Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 Neon isn't so much my jam.  Eye-searingly bright colors are right up there with oranges and yellows in my "nah, it's cool on you but not on me" list.  And yet...  Cirque's annual Vice Collection of summer neons had a really unique red that had me intrigued.  Plenty of folks reported it leaned rather orangey, so doubly not up my alley, but then someone suggested this as being similarly bright, but leaning more pink than orange, and just woah. window-filtered overcast daylight Orly released Blazing Sunset with their 2018 Summer collection, "Neon Earth," and it is indeed scorchingly neon.  In bright daylight, it's merely bright, but somehow in lower lighting it absolutely glows. indoor, bright CF lighting Blazing Sunset dries down just a touch more saturated than the bottle color, so you end up with a neon coral and not the hot pink the bottle suggests. On swatch stick and while making these decals, it's easily opaque in just 2 coats, and does not ...

 One last holiday nail art look to close out the year! indoor, CF lighting for both Baroness X has been releasing tons of seriously amazing fluid polishes for at least a year now, things that make beautiful marbled designs with a little extra oomph.  Fancy Gloss is known for their soft sheer crelly line (less so than for their thermals, but Got Milk is a frequently recommended fave white polish for a lot of folks).  Put 'em together and we get this! I started my Christmas tree look with 2 coats of Fancy Gloss Got Milk, a soft (not stark) white that's flawlessly leveling on each coat and gave me zero issues with application.  Then I made a sheet of fluid art marble with OPI Christmas Gone Plaid, Sinful Colors Under 18, and Baroness X Glam - a bright metallic gold flake/foil that also happens to crate this cool effect.  When the marble sheet was dry, I peeled it off my silicone mat, snipped it into tall narrow triangles, and applied with a touch of sticky basecoat...

 I love themed nail art looks, so holidays are a real must-do for me (despite not actually celebrating several of them).  We're still missing out on community fireworks this year, but there's always room for a red, white, and blue mani this time of year, and I can always use an excuse to bust out the fluid art polish. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X is the undisputed queen of fluid nail art polishes, going beyond mere basic colors (though she has those too) and adding some unique elements to this technique.  Snow Leopard is a neutral, creamy white that happens to also have some translucent shimmer mixed in. outdoor, bright direct daylight There are tons of youtube videos that show how to create fluid art cells, but here's the short version for those of you that prefer text to video.  First off, select a fluid art polish - this won't work without one - and then pick some contrasting colors to go with it.  More contrasty colors make the cells pop.  In t...

 One of the man's besties has taken to acrylic paint pour art (everyone has a quarantine hobby), and was therefore fascinated when he was told that I could do that same look on my very fingertips .  I was also reminded of a great bundle sale on fluid art polishes  that had recently arrived and so needed to be tried out. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X keeps doing all sorts of really fascinating stuff with fluid art polishes, adding a whole lot more ingredients and unique flair than just the bubbles.  Stargate is a deeply saturated midnight blue with just a touch of holo dust thrown into the mix. window-filtered daylight To this midnight starfield, I've added Llarowe Katarina (aqua with purple shimmer), Cult My Kind of Kool Aid (mauve shimmer), and at the advice of a polisher in the BX fan group who recommended thicker stamping polishes as being great for fluid nails, Pretty Serious Presence (a white crème that's now thickened up to nearly stamping opacity)....

