Sweet Baby Octopolish!

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...

 We've been having some unseasonably temperate weather lately + a recent online discussion about how thermals don't last forever struck me + I needed something suitably cerulean for my latest book club read, and all that added up to me pulling out a previously fave thermal to see if it was still love. indoor, CF lighting Almost exactly 9 years to the day since the first time I wore it, here's another look at Digital Nails Nox.  In the cold state, this is a deep inky violet, which used to transition to a barely-there sheer grey packed with the chunky sparkle that gives this polish its color.   The transition is a lot slower at this point - you can just see that the beds on the unstamped nails are a touch paler - but if it dies in the cold state it's still a gorgeous polish.  In keeping with the theme of the book we read, I've stamped an accent design of a phoenix from KADS Nature 051 in a rich fiery copper. ~Michelle 

I think everyone can agree that the last few years haven't been the greatest, and there's a meme going around lately that says, "Nobody claim 2023 as ‘your year.’ We’re all going to walk in real slow. Be good. Be quiet. Be cautious and respectful. Don’t touch anything,” and WOW do I feel that.  So extra effort and style, heck yes New Year's Eve is my fave, but maybe not dripping in diamonds and gold holo bling, ya know? indoor, bright CF lighting for both I made fluid nail art decals using Dance Legend Robots Vs Humans, a gloriously linear holo in the old-skool style that benefits from an aqua base.  For the cells, I added DL Spot It White, which is quite dead and no longer forming cells but does have a thin consistency that helps cells form up, and Baroness X Glam, a metallic gold sparkly fluid polish that is working perfectly fine.  Interestingly enough, while the cells formed nicely in this look, somehow the white and brown blended mostly together to form a soft moc...

I am just on a roll with glow-in-the-dark goodness, and most all of my Halloween manis for this year are going to startle me in the middle of the night! OK this one is probably going to be my fave of this season... It started out as something else entirely, but I loved how this one ended up!  This is 2 coats of Different Dimension Good Evening Clarice , stamped in simple classic black, using various witchy images from MoYou London Halloween 01 & Dixie Plates Halloween 2017 and that adorable owl in the moon design from Mundo de Unas ZZ Moon. And oh WOW did I forget how amazingly glowy this polish is!  Like most GITDs (and especially ones nearing 10 years old!), the glowing pigment tends to settle out in the bottom, so this needed a serious shake before painting.  As you can see, the effort was worth it because woohoo! Hope all your spells work out just as you intended! ~Michelle 

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 

For this month of book club, we read Kristin Hannah's The Four Winds, a story about farmers attempting to escape the bleakness of the dust bowl and head to California. outdoor, indirect daylight for both While I didn't care much for the book, the cover design was simple, clean, and graphically attractive, and I absolutely had a stamping plate image that would handily re-create the look.  I started with 3 coats of Zoya Storm to recreate the silvery dust sprinkled over stark black.  The design is stamped with the wheat ear image from EDK Ancient History using the amazing Hit the Bottle Magna Opus, which shifts from a warm coppery gold to a cool green-toned gold.  Happy Reading! ~Michelle 

 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 

This past weekend, I headed off to the beach to hang out with an old college buddy & her family, so needed a beachy-themed look for the festivities. indoor, bright CF lighting For my thumb through middle finger, I'm wearing 2 coats Ethereal Blood Orange, and a white crème for the accent nails.  The seashell on my pinky is from Creative Shop 51 and the lobster from Maniology M103, both stamped in black & filled in with Blood Orange on the stamper head before application.  Hope your summer lets you get away too! ~Michelle 

 I asked the man's opinion on colors for my pedi this past week, and he suggested emerald green, a fine choice IMO.  I typically bring my own polish to the salon so I can do my nails to match later if I so choose.  A get-together this weekend with the ladies in my book club meant a whole coordinating look was born from jewelry to nails. indoor, bright CF lighting Having recently had such a fantastic experience trying out one of Fancy Gloss Sheers , I reached for the other I'd acquired at the same time, Got Milk, a lovely soft white sheer jelly/crelly., then created the flaming tips with Zoya Logan . outdoor, shady/overcast daylight To get this look, I started with my typical base coat, then painted one thin layer of Got Milk.  Working one nail at a time, I painted a very thick layer of Got Milk, then striped Logan across the tip.  I had a drop of Logan on my nail art mat, which I dipped into with my dotting tool, then dragged upward through the green into the wh...

