case, the end result is a deeply saturated, richer-than-velvet olive-leaning green. window-filtered indirect daylight The formula on this was smooth and perfect, needing 2 coats to get to complete opacity.  ...

 This month's book club selection was Cloud Cuckoo Land, a book longer than our typical picks, so one I was reading almost up until the deadline.  It's a multilayered story made up of a handful of distinctly different tales that all braid into each other by the end... which had me wondering which of the threads I'd pull out for a nail art look.  Then it occurred to me that the framing story that anchors the rest - about a comedy/travelogue written by an ancient Greek that involves a trip to a golden city in the sky populated by birds - was the ideal choice.  indoor, bright CF lighitng I've started with 3 coats of OPI I Believe in Manicures, an absolutely lovely sky blue with a formula just a little more tricky than it's worth, that's served me before as an ideal base color for book nail art .  Multiple plates then went into making this final look: clouds from KADS Chinese 021, birds from Nicole Diary L-10, and golden spires from a few images combined on MJ XXX-3...