Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 For several years running, I've gone all-out for the Oscars, and this remains my fave event of the year.  This year, though, the show was sandwiched in between a lovely long vacation and a bunch of work shenanigans, and I just wasn't feeling up to putting in the hours of effort that look needs.   window-filtered daylight Voila!  A fun and colorful look that let me get my art on but went together more cohesively than the usual Oscars look. I wanted to celebrate the diversity in this year's slate, since the acting choices and the international films were my absolute faves this year.  I've started with a flat white crème base, then layered a few random swipes of 2 jelly colors on each nail to create a watercolor rainbow effect.  I've topped it all with a filmstrip image from my trusty XXL-4 plate. In 2015, both Essie and OPI released a collection of sheer jellies for layering, and an assortment of these easily make up a rainbow with the addition of an or...

 Our book club pick for this month is Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  While typical Chinese images would have been an easy go-to, including any version of the book cover focusing on the titular fan, I wanted to pull out an idea from the story for this look. outdoor, bright sunlight for both One of the motifs in the story is a lavender silk cloth embroidered with clouds that one of the main characters reworks into many different outfits throughout her lifetime.  I started here with a base of OPI Planks a Lot, then added the Chinese-style cloud image from Creative Shop 88 in a navy blue holo.  I filled in the clouds with white while on the stamper head, let them dry for a while, and applied to my nails with a sticky base coat to help the reverse-stamped bits stick down.  Way easier and less clean-up than making decals for everything.   Happy reading! ~Michelle 

 I needed a light lavender/purple base for this week's book club nails project, and decided to wear this oldie from the vault by itself for a  couple days first.  indoor, bright CF lighting OPI released Planks a Lot with their 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean collection, which was all pastel crèmes without a swashbuckling piratical color to be found.  outdoor, bright direct sunlight Sadly, these crèmes are kind of a pain to work with - I thought so when I first got the couple of them I have, and now that I'm loads more confident with polish application, I still think these are pretty imperfect.  The formula is simultaneously a little too watery and also a little too thick, and if you overwork any one spot you'll end up with balding.  Blah.  outdoor, bright direct sunlight Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  It's a really pretty color that's quite unique in my stash, and it did wear rather well... but this formula isn't for the faint of heart.  Wher...

 A recent arrival to my stash was sitting on the desk ready to be filed away, but was so obviously perfect for Halloween that instead it got used right away. indoor, CF lighting Spiders and spiderwebs are one of my most favorite halloween designs.  Spooky + anything from the animal kingdom = winning, and all that layered over what's clearly the perfect Halloween season color for me just can't be beat.  Lina Spooklicious 01 was still out after providing images for my last mani, and the spiderwebs and spiders on it meant round 2 with this plate was an easy pick.  Webs are in MoYou London Mercury (chrome polishes are such a PITA but so worth it), and the spiders in El Corazon True Red. indoor, bright CF lighting The base for this look is 2 smooth coats of  OPI Black to Reality - I am clearly a sucker for exactly this shade of black-red, since it's about identical to China Glaze X, Trust Fund Just Call My Lawyer , and Vapid Ruffian - they're each close enough t...

Closing out my Star Trek series, I have to make a nod to all the boys wearing command red.  Q is of course my fave, especially in his completely over-the-top judge's robes from the very first episode, so this design has as much black in it as red. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X has been releasing some amazingly pretty fluid art polishes - instead of simple crème finishes, she's adding shimmer or flakies, and for X Marks the Spot she's added a handful of holo dust. outdoor, overcast daylight To get this look, I started with a layer of Julep Karmen, a fiery red foil that's been used several times in nail art experiments, painted thickly across a silicone mat.  I then added drips of OPI Glamour Game, a somewhat sheer champagne gold shimmer, and drips of X Marks the Spot.  When I had a big enough pool to work with, I folded the mat in half a couple of times, and tilted the mat on it's side to get the paint to flow and spread out. outdoor, overcast/shady daylight ...

I cannot remember what possessed me to pick up OPI fireflies, but it definitely must have been a swatch over black or another very dark color, because when it arrived, I swatched it, filed it, and promptly forgot about it for several years. indoor, bright CF lighting OPI Fireflies is a very sheer duochrome shimmer that flashes from green to peach.  In swatches I've seen of this worn solo, it's a vaguely yellowish stain on the nail that flashes green at only just the right angle... and frankly, it's not that impressive on my swatch stick either (hence my long skip despite my huge twin loves for most anything green or duochrome). outdoor, afternoon sunlight To avoid the stained-nail look with this polish, I first started with a single coat of Sally Hansen Shark Bait.  It's a slight touch darker and warmer toned than my own skin, but pretty darn close to being the just right "mannequin hands" shade for me, to the point where I'm considering backup...

