Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I was feeling pretty girly and festive (not my usual MO, that's for sure) for Valentine's day, resulting in red and pink and hearts all around. window-filtered direct sunlight On my thumb, index, and middle fingers, I'm wearing 2 coats of Grace-Full's Blood Countess, a red jelly somewhere between oxblood and scarlet with plenty of ultrachrome flakies.  My ring and pinky fingers have 2 coats of Sinful Colors Glass pink, a princess charming barely pink with super sparkly glass fleck.  I've worn and loved both of these two in the past. window-filtered daylight For the accent nails, I taped off a diagonal and added a generous dab of Blood Countess, then later stamped hearts in Emily de Molly dark pink.  The stark contrast between the red and pale pink was too much for the stamping polish to remain opaque over, so I had to repeat the stamping in another layer. outdoor, overcast daylight Hope your Valentine's day was fun, whether or not you got all g...

My short little nails demanded flashy sparkles, but I'm thinking while growing them out I might pass on swatching/trying new polishes lest my annoyance with shorties taint my opinions.  I pulled an old fave out of the vault, and used it with a new magnet. indoor, CF lighting Sinful Colors released Polar Opposites back in 2012, the first time magnetic polish was cool, and I'm super glad to be back on that train.  It's an almost gunmetal silver with a subtle scattering of electric blue sparks unmagnetized, and it's easily opaque in 1-2 coats (no base undies needed, as typical for the older magnetics but less common of late).  It was sold with a starburst-design magnet that works really well with this polish, but is a bit too big for tiny nails, so I tried out my flower magnet pen. indoor, CF lighting indoor, bright CF lighting This handy little magnetic pen is available at a bunch of nail supply stores for typically about $2.  One end has a straight row...

One of my FB nail groups has been blowing up lately with bright summery designs using foaming polishes for fluid nail art.  My 3 bottles of these special effects polish are underused, but despite the prodigious volume of nail polish in this house, I'm always hesitant to try out techniques that involve using huge quantities of polish or pouring it straight out of the bottle (!!).  indoor, bright CF lighting While the stamper technique to get the cells to form worked well for me last time , this round was all about watching a half dozen tutorials like this one where polish was dabbed, dripped, or poured onto a silicone nail art mat, the mat was folded, and POOF cells foam right on up.  That insta video is exactly how I did this one, including the use of a single thin coat of one of the base colors painted onto each nail for the decals to stick onto. outdoor, bright sunlight I also managed to get over my aversion to pouring out polish by using stuff that I'm oth...

Plenty of times, I've seen someone else's swatch of an untried in my own stash that just puts it in a whole new light.  This week's WOW moment was the potential of layering, and the apparently rather divided internet opinion on Sinful Colors Devil's stare. indoor, CF lighting Devil's Stare is a fiery coral-red jelly liberally sprinkled with iridescent shards and microglitters - it's pretty clearly the hot version of Green Ocean.  Since that one is kinda meh on its own but amazing as a topper , I felt more than a little foolish to not realize the same was true of Devil's Stare until Manigeek's efforts to  make what she thought was an ugly polish pretty . indirect daylight And poof!  A mani idea was born.  My middle and ring fingers have 3 coats of Devil's Stare, while all other fingers have one and a half coats of Llarowe Hot Summer Nights, a vampy blackened wine shimmer.  Devil has a sticky formula that needs a little dabbing to get a dec...

The day after Christmas, my partner and I hopped on a plane to go spend time with family in Colorado through New Year's Eve.  When I go out of town, I never take super special LE polishes, the sort that would be impossible to replace if they got lost out of my luggage.  For the most sparkle-tastic holiday of the year, I wanted to look classy but blingy.  A good stamping plate and some sadly ignored mainstream polishes worked out perfectly! window-filtered overcast daylight First up, for the trip out, I wore Sinful Colors Haute Koffee.  Haute is a luscious, deep, dark, vampy wine with a beautiful shimmer that's utterly hidden by the velvety matte finish.  This is absolutely one of those polishes that you can wear 2 different ways, and would look contrasty enough to be pretty with part of each nail painted in glossy topcoat and part left matte.  I'm wearing 2 coats here, then stamped with a paisley-esque stripe design from Creative Shop 77 using Emily d...

