Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 One last fun Halloween look for this year! outdoors, overcast daylight Once upon a group buy, I snagged this truly ginormous stamping plate of no particular brand, labeled only as XXL-03, featuring a huge sugar skull in the center (big as your whole hand) surrounded by every possible iteration of skulls, bats, and assorted Halloween goodness.  It was well worth whatever I paid for it, and I bust it out at least once per spooky season.  For this round, I've used a fairly realistic-shaped skull pattern (bonus!  The plate came with a tinier skull to fit my pinky nails!) in various crème colors to match a super loudly colorful skull shirt I recently discovered on Amazon. It was a hit combo at work and for passing out candy to the kiddos trick-or-treating. Hope your season was fun, ~Michelle 

 Ok, the last one was pretty traditionally "spooky" but for this round I wanted to try out the "spoopy" vibe of cute Halloween. outdoor, indirect/overcast light for all I started with a really simple tutorial from What's Up Nails , picked an orange crème, purple jelly, and green crème to make it a Halloween color scheme, then painted freehand exactly as shown in the tutorial.  Stamped black bat shadows topped with the same shape in silver from the KN 15 stamping plate tied it all together.  I totally love how this turned out, like a splash of crayon color, and the negative space is something that always looks so chic that I really ought to play with more.  ~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...

Not too long ago, Suzy was wearing a truly amazing blue in a pic she sent, and I immediately jumped on ebay to grab a bottle or two. indoor, CF lighting Sally Hansen released Denim along with a dozen or so other Insta-dri colors in a tie-in with Crayola.  It's a deeply saturated, true cobalt blue that's fully opaque in one easy coat. outdoor, shady & overcast light There's a whole rabid fan base around a different Sally Hansen blue crème, Pacific Blue, supposed to be a smooth one-coater with a drop-dead perfect formula, much mourned when SH felt the need to change to a totally different polish with the same name a handful of years ago.  As far as I can tell, Denim is just a tiny touch darker than Pacific Blue, so this may scratch that itch if you don't want to pay crazy HTF prices for the original.  The other blue in the Crayola collection, Cerulean, appears to be a touch lighter than Pacific Blue, and I'm trying to convince myself I don't need b...

An unfortunate happenstance in any indie polish collector's life is to fall for a limited release years after it's come and gone.  When I saw a pic just a few weeks ago of Cirque Martinique, I absolutely swooned... and promptly started searching for similar (possibly attainable) things.  The day after someone suggested Enchanted Polish Grass Stain, that color was restocked. indoor, CF lighting I don't usually go for plain crème polishes, the lack of shimmer or sparkle or shift is just not my usual jam.  THIS polish right here makes me understand all my crème queen pals. window-filtered morning daylight Grass Stain is exactly that - an absolutely organic shade of kelly green that leans very slightly toward yellow.  It has the "squish" and glassy shine of a crelly or jelly polish, but it's completely opaque.  Paint careful, because you know a color like this will cling to your cuticles forever, but it's totally worth it.  outdoor, shady dayli...

I've been having fun playing with nail art challenge prompts lately, but one that stumped me from the start was simply the color orange.  Orange and yellow are just not my jam, and I have only a small amount of either specifically for nail art.  Pondering that reminded me I'd picked up an orange crème polish late last year in case of Halloween needs, and a google images search gave me plenty of ways to make orange more appealing to me . bright afternoon sunlight For a first attempt after watching this inspo video , which had a gorgeous look but no how-to pointers, I absolutely love how this came out. indoor, bright CF lighting On my stamper head, I've dry brushed first in Flormar Coral Red, which is neither of those things, but instead a bright sunny orange crème.  After that, there's a few swipes of Dance Legend Triumph, a dusty navy jelly with holo flake.  Finally, I lightly covered the whole thing with one coat of a medium aqua shimmer polish. brig...

Lately, I've been feeling more like playing around with my stash than wearing untried colors - this has resulted in a lot more short posts with just a few pics, but some of these looks have turned out just like I wanted them, and this one was a real fave of mine.  A colleague at work this week has been wearing the most adorable black & white plaid blazer, and after I told her I was just jonesing to do her nails to match, I went ahead and did mine. outdoor, overcast daylight for both My base here is Bee's Knees A Mantis Shrimp's Favorite Color, a stark white crème.  As per a recent suggestion on how to get white polish to be perfectly even in just 2 coats, I started with one coat of the white, then one coat of matte topcoat.  When I went in for the second coat of white, this resulted in a complete disaster of streaks and pulling, and I needed 2 more coats of white (so the same 3 coats I would have done anyway).  After being mightily annoyed by this "tip,"...

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...

I was going out this Friday with the work crew, and ended up doing stamping designs for everyone... so my stamping game had to be done and sharp before getting to the party! indoor, bright CF lighting Hard Candy exploded on the scene back in the day when a celebrity wore Sky, a creamy sky blue, on late-night tv.  When they released their anniversary collection of back-in-the-day faves a few years ago, this therefore had to be one of my picks.  outdoor, direct sunlight Despite the pale pastel, only 2 coats are necessary for utter opacity.  The first coat goes on a little thicker than ideal, with visibly obvious streakiness.  The second coat perfectly levels everything out, though, and the end result is an overall "plumper" look than I usually go for on my nails, but with ultimately flawless coverage. indoor, CF lighting Within Sky's crème formula hides a bright, finely milled, electric blue shimmer that shows nicely on the sides of the bottle (above)...

After loving the look of the first half of the February Baroness X OGUP/Sisters duo, clearly the second half needed playing with as well. indoor, CF lighting I've started with 2 coats of a recent Shleee mystery polish, The Long Night.  This one is a deeply saturated prussian blue that was about 75% opaque in one coat.  If I was going to use a topper with more coverage (such as that prior magnetic), a single coat would have been enough.  indoor, CF lighting Since the topper I'm using with it is designed to be very sheer and let the base color show through, I'm showing 2 coats of The Long Night and no topcoat here.  The brush and thickness were about perfect, requiring only a little cleanup - a good thing, because like most saturated blues, this does want to stain cuticle skin. indoor, CF lighting On top of The Long Night, I have one thickly dabbed layer of the topper in the BX duo, Estrellaria. window-filtered overcast daylight Much like fo...

Baroness X has offered monthly mystery boxes for a couple of years now, with a new theme for each year.  Mysteries aren't usually my thing (because what if I end up with all pink and orange??), but I've certainly picked up some when a hint gets dropped in the fan group that sparks my interest.  The theme for this year is "OGUP/Sister," with a Clarins 230-type polish and a sister shimmer in each box, released every other month.  Because I have an abiding love for all of Demi's 230 polishes, I took the plunge and bought the whole year. indoor, CF lighting BAM!  Right out of the gate, magic.  Chromaphilia is a wine-colored base with shifty shimmer, pink to peach to green magnetic shimmer, holo shards, and some little blue iridescent flakes. indoor, bright CF lighting Chromaphilia is fairly sheer as magnetics go, probably to let all those shifty sparkles and flakes shine through without being masked.  It was suggested to wear in 3 coats solo or as a...