Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Well, my alternating vampy and ethereal nail looks theme was going to get derailed at some point, and what finally did it was an amazing trip this week to the Jersey Shore to see Harlequin Ducks. indoor, bright CF lighting Harlequin Ducks are utterly striking creatures that look like they were done as a graphic designer's masters project.  There's patches of midnight navy, stormcloud blue, and cinnabar, flashed with snips of black and white, all in bold patterns across the whole bird's body.   I've picked out a few of these dramatically graphic designs to make this look - the dot on the side of the head, the layered V of the back of the head, the black & white bar across the shoulder, and the big cinnabar patch on the side.  I picked all crème colors since the design is flashy enough without added sparkle. outdoor, bright daylight For the stormcloud blue on my index & middle finger, I used the perfectly apt Cirque Storm King.  The warm orange-leaning red...

Reflective glitter is the new hotness that's absolutely exploded all over the indie polish scene in the past few months.  I've  been a little hesitant to jump onto this particular wagon because 1) still attempting to work that no-buy and 2)I typically kinda hate glitter removal.  But like the polish nerd I am, I totally caved when I saw one that was just too too gorgeous to pass by... indoor, bright CF lighting Obsessed is about the right word here.  This is an amazingly saturated color that was truly the exact violet center between blue and purple.  It leans more one way or the other depending on indoor vs sunlight, but I am filing this one under blue.  The base is deeply saturated but is a jelly to allow those sparkles to shine forth, so it took 3 coats to get to the opacity you see here.  with flash With flash or with the just right angle of direct sunlight, those bright silvery glitters come alive and throw back as much light as physics allows....

This series has been rather fun, ricocheting back and forth from light to dark.  After my last super vampy but not quite black, I rebounded all the way over to iridescent white. all photos indoors with bright CF lighting Shleee Polish has been a huge fave of mine for a couple of years now.  She's absolutely a master at shimmery sparkle that contrasts beautifully (but never clashes) with a different base color, and I keep being lured into her weekly releases though I'm trying my darndest to stick to a no-buy otherwise. Ghostly Snapshot is a barely mint-tinted white crelly base, jam packed with a lovely coarse-milled aurora shimmer that shifts from spring pink in direct light to gold at slight angles, then on over to vibrant metallic spring green at steeper angles.  I'm wearing 3 coats here to bring this to full opacity. I was fairly hard on my hands this week, and the weather is utter crap, so I have only bottle shots indoors and no outdoor sunshine.  Also, these phot...

 I reached for a metallic color this week, and after looking through the bins of silver and gold, spotted just what I wanted in the copper section. indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish continues to be one of the absolute queens of shimmery goodness.   outdoor, afternoon daylight Forgotten Things starts with a super sheer, barely smoke-tinted base.  It took 3 thin coats to build up to opacity, so it would very easily serve as a topper - this would look smashing over any shade of grey all the way through to black, or a very dark red. indoor, bright CF lighting In direct light, Forgotten Things is a beautiful, rich copper.  It quickly shifts over to bronze at a slight angle - easily evident across just the curve of my nails - and hits a bright peridot green at longer angles.  Scattered across that is a really nice holo flake, whose silver vanishes into the metallic base in low light, then leaps into bright rainbows in bright light (below). outdoor, afterno...

The polish world was shook when ILNP released Eclipse - a jaw-dropping red-to-black duochrome - last Halloween, and shortly that pigment was out in the world and being used in plenty of goodies.  Though I of course snapped up several variants, they've all languished in the neverending Mount Untried... indoor, CF lighting Laszlo is part of a series Shleee Polish released named after characters & moments in the show What We Do In the Shadows (which is hilarious and awesome).   outdoor, bright sunlight This particular version of the duochrome has a linear holo added to the mix, which is gorgeously sparkly in any bright lighting, but doesn't grey out the polish much so that it stays a nice rich black. outdoor, bright sunlight This particular pigment is a true duochrome, not a rainbow of shifts between two poles.  Laszlo flips straight from black to red with barely a hint gold in between. indoor, bright CF lighting The lack of overtones and in-between shades is actual...