Last year, Dance Legend released a handful of colors in their Spot It line that were supposed to cause cool foamy bubbles when used as a topcoat over wet polish.  Genius Russian bloggers were able to get spectacular results with this stuff ( seriously, watch the video because she makes it look suuuuper easy ), but my one attempt on a swatch stick was a total fail.  Flash forward to this year, when Sinful colors released their own version, and BOOM fluid nail art has really taken off. outdoor, bright sunlight I made a swatch stick with Dance Legend Spot It White when I first got it, painting directly over a wet black base using a technique like what was in that Russian video.  It ended up as a streaky white wash over the black base - no foamy look, no bubbles, dud.  After the Sinful polishes blew this trend up, folks came up with several ways to get the "cells" to form in wet polish, so I revisited DL Spot It White, and got the super cool results you see above. ...

I'm having fun creating "event looks" lately - it's a nice change to actually play around with my stash instead of only swatching.  This past weekend, I spent a few days in the perfect weather of Napa California for 3 days of wine and music at BottleRock.  The line-up was fantastic, the company was great, there was literally wine for days... and I utterly forgot to take pics of my metallic nails gleaming in the west coast sunshine. indoor, with authentic wine bottle mani pic prop I wore Sinful Colors Kreme de la Kreme ( previously worn & reviewed here ) with arrows from the gorgeous new MoYou London Minimal 03 plate stamped in black.  As with other times I've used this polish, it's easy to work with and wears great - ideal for heading out of town for a few days when you have no plans to re-do nails partway through. ~Michelle

We threw a surprise birthday showers for one of my work buddies this week.  Her soon-to-be tiny human is a little girl, and her fave thing ever is leopard print, so pink spots were in order! bright sunlight for both I started with 3 coats of Sinful Colors Glass Pink, possibly my all time fave pink - it's sheer but extra glass-fleck-y (one of the most straightforwardly truthful names ever), and gorgeous as both a topper and on its own.  To that I added the leopard spots from Uber Chic's Out of Africa plate using SuperChic Lacquer Realm of Erotica. It's a lot brighter in a KERPOW! way than I usually go for, but I ultimately thought it was adorable, and more importantly, she loved it! ~Michelle

The moment I found Kreme de la Kreme, confirmed by the moment I put it on, I knew comparing it to the sold-out and sought-after Cirque Halcyon was necessary.  Turns out they're not exact dupes, but Kreme might help a whole lot if you're pining for Halcyon.  For all pics below, Halcyon is on the right. indoor, bright CF lighting indoor, less intense CF lighting from more diffuse source First things first:  the color isn't identical in these 2, with Halcyon being a little more rosy, though both look ROSE gold and not simply gold when worn. The shimmer particles are the major difference, with Halcyon being made up of metallic microflakes and Kreme a much finer metallic shimmer.  Halcyon gets the advantage here, with a blinding hammered-metal shine in the sun. Kreme de la Kreme is completely opaque in one coat, while Halcyon needs 2, giving Kreme the advantage in nail art if layering thickness is of concern. They're genuinely close enough that ...

Illyrian is blowing things up lately, and several of the shiny new things that just arrived at my house immediately clamored to jump to the head of the queue.  The gorgeous copper shimmer in Awaken Your Magic just happened to match the metallic rose gold of another new arrival, Sinful Colors Kreme de la Kreme, so the 2 got paired up tout suite. indoor, bright CF lighting Awaken Your Magic is a sheer lavender jelly with a rich coppery contrasting shimmer overlay and a sprinkling of silver holo microglitters.  It needed 3 coats for level of opacity seen here, which still shows some VNL, but in an even non-streaky way i'm fond of.  Each coat was perfectly self-leveling, so you could easily use this as a topper at one coat. indoor, bright CF lighting Kreme de la Kreme is an easy one coat wonder.  Though it's a bit thicker than ideal, that's likely to suspend all the metallic shimmer it's packed with.  Cleanup is rather tricky, since the shimmer dissolves...

I needed a little summertime flash for my pedicure last week, and loved Sinful Colors I Love You enough that a matching mani was definitely in order. bright CF lighting Though the brightness of this light makes the polish look a little too sheer, it's definitely the most color-accurate of any pics I got - yep, the dreaded purple camera curse strikes again.  ILY is a rich purple jelly that tips over to the red/plum rather than the blue/royal purple side of things. indirect, overcast light It's got a lovely glassy shine even before topcoat, and is packed with a pretty, almost glassfleck sort of sparkle. indirect, overcast light The shimmer here is very subtly duochromatic, shifting from purple to bronze (which didn't change the overall appearance of the color). I brushed on a gradient of Sinful's Nail Junkie for accent nails - since both polishes are jellies, no sponge was needed.  I painted the nail tip in one color, then the base in the other, mak...