Sweet Baby Octopolish!

It's the height of summer dragonfly season, and I've been seeing so many beautiful jewels flying around that I was absolutely inspired to bring some with me everywhere I go. On my "jelly donut mani" base of 1 coat Fancy Gloss Got Milk + 1 coat Ethereal White Smoke, I've stamped several different dragonfly images from KADS Flower 015 and any other plate I found with a realistic looking design.  I then filled in the dragonfly bodies were with various holos, some as leadlighting and some as reverse-stamping... but then promptly could not get a bright sunlight photo to show off the sparkle.   I totally loved this look, wearing it for a whole week.  Hope you get out to enjoy some summer sunshine while it lasts! ~Michelle 

 Some of the super hot nail trends that pop up on everyone's feed really crack me up.  Most aren't so much a "trend" as "that one time someone did something over-the-top for a nail art competition, and someone felt the need to make a post about it."   outdoor, bright daylight This time around, though, the "trend" is certainly trending, with the "jelly donut look" gracing the fingers of celebs and city dwellers in the know all over instagram.  In my eyes, though, it's just a sheer, soft, white, and it just so happens I wanted exactly that for my next nail art look, so I wore it solo for a day too. indoor, bright CF lighting My version is a super shiny iridescent, but still translucent enough to look like the glaze on a donut (sidebar: why are these called jelly donuts and not glazed donut nails??).  I've used 1 coat Fancy Gloss Got Milk, then 1 coat Ethereal White Smoke, plus my usual base & top coats, and wow was this quick bu...

Well, did my last look count as "light," cuz this one is most definitely dark?  Nah, not so much.  I guess this means by not leaping back to a more demure or desaturated or neutral or pale color, I'm out of my every-other-mani-switch game?  Look, all I know is that deep violet jelly was calling my name... indoor, bright CF lighting Bee's Knees often creates lovely polishes for important causes, and For Texas supported a charity relief after the 2021 power crisis.  It's the deep violet sister to Shoggoth from the Lovecraft Country collection, and contains the green-to-blue shifting "UP sister" shimmer pigment. window-filtered bright daylight I have this filed with the blue polishes, but the base is a bit of a chameleon - it does hit a deep, cool blue in some light, but is also distinctly purple-leaning in others. outdoor, bright daylight In angled lighting, the sparkly shimmer pigment shifts to blue, bringing the whole look more to the blue side of violet...

 Neon isn't so much my jam.  Eye-searingly bright colors are right up there with oranges and yellows in my "nah, it's cool on you but not on me" list.  And yet...  Cirque's annual Vice Collection of summer neons had a really unique red that had me intrigued.  Plenty of folks reported it leaned rather orangey, so doubly not up my alley, but then someone suggested this as being similarly bright, but leaning more pink than orange, and just woah. window-filtered overcast daylight Orly released Blazing Sunset with their 2018 Summer collection, "Neon Earth," and it is indeed scorchingly neon.  In bright daylight, it's merely bright, but somehow in lower lighting it absolutely glows. indoor, bright CF lighting Blazing Sunset dries down just a touch more saturated than the bottle color, so you end up with a neon coral and not the hot pink the bottle suggests. On swatch stick and while making these decals, it's easily opaque in just 2 coats, and does not ...

For round 2 of my back-to-back book clubs, we read Maria Dahvana Headley's 'The Mere Wife' which is a modern-setting retelling of Beowulf that was utterly fantastic.  The author's recent translation of Beowulf is itself wonderful, and a golden dragon (either in actuality or in decorative motif) makes an appearance in both books. indoor, bright CF lighting I've started with 2 coats of Ms Andry's IDGAF, which I've used before for as a perfectly golden base for nail art - it really does glimmer marvelously, and I'll be sad when that little mini bottle is gone.  The dragon scales are from Messy Mansion 21 and the gorgeous eye from Nicole Diary L-10.  The eye image was super easy to use, consisting of a base color, eye outline, and pupil.  Some layered designs are pretty tricky to line up once you've lifted them off the plate, but this one was very forgiving and easy to do.  outdoor, bright sunlight Happy reading! ~Michelle