Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I'm hoping to make this work out like I did for Halloween, which is to say, crossing my fingers there's enough time for a few holiday looks before the 25th rolls around. indoor, bright CF lighting We had a holiday party at work this week, so I wanted to go with something definitively festive and not just winter-themed this this round.  I've started with 2 coats of Picture Polish Kryptonite, a lovely deep pine green somewhere between emerald and hunter. outdoor, overcast daylight To most of my nails, I've added this adorable repeating motif of evergreen trees from Powder Perfect's Woodland Creatures plate in basic white.  My accent nails are a slightly cartoony drawing of a Christmas tree from Curali 011, also in white, filled in using metallic gold, and then dotted with shimmery red to stand in for ornaments after placing it on the nail. indoor, bright CF lighting Curali is a new to me brand that I'd had my eye on for a while.  When I finally ...

Back to something a little more restrained after the festive red & green, the man picked "denim blue" so I pulled out Picture Polish's Big Bang. indoor, bright CF lighing Big Bang is a deep sapphire blue with a slight dusty tinge, sprinkled with ultrachrome flakies.  It's a jellyish formula that needed 3 coats for opacity.  I debated a full-on galaxy mani (with a name like Big Bang, it's hard to not ponder doing so), but decided to keep it tame with a simple accent nail stamping using Sinful Colors Kameleon and the XXL-04 plate. indoor, CF lighting While never looking black or almost-black even in low lighting, the dusty quality of the blue in Big Bang meant that it did look very dark in lower lighting. indoor, bright CF lighting Rating:  3 out of 5 stars for this starfield.  Next time, rockets and comets are definitely in order. Where to buy:  check the list of international stockists for PP . ~Michelle

When Suzy sent me a pic of her wearing this, I pretty quickly obtained my own bottle:  Picture Polish Kryptonite. indoor CF lighting  Kryptonite is a rich forest green of the sort that's a touch more blue than yellow (in the 90s, we called this "hunter green").  The shade is dark enough to feel like a vampy autumn color, but never appeared near-black.  It's a jelly finish sparkling with the silvery holo fragments that PP does so well. check out the squishy depth in the sun As is often the case with this type of holo particle, it looks to be silvery at least as often as it's rainbow - it's a subtle holo rather than a rainbow flame.  The formula was great, neither too thick or thin, and without the cuticle pooling that would make cleanup for a green this dark be total hell (do paint careful with this, though, since getting it off any cuticles is as challenging as expected). indirect sunlight The jelly formula gives a killer shine and rea...

After playing around with  Solar Flare , I wanted to move right on to another of my Picture Polish LEs, Illusionist. indoor CF lighting Illusionist was my fave from this collection before it got here, and it certainly didn't disappoint.  I still didn't feel the need for black nails in the springtime weather, so like it's sister, this is 3 super sheer coats of this polish (that's intended for layering over black).  The formula on this was perfect, utterly and completely self-leveling to a flawless glass-smooth finish even before topcoat. outdoor, indirect late afternoon sunlight All of the colors you catch in the bottle up there are readily evident on the nail, from a flashy aqua: outdoor, direct afternoon sunlight To a shimmery magenta: same outdoor afternoon And even picking up a hint of coppery gold at the edges: Illusionist is still plenty flashy indoors, it definitely didn't need the sun to bring out the color play: indoor office...

Aussie brand Picture Polish recently released a LE collection of space-themed duochromes, all of which are sheer and intended to be layered over black to make the color shift really pop out.  I picked up a few of them, and while I love the idea of getting the color in the bottle, it's just too springtime for black nails.  Since there's plenty of swatches of these over black anyway, I wore Solar Flare on its own. indoor CF lighting In the bottle, Solar Flare is a gorgeous rich copper that shades into wine at the center and green to nearly blue at the edges, with a scattering of fine silvery holo glitter thrown in the mix.  I'm wearing 3 coats in all pictures here - as advertised, this is a very sheer polish. indirect afternoon sunlight Also as advertised, SF is super shifty, easily going all the way from wine to greenish bronze with a tilt of the fingers.  The holo glitter, though, usually appears silver in most lighting, only really flashing tiny ra...