Closing out my Star Trek series, I have to make a nod to all the boys wearing command red.  Q is of course my fave, especially in his completely over-the-top judge's robes from the very first episode, so this design has as much black in it as red. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X has been releasing some amazingly pretty fluid art polishes - instead of simple crème finishes, she's adding shimmer or flakies, and for X Marks the Spot she's added a handful of holo dust. outdoor, overcast daylight To get this look, I started with a layer of Julep Karmen, a fiery red foil that's been used several times in nail art experiments, painted thickly across a silicone mat.  I then added drips of OPI Glamour Game, a somewhat sheer champagne gold shimmer, and drips of X Marks the Spot.  When I had a big enough pool to work with, I folded the mat in half a couple of times, and tilted the mat on it's side to get the paint to flow and spread out. outdoor, overcast/shady daylight ...

~~~~AND IT'S MOVIE TIME!!~~~~ This year, the Academy gave us movie fiends only a short few weeks to catch the nominees before the big show, and of course I can't plan out a nail design without watching it, so I've done pretty much nothing but films recently.  As always, there were some snubs, some gems, some WTF moments, and I did my annual capture of Best Picture nominees in nail art. This is the pile of plates and a few representative stamping polishes that went into this look - I'm not listing where everything came from, because this post would be a novel! With only 9 nominees this year, one thumb was simply film itself.  I end up using this design a whole lot around this time of year!  And the nominees are: Starting with my two absolute faves, on this hand index to pinky (L to R) we have: Parasite:  face with a black bar over the eyes à la the movie's poster JoJo Rabbit:  our tender little bunny over the military black & red of war...

Nail art inspired by the book is absolutely a thing for me now with my book clubs (because yes, I'm such a huge book nerd I have not one but TWO book clubs).  I'm having loads of fun seeing what stamping plates I can layer & combine to bring out a theme, and I'm revisiting a lot in my stash doing these. My inspiration comes straight from the punchy graphic on the book cover of Educated, by Tara Westover: copyright of course to Random House The rough-hewn pencil containing the image of mountains is instantly recognizable and evocative of what's in the pages within - an A+ job by cover artist Patrik Svensson.  Since the image of the woman climbing the mountains would be beyond tiny on a single fingernail, I decided to split out the two elements to pencil and mountain. I started with my existing mani of SOPI Frankly I Don't Give A-dam + Ethereal Lacquer Grímnismál, since the smoky grey felt like it matched the book's tone.  The inexpensive wo...

This week I had a lecture/meeting thing going on that meant avoiding anything too flashy or outré was probably a good idea, but bringing at least a little nail game was of course called for. outdoor, bright sunlight I started with two very easy coats of a England Lady of the Lake (as usual when using aE polishes, I wonder why I don't have literally everything she's ever made), a lush cool-toned purple scattered holo.  On my accent nails are two smooth coats of Emily de Molly Iridescent Skies, a very pale silvery lavender holo.  I used the circular stained-glass motif from UR Beautiful 10 and gold stamping polish to create decals filled in with Lady of the Lake and aE Dragon. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight ~Michelle

Matching my nails to the theme of the novel we read for book club has now become very much a thing for me, and this month's selection of The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield had the inspiration right there on the cover. indoor, bright CF lighting I've started with a base of 3 coats of Cirque Ultrasonic.  Each coat self-leveled very well, with slightly less VNL at each layer.  The first coat was a sheer wash of color, and the formula was slightly more watery than ideal.  By the 2nd coat, when it had another layer to grab onto besides just the basecoat, it stuck very well with no more creeping toward the cuticles.  The 3rd coat had a beautifully translucent opacity, much like very good quality china. window-filtered bright daylight The color is described as "linen" and that sounds utterly accurate to my eyes, like an unbleached white.  This jelly was part of a LE series for the NY Met Museum when they were hosting an exhibit on fashion in 2016. ...

Bright holos, lots of rain lately, themed nails galore... time for a major palate shift! indoor, CF lighting Llarowe released Boot Scootin' Boogie in 2017 for San Antonio's hosting of The Indie Shop.  Well, since I'm a Texas gal at heart, and this color is just smashing, it came home to me ASAP (though of course lingered unworn like so many gems do). window-filtered direct bright daylight I had the chorus of that damn country song stuck in my head every time I looked at my nails, and it was still worth it.  Boot Scootin' Boogie is a gorgeous plum wine - is it purple or is it red?  who knows! - with an intense overlay of contrasting duochromatic shimmer and a very light dusting of scattered holo.  outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight In the bottle, that contrasting shimmer overlay is a rich metallic copper, quite warm, that definitely pulls the whole look toward a red-toned purple wine.  Fascinatingly enough, BSB is a secret duochrome with that sa...