Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 One good "oops batch" deserves another, and I just so happen to have one vastly different than the previous example. indoor, bright CF lighting Crystal Skull was an "oops batch" released in May 2015, and is another one I'm not at all sure what it originally started as.  This is a sea-glass steel blue base filled to the brim with a greenish-gold shimmer and holographic glitters in one or two sizes. outdoor, bright daylight The shimmer overlay tilts the overall look toward aqua rather than blue, and it's prominent in both bright and lower lighting. indoor, shady/indirect daylight The holo glitters add a bit of texture to this polish, and I needed 2 layers of topcoat to smooth things out. indoor, bright CF lighting But wow do those glitters catch any possible glint of light and throw it back in beautiful sparkly rainbows!  This style of glitter is an absolute calling card for Femme Fatale, though she doesn't do as many of them anymore.  indoor, bright dire...

 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....

For round 2 of my back-to-back book clubs, we read Maria Dahvana Headley's 'The Mere Wife' which is a modern-setting retelling of Beowulf that was utterly fantastic.  The author's recent translation of Beowulf is itself wonderful, and a golden dragon (either in actuality or in decorative motif) makes an appearance in both books. indoor, bright CF lighting I've started with 2 coats of Ms Andry's IDGAF, which I've used before for as a perfectly golden base for nail art - it really does glimmer marvelously, and I'll be sad when that little mini bottle is gone.  The dragon scales are from Messy Mansion 21 and the gorgeous eye from Nicole Diary L-10.  The eye image was super easy to use, consisting of a base color, eye outline, and pupil.  Some layered designs are pretty tricky to line up once you've lifted them off the plate, but this one was very forgiving and easy to do.  outdoor, bright sunlight Happy reading! ~Michelle

 This week's light polish (that theme has worked for a whole 3 weeks haha!) is a super bright silver. indoor, bright CF lighting Tonic released I Had the Times Square of My Life way back in 2017 as a store exclusive for Color 4 Nails, and I'd originally passed on it because it was sold as a duo with a red polish that wasn't my jam.  I managed to snag a bottle when Tonic cleared out the vault and it is indeed super sparkly! outdoor, shaded daylight Times Square is a sheer, light silver base filled with both holo dust and holo glitter, and a bunch of metallic multichrome flakies.   outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight Turns out it also has a surprise flame of metallic contrast shimmer that shifts a bit from pale gold to warm copper, which catches and reflects any bright light shining on it. indoor, bright CF lighting Though I can see a bit of VNL in some of these photos, that wasn't the case IRL - Times Square was nicely visually opaque in just 2 smooth easy coats. ...

 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 ...

 In today's episode of "stuff that's been laying around untried for a really long time" we have the "unicorn pee" polish Monocerus from Darling Diva. indoor, bright CF lighting Monocerus was a mystery batch from 2016 that was sold in limited quantities (a single batch as far as I can tell) along with a collection of other polishes containing the infamous Clarins 230 shifty pigment that we all know and love.   outdoor, bright direct sunlight I have this polish filed as a "berry wine" shade, which this most certainly is... though I'll swear the few other swatches I've seen of it at the time of its release were a darker purple.  I'm convinced it's faded a bit, but my fingernails match my original swatch stick, so I may be way off on that. outdoor, shady daylight In any case, the color we have here is a bright magenta-berry that's very feminine and plenty sparkly, and is actually "traditional" enough to be office-appropria...

 Time for a palate cleanser after all that dramatic nail art! indoor, bright CF lighting But of course even a "palate cleanser" can't be a plain boring neutral, and just as of course I have a pile of untried things needing my attention, and the intersection of those two is Vaporous Flowers, released as an "oops batch" by Femme Fatale back in 2017.  I don't believe anyone hypothesized what this was originally going to be, but the result is gorgeous.  outdoor, shady daylight Vaporous Flowers starts with a sandy nude base that somehow manages to be unusually shifty for a neutral shade.  It looks quite different in different lighting - sometimes a warmer pink (in low or angled lighting when the shimmer isn't at its boldest) and other times cool-toned not-quite-beige sandy.  indoor, bright CF lighting That contrasting shimmer + holographic microglitter is pure classic Femme Fatale, and as always if you like this finish nobody does it better,  As you can see...

Last month, I was posting a handful of cute stamping manis prompted by the themes on one of my nail art facebook groups... and I won! indoor, CF lighting The Stamping Shop is a fantastic resource for group buys of non-US stamping plates & polish, where our collective buying power can get a nice discount.  Every month, there's a nail art contest with up to 4 themes, with each mani being an entry to the contest.  My prize pack were these three cute stamping plates, a TSS branded scraper, and a bottle each of Esmaltes da Kelly Anna & Ulli. outdoor, bright sunlight Anna is a pretty grape jelly sprinkled with holographic glitter in 2 sizes.  I'm wearing 2 coats here for full opacity.  This had only mild texture after a single layer of topcoat and then wore very well with only minor edgewear after several days. indoor, bright CF lighting In the bottle, Ulli is a bright, vibrant coral.  Though it picked up great like all my other EdK s...

When Shleee released a few polishes with unusual names (100% her usual thing) early this year, I didn't cotton on to there being a theme until someone else squee'd over it.  Once I watched the devastating brain-warp that is Midsommar, wow did I get it.  Fortunately for me, she restocked the sparklefest gem of the collection so I could snap it up.  indoor, bright CF lighting May Queen is an homage to the dress that culminates the film , and this polish absolutely wins for most dead-on-accurate nod to its inspiration of pretty much any polish ever.  outdoor, shaded daylight This is a vibrant spring green jelly, overflowing with an ocean of iridescent flakies that primarily flash pink & gold, plus plenty of small round holographic glitters.  outdoor, shaded daylight There's also a much smoother shimmer here that compliments and underlies the other elements of this polish, shifting from flamingo pink straight on (above) to a bright green-tinted...