Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Apparently, I'm still in a blue polish mood, but a little lighter and more springtime than my last look... indoor, bright CF lighting for all photos Lilac Fairy, from Pahlish's 2019 Russian Ballet Collection, is a soft sky blue with a delicate ruby-pink contrasting shimmer. It's a fairly sheer but buildable crelly formula that came up to opacity in 3 smooth and even coats.  This wore nicely and gave me no troubles with application.  Rating:  4 out of 5 stars.  Equally lovely as a midwinter frosty look or as a springtime change-of-seasons, Lilac Fairy isn't lilac per se but is pretty fairy-esque.  I love contrast shimmers, and this one isn't POW in your face but it is very wearable. Where to buy:  Pahlish usually rotates her collections out within a year or so, and I don't believe you can still buy this direct from her .  Keep an eye out for destashes & blog sales. ~Michelle 

 One of my fave brands had an absolutely stunning deep blue with rainbowy aurora shimmer, and before I clicked "buy" I thought wait a sec, where have I seen that before... indoor, bright CF lighting for all photos Aaaaaah, yes, that's it.  In yet another example of "stunning things I've left untried for literally years" we have the amazing Mortal Coil, which Laquester released way back in 2017.  I was stunningly in love with the green version, which I wore nearly immediately on arrival , yet somehow never got around to the OG stunner.   This is a very slightly dusty navy blue, lightly dusted with holographic microglitters and filled to the brim with a gorgeous aurora shimmer that shifts red to bronze to green.  My nails were always multiple colors at once and the little holo sparks shone out like stars in a night sky. lookit that shift! This polish is staggeringly beautiful in bright sunlight... of which we had absolutely none after the first day I wore it....

A friend was over this week and picked out a blinding holo for me to do her nails with... which got me nostalgic for back in the day when linear holos were the height of indie nail polish fashion... which made me realize this gorgeous thing had been sitting in the vault unloved for way too long! indoor, bright CF lighting Awwww yeaaaaah, check out that sweet sweet holo flame: outdoor, bright daylight Darling Diva released Nightbird as part of her 2014 Stevie Nicks-themed White Witch collection, most all of which were bright linear holographic polishes.  This one is a deeply saturated sapphire blue, with a readily visible rainbow flame in bright light. indoor, office fluorescent lighting When indoor or in lower light, Nightbird was a barely violet-leaning navy with a subtle grey cast from the holo dust.  outdoor, bright daylight This took two coats to get to perfect opacity, and I had zero problems with the formula.  Fortunately, though this has a hint of violet to the blu...

 Mr Man immediately leapt with "sharks!!" when I told him I was pondering my next nail look.  Well ok, then, that's specific and do-able. indoor, bright CF lighting I've started here with the fairly flawless midnight blue scattered holo that is a England Tristam.  While I've worn this polish several times now, I've never used it on its own, always as a base or contributor to nail art.  But geez this color!!  The large manta ray on my ring finger is from Creative Shop 173, while the sharks are from Lantern & Wren Wild About You 4. ~Michelle 

Well it seems I'm all mixed up on my alternating light then dark looks... so I'm pushing "reset" with a paler shade. indoor, bright CF lighting The man said "blue" when I asked for color inspo, and I decided that would be a soft sky blue instead of a big stormy saturated one.   window-filtered indirect daylight Cadillacquer released Trolljegeren for the October 2021 Monsters & Mythicals PPU.  It's a very sheer, barely-there sky blue that's been jam-packed full of aurora shimmer and opaque matte blue hex glitters in at least 2 sizes. window-filtered indirect daylight The formula on this was absolutely superb, with no fishing or placement needed to get the glitters to spread out roughly evenly, and with extremely simple cleanup. indoor, bright CF lighting It's a bit of a chameleon, looking more sparkly and leaning much warmer in bright light when the aurora shimmer is most prominent.  In lower lighting, the aurora takes a back seat to the subtl...

Our latest pick for book club was Ruman Alam's Leave the World Behind.  While I didn't much care for the book (angst in the suburbs is my least favorite genre), there was a dream-like vision that one character had of a herd of hundreds of deer running past their vacation home in the middle of the night which struck me as particularly beautiful. all photos indoor, in bright CF lighting I've started with CrowsToes The Terminal Engagement as my base - it's a smoky, middle-of-the-night-sky blue with subtly sparkling shimmer.  I've added some tree images from HK-06 in green, then reached for KADS Chinese 021 for the deer. I have a little over a dozen KADS plates, and all of them simply work .  The designs are simple enough to not be finicky to work with, but complex enough to be visually interesting.  Most of the things I have from them are unique in my stash.  And they are cheap , at typically around $2 per plate.   Plenty of the other inexpensive Chinese ...