About a year ago, Shleee released a polish in my fave color, with my name (almost) right on it... and as with pretty much everything when one has a mountain of untrieds, it sat unloved FAR too long.  indoor, bright CF lighting Michele (which should have 2 L's, ahem) is an absolute ocean dream.  It's a lovely mid-toned aqua just right in the middle of blue and green, loaded up with a holo flake sparkle and a stunning contrast shimmer. outdoor, afternoon sunlight In almost any lighting condition, that contrast shimmer shows as a seriously intense pink flash - few pics show it even halfway accurately, so just dial up the bright pink reflection down the center of my nails by several notches.  This shimmer does shift to a gorgeous green in angled light, which changes up the look of the polish quite a bit, but shows up in these pics only as a flash around the curve of the nail.  indoor, bright CF lighting If this polish looks somewhat familiar, well, it did to me too:...

 As a scientist, I'm unapologetically liberal in my political leanings, and WOW did I breathe a sigh of relief this week!  A celebration of a peaceful transition of political era was most definitely in order. outdoor, cloudy daylight I've started with a trio of polishes with quite different holo finishes.  My index nail is Dance Legend Triumph, a navy with larger silver holo flake.  My middle finger is Shleee Ghostly Snapshot, a lovely iridescent white with a light scattering of very fine holo dust.  The red nails are Emily de Molly Understatement, a jelly packed full of holo glitters. indoor, bright CF lighting Over my variously sparkly red, white, and blue base, I've layered Justice Ginsberg's dissent collars in silver holo, and the feminist power symbol in blue holo, all in celebration of our first black woman elected to the Vice Presidency.  Images are from a custom Lantern & Wren plate memorializing "The Notorious RBG," which stamped great. indoor,...

Last week, someone in one of my nail art FB groups posted a gorgeous mani with stylized layered pine trees in bright jeweltone crèmes, which reminded me: hey, I have a ton of nature-themed stamping plates that include different pine trees... indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish releases new stuff each Friday, and more often than not includes a weekly mystery.  These are truly unknowns - no hints at all as to color or finish - and though I tend to avoid such things, her creations are so unique it's hard to pass one of these by if there's already treats in my shopping cart.  This one, Softy, is an indeed soft lavender with pearly lilac shimmer and a light scattering of very fine holo dust.  I'm showing 2 coats here, but might go with a 3rd if I was going to wear it solo.  outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight I loved the twilight-sky glow of Softy so much that I abandoned plans for candy-colored trees and kept the rest natural.  My ring finger is part of a mounta...

So many releases lately have featured lush, beautiful, vampy cool-toned colors.  In an effort to hold on to my no/low buy, I went shopping in my stash... and I'm ready to kick myself for letting this one languish unloved for 3 years!! indoor, bright CF lighting Shleee Polish has now and again released a few polishes themed to American Horror Story (in keeping with her creepy-cool aesthetic), and this one rolled out in 2017 along with the Cult season.  I'm showing version 2.0 here, so if this strikes your fancy be aware that there were subtle differences in the amount of shimmer in the 2 versions.  indoor, bright CF lighting Cult 2.0 is a luscious violet jelly filled to the brim with aurora and glassfleck shimmers.  The red flash of the aurora pulls the whole look firmly over to royal purple, and in all lighting it's either shimmer or borderline metallic in its flash. indoor, bright angled lighting This is indeed that flavor of aurora shimmer that comes close to a Cla...

When Shleee released a few polishes with unusual names (100% her usual thing) early this year, I didn't cotton on to there being a theme until someone else squee'd over it.  Once I watched the devastating brain-warp that is Midsommar, wow did I get it.  Fortunately for me, she restocked the sparklefest gem of the collection so I could snap it up.  indoor, bright CF lighting May Queen is an homage to the dress that culminates the film , and this polish absolutely wins for most dead-on-accurate nod to its inspiration of pretty much any polish ever.  outdoor, shaded daylight This is a vibrant spring green jelly, overflowing with an ocean of iridescent flakies that primarily flash pink & gold, plus plenty of small round holographic glitters.  outdoor, shaded daylight There's also a much smoother shimmer here that compliments and underlies the other elements of this polish, shifting from flamingo pink straight on (above) to a bright green-tinted...