My two book clubs met one week apart, and both of the selected books had striking cover graphics that were the obvious choice for inspiration. Mat Johnson's 'Pym' is a complex and occasionally hilarious satire/social commentary/riff on Edgar Allen Poe's only novel that has a whole lot to say about race in America by transporting everyone to Antarctica.  I started with the blue i found closest to the icy Antarctic ocean on the cover, OPI I Believe in Manicures.  This was a less than ideal base because it's streaky AF on the first coat in the way where you're really not sure if it's going to be ok even by the time you're painting a 3rd, but then one thick layer of TC magically brings it all together.  Though 3 coats was more than I wanted to wait to dry, ultimately it wore great, and the end result is a nicely saturated robin's egg blue.  The ice-covered mountains of the cover are recreated with the geometric mountain design from CB-005, and ...

A couple of years ago, I swatched polishes for a while alternating between fun flashy things and neutral colors.  The experiment didn't last for the whole year, but I certainly did get around to trying out more of my browns and golds and nude colors, so I'm going to give that a whirl again this year.  We'll see how long it lasts, but a good palate cleanser reminds me of why I grabbed all these pretty but more office appropriate shades in the first place. indoor, CF lighting One of OPI's all time best ever holiday collections was the 2012 James Bond-themed Skyfall set. Yeah, the obligatory reds made their appearance as required for an OPI holiday shindig, but there were plenty of really lovely and unusual things that arrived alongside them.  A few of them, including On Her Majesty's Secret Service contained this lovely pink/green/golden shifty glass fleck shimmer.  This one is The World is Not Enough, OHMSS's bronze-taupe sister. indoor, bright CF ligh...

And as soon as book club was over, back to Halloween designs! indoor, office fluorescent lighting for all photos Continuing my master plan to make all my Halloween looks as different as possible, this round is a skittlette in different colors.  I bought an orange crème polish this year (gasp!) specifically for in case of nail art, and so Turkish import Flormar makes its debut here with the super bright Salmon Sashimi on my pinky (absolutely not salmon colored, very definitively ORANGE).  The pistachio green of Damone Roberts 1968 comes next, then China Glaze Creative Fantasy (over a layer of Cult Casual Elegance to help with opacity for this notoriously streaky jelly).  Skeletons and spiderwebs are my 2 fave Halloween themes, so I had plenty of plates to pick from to end up with this unified theme.  The super tiny dancing skeletons on my pointer and middle fingers are from Dixie Plates 2017 Halloween plate, the single arms-up skeleton is from BM-413, and t...

My sister's birthday is the day after mine, and hers this year is a big one with a zero on the end.  She planned out an utterly amazing and relaxing week lounging in wine country for the two of us and our spouses, so wine-themed nails were certainly necessary. outdoor, overcast daylight I started with 2 easy coats of Suzy's all time fave gold, OPI Glitzerland.  It has a softly shimmery metallic finish, more hammered metal than liquid chrome, and dries into a nicely thin accumulation of shimmer no matter how many coats you wanted to stack up. outdoor, overcast daylight To create my wine country look, I've used a grape & vine motif from Messy Mansion 75 and the utterly ideal for this purpose El Corazon Vinous.  While I absolutely love each of the designs on this plate, all but the tiniest accent images are way too wide to fit on a nail, and unfortunately I think that the piece of the design is a lot less clear as to what it is than the whole design on the pl...

I wore La Boheme just a few days out of the envelope it shipped in, and filing the bottle away with her closest sisters reminded me of a polish or two I'd once hoped were lemming killers for that red, as well as just being curious as to how close all these were.  Red isn't my typical jam, so the fact that I had a handful of similar things just begged a comparison for sanity's sake.  Also, the sun peeked out for the first time in days , so why not run around my neighborhood like a loon chasing those rays while fanning a handful of plastic bits? indoor, CF lighting From left to right in all pics throughout, we have (links are to my full pics & reviews of each): Ninja Polish Divinity   Baroness X Magma Colors by Llarowe P-47 OPI La Boheme First things first, absolutely none of these are dupes.  They don't look identical in the bottle, merely in the same ballpark, so I'm using swatch sticks here to show subtle differences.  My swatch sticks are al...

Clarins 230-type shifty shimmer polishes are of course some of my all-time faves, and OPI La Boheme has been one of my lemmings for quite some time now.  An ebay alert a couple of weeks ago informed me that a new listing had gone up for $20 cheaper than I've seen it in years, and hey, you only live once soooo... indoor, CF lighting Wait, what just happened here?!  Yep, those nails are SHORT.  While stepping into my bathroom to get some remover so I could start this here very mani, I cracked a fingernail off into the edge of the door frame.  It had the good graces to snap off very neatly and squarely at the base of my free edge, but there was no way I could do anything other than cut the rest down to match.  Sigh.  So, here we are, starting back over at squared nubs for 2019.  Huzzah! indoor, CF lighting La Boheme is part of one of the most truly amazing holiday collections of all time, OPI's 2003 Holiday on Broadway.  It's a deep red t...