Today I have a quick swatch that I wore for just a day before heading straight into some nail art.  I needed a deep midnight blue base for my next look, and here this was untried in my stash: indoor, bright CF lighting The Terminal Engagement was part of CrowsToes anti-valentines collection from 2015.  It's a smoky navy blue, definitely a touch dusty, filled with chunky coppery & pink shimmer. indoor, bright direct window-filtered light The base is a bit sheer in very direct lighting (above), but the shimmer makes it visually opaque in most lighting IRL. indoor, bright CF lighting This went on in two smooth & easy coats without any issues at all. indoor, bright direct window-filtered light indoor, bright CF lighting Rating:  a solid 3 out of 5 stars.  While not necessarily unique in my collection, this is a lovely color that served exactly the need I had for my next look.  The formula was lovely as always true with CT, and this wore decently well. Where ...

 This month's book club selection was Cloud Cuckoo Land, a book longer than our typical picks, so one I was reading almost up until the deadline.  It's a multilayered story made up of a handful of distinctly different tales that all braid into each other by the end... which had me wondering which of the threads I'd pull out for a nail art look.  Then it occurred to me that the framing story that anchors the rest - about a comedy/travelogue written by an ancient Greek that involves a trip to a golden city in the sky populated by birds - was the ideal choice.  indoor, bright CF lighitng I've started with 3 coats of OPI I Believe in Manicures, an absolutely lovely sky blue with a formula just a little more tricky than it's worth, that's served me before as an ideal base color for book nail art .  Multiple plates then went into making this final look: clouds from KADS Chinese 021, birds from Nicole Diary L-10, and golden spires from a few images combined on MJ XXX-3...

Swinging over to a rich, dark, dramatic color after my neutral palate cleanser... indoor, bright CF lighting Every month so many makers release utterly gorgeous creations on Polish Pickup that it's real easy to go broke buying all the amazing one-time things.  But I, my dears, am valiantly attempting to stick to a no-buy as much as possible, so it's time to shop my stash, and here's what I found. window-filtered daylight My first go-round with Lolipop Posse Lacquer, The Final Sacrifice was released with PPU back in February 2020.  It's an inky-dark navy blue filled with finely milled aurora shimmer and lightly dusted with ultra-small holo dust, inspired by the cover of Florence + the Machine's debut album, Lungs,  I love that album and I loved the swatch pics, so this was a must-buy that of course sat on Mount Untried ever since. outdoor, bright daylight To allow that shimmer to shine forth, the formula was a little thinner than expected, and TFS needed 2.5 coats to...

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....

Continuing my switch back to dark polish every other mani is this long-untried super vampy blue, Color Club Williamsburg. indoor, bright CF lighting Williamsburg was released way back in 2013, and was the other hit from the Girl About Town collection (the first being The Uptown , long sold out and now hard to find).   outdoor, afternoon sunlight This is a super deep, dark, inky sapphire blue, filled with a microflake and glassfleck shimmer that makes little electric blue sparkles in this night sky base. indoor, bright CF lighting It goes on smoothly and is thoroughly opaque in two coats - you could likely get away with one very thick coat, but we all know that won't dry properly and might make your topcoat bubble, so stick with a lighter hand here.   window-filtered daylight We also know blues this saturated are going to stain the ever living everything out of your cuticles, so paint carefully!  Even a session with a clean-up brush wasn't adequate for me to get ...

 Well it's getting to be Halloween mani season, and while I haven't quite decided what design yet, I knew I wanted something kinda neutral and shadowy, so this dusky blue-toned grey got unearthed from Mount Untried. indoor, bright CF lighting Rescue Beauty Lounge released Réveillon with their 2013 Fan Collection, where colors were submitted on and voted by a fan group.  It's a soft, dusty grey overlaid with a finely milled pinky-purple shimmer. indoor, window-filtered daylight I'm showing 2 coats here to get to complete opacity, and had zero problems with the brush or balding/dragging of the polish.  It's a touch thicker than I like, but hey, it's most of a decade old so I won't call that a fault.  indoor, CF lighting Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  It's a pretty and flattering color on me, but by now I've realized that as much as I liked their aesthetic, RBL's formula just doesn't work all that great with my chemistry.  This wore more quickly th...

 The weather is turning a little crisp lately, and my nails are a touch longer than I usually keep them, so clearly it's thermal time! indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale released Welkin at Dusk as an exclusive for her fan group in September 2020, and though thermal nail polishes are really only guaranteed to transition for 6 months, I had zero troubles with this shade a year later.   indoor, window-filtered daylight + office fluorescent lighting Welkin is an absolutely beautiful color combo, transitioning from a teal-leaning blue when warm to a deep indigo sapphire when cool.  There's chunky holo dust and tiny holo glitters nicely visible in any point of the thermal transition, yet this took only 2 coats to result in very good opacity even while in  the warm state. indoor, bright CF lighting Unfortunately for me, I just don't think I've done this polish justice with these pics.  For a bunch of reasons I just didn't devote time to getting good pics, so ...