Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Next up on my journey through the oldest untried Femme Fatale polishes in my collection, I took a step back even further to her 2012 Gemstones collection. indoor, bright CF lighting The Gemstones collection was a group of shimmery iridescent effects topcoats, too sheer to be worn solo (see the air bubble in the above bottle shot for an idea).  Dragonscale is a peridot green to gold shifter, and I'm showing it over an assortment of base colors to see how that impacted the shifty properties.  indoor, CF lighting My index finger is OPI Christmas Gone Plaid, with the idea that it would compliment the head-on peridot and perhaps shade it toward emerald.  Middle & ring fingers are Vapid Brown Chicken Brown Cow, in hopes to amp the warmer brown edge of the shift, assuming it was a duochrome in the vein of Cover Girl Emerald Blaze .  After wearing this, I don't think that's the case after all.  On my pinky, basic black, usually the go-to for making any sheer duochro...

For the past couple years, I've decided on a theme for my nail looks - first it was colorful alternating with neutral, then light alternating with dark last year.  By some small miracle, a long-searched for DISO fell into my lap this week, which caused me to pore through all the far too long unloved polishes in my stash.  BAM!  This is the theme for 2023:  I'll pick a new brand each month, and select from the oldest yet-untrieds I have of that brand.  In shopping my stash, I'll either feel the need to purge or I'll dig up buried treasure! indoor, bright CF lighting for all photos Hooooboy I have been collecting and wearing polish for more than a decade, with some things lying untried for longer than the brand was in business, eek!  Pahlish is thankfully still going strong, and still with really personal and unique inspo for her collections.  Today I'm showing Sleep To Dream, from her 2013 Winter collection.  The name is taken from a Fiona Apple so...

 While my last look was spoopy cute but a little more reined in, this time it's back to glow-in-the-dark and dialed up to 11! Thriller night!!!  I've started with a white crème base, then brushed on one thin coat of Baroness X Never Trust the Living (I'm so not done with that ghostly blue glow!).  The tips of each nail are stamped in El Corazon True Red in drips & slashes from Dixie Plates Halloween 2017.  Though this was dry to the touch before topcoating, a lot of the red smeared into the white despite using a fairly new bottle of my trusty Glisten & Glow TC when using a thick, delicate hand to apply, and I had to wipe off the heavy quantity of red from the brush after each swipe.  Note to self - watch out when stamping with this stuff!  Fortunately, the messier the better with this look.  And oh YES that super glow!!  Charged  up in ordinary household lighting, this stuff would glow brightly for at least 4 hours, then faintly for a...

For this week's Halloween look, I was inspired by a slew of truly impressive layered graveyard scene manis popping up everywhere.  Mine is much more simple, but I've still got to have some glow-in-the-dark fun! I've started here with 2 coats of Orly Fowl Play, a boysenberry-wine jelly with jewel-toned flakes.  I've stamped tombstones and a ghost from Clear Jelly Stamper Haunted Mansion in white and periwinkle, then stamped the ghost with Baroness X Never Trust the Living.  Though the BX is designed as a sheer topper, it stamped perfectly well and created a heck of an electric blue glow for hours.   Where to buy:  Baroness  X released a trio of GITD toppers a few years ago, so cross your fingers she restocks them because they're all wow!   ~Michelle 

 Our latest book club pick did not sit well with me.  I had a huge hate for that book, and tossed it in the "life is too short" pile and moved on.  I'm not going to mention the particular book for a whole lot of reasons that have to do with avoiding search engine shenaniganery, and so instead let's focus on the fiery duochromes that went into my "F this book" look. indoor, bright CF lighting I started this look with a base of straight piano-black crème, then pulled out a bottle  of very long untried Dragon Heartstring from Nvr Enuff. outdoor, bright daylight Dragon Heartstring is a topper that's got a whole lot going on - that means it's actually dense enough to wear solo if you don't mind 3-4 coats, but the flashy elements play much better over darker colors, and I'm using classic black to make it really sing. outdoor, bright daylight There's a generous helping of linear holo in this mix, as well as duochromatic pigment that flips from w...

Sometimes when I do themed nails for book club, the design is inspired by the text, while other times the simple graphic design of the cover demands to be re-created - this month's book was firmly in the latter category. indoor, bright CF lighting for all The cover of Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen features a barely turquoise blue background graced with a golden leaf, and little gold coins (gold coins being a plot point in this Hallmark movie of a book): An old dead thermal with just a hint of shimmer was just ideal for the base color here.  The gold leaf is from KADS Nature 036, using El Corazon Fragrant Mimosa for that bright metallic gold flash.  Pahlish Goldsmith - a topper version of their fantastic crushed gold flake polishes - provided the perfect dusting of little gold coins in just one light coat.   While I wasn't a real fan of the book, I did love this nail art look and wore it happily all week.  Goldsmith is a real winner, and should probably be in heavie...

Halloween is over, but I'm apparently not done with being vampy & mysterious...  indoor, CF lighting This mani started with 2 layers of Jessica Street Swagger, a deep, every so slightly brick-leaning, truly dried-blood red crelly.  The last time I wore this , I got away with a single coat, but this time around I painted much thinner layers and needed more like one-and-a-half.  It's still got a dead perfect formula that dries to a very nice shine on its own - it's polishes like this that teach me why there are folks that choose to wear unadorned crèmes and crellies on the regular.   outdoor, afternoon daylight Punching up my plain red, I've added a single heavy layer of Ethereal The Dark Mark, a very dense aurora shimmer topper in a barely grey base.  The end result is a sexy blackened scarlet with subtle shine and shimmer indoors, that explodes into color-shifting fire when I stepped out into the sun.   outdoor, bright afternoon daylight Becau...

 It's March, and that's my birthday month and St Patrick's Day month, and my fave color is green... all of which means I've now become convinced it's all-green month (because hey, I need a creative way to pick which treasure left too-long-buried in my stash needs to be tried out). indoor, bright CF lighting Ethereal lives up to the name yet again with Rainforest - instead of a dark, mysterious jungle, we have a light, airy, cool wisp of green tint, filled to the brim with finely milled aurora shimmer.  While it's possible to wear this extremely sheer polish on its own, this color combo tends to emphasize rather than blur my nails' free edge, so I searched through the stash for a base choice that would get me closest to the look in the bottle. indoor, CF lighting Pretty Serious had a series of polishes called "The Museum of Naileontology" that were her versions of very hard to find mainstream gems.  This one is Disc of the Heavens, her nod to Chanel...

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...

I cannot remember what possessed me to pick up OPI fireflies, but it definitely must have been a swatch over black or another very dark color, because when it arrived, I swatched it, filed it, and promptly forgot about it for several years. indoor, bright CF lighting OPI Fireflies is a very sheer duochrome shimmer that flashes from green to peach.  In swatches I've seen of this worn solo, it's a vaguely yellowish stain on the nail that flashes green at only just the right angle... and frankly, it's not that impressive on my swatch stick either (hence my long skip despite my huge twin loves for most anything green or duochrome). outdoor, afternoon sunlight To avoid the stained-nail look with this polish, I first started with a single coat of Sally Hansen Shark Bait.  It's a slight touch darker and warmer toned than my own skin, but pretty darn close to being the just right "mannequin hands" shade for me, to the point where I'm considering backup...