We've had a few frosty nights and the leaves have most definitely been turning, so I was feeling the idea of seasonally themed nails lately. indoor, CF lighting for both I've started with a base of Dollish Polish Penny Penny Penny, which I've only  just realized that I've never shown by itself, whoops!  PPP is a soft warm-leaning off-white crelly full of metallic copper glitters in a couple different sizes, which already looks a little like autumn leaves falling all across the nail.  I've then used El Corazon Mysterious Mars (possibly my all-time fave stamping polish) and some leaf images & a cute "hello fall" from the Marianne Pro 25 Stamping plate. Hope your autumn season is a colorful one! ~Michelle 

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...

 This holiday weekend, I got together with my book club on the beach to discuss the gonzo novel that is Tim Dorsey's Nuclear Jellyfish, which of course necessitated nails to match the eye-searing cover.   outdoor, bright sunlight for both I've started out here with 3 coats of Vapid La Fae Verte, a polish I originally considered selling, but has since come in quite handy simply because I don't have many of these super bright pretty-ugly greens. I've stamped over the green background using white, light purple, and turquoise - finding a color scheme that would both pop yet not simply look black was tricky, but I think I pulled it off.  HeHe's amazing new Magic stamping plate collection - I've never bought an entire collection, but these are all must-haves - provided the jellyfish and some spare tentacles on plate 03. Happy summer/fall/beachy reading, everyone! ~Michelle 

One good Clarins 230/unicorn pee shimmer deserves another, right? outdoor, direct daylight I've worn this particular pale green shimmery confection before , and at that point thought I wouldn't like it solo because of the yellow lean inherent in a bright lime green.  Turns out that the base color was probably amped a good bit with the layers of white stamping, much like painting a white base first to really make neon shades pop. outdoor, shady daylight Without the white base layer, the natural color of my nail beds is instead what this polish builds up off of, and since it's sheer as anything, the end result is a more soft sage green than neon lime.  I'm wearing 4 (!!) coats here, and it's still not opaque at all, but is plenty shimmery and suits me a lot better than perhaps the neon lime did.   outdoor, angled bright daylight At this look, it reminds me a lot of Ethereal Rainforest, with it's vibrant but earthy green base and total lack of opacity.  Both of the...

 My sister came by for a visit last weekend (we made dinner for her birthday!) and while our chef was cooking, I was doing her nails.  She picked a England Proserpine (known and loved by me for quite some time) and a paisley design from BP-10 (also an old fave). indoor, CF lighting I liked it so much on her that I flipped it just a little and then did the same for me - this plate's paisley designs end in curlicues that look like waves, and there's some accent shells to boot.   outdoor, bright sunlight Getting back to normalcy with loved ones is the best!  ~Michelle 

 For Valentine's Day, I go either one of two ways - jaded and "screw this greeting card holiday stuff" or else as cute as possible.  This year has been tough on everyone, and the man and I have gone above and beyond in taking care of each other, so there's just no way I can be jaded about love right now.  outdoor, overcast daylight for both These little tablets of sugar were universal for our childhood, and I'm still known to munch a few if they come my way this time of year.  I've done candy hearts before , and I swear it's the cutest, most instantly identifiable as Valentine's look possible for the holiday.  This time, I picked up a fantastic new plate called Let's Converse from Lantern & Wren that contains a huge variety of sayings (plus an alphabet if you want to make your own!), and little hearts that are ideally sized for most anyone's nails.  I started with 2 coats of Cameo Colours Victims Aren't We All (ok, I can't be all sw...

My first Halloween look this year ended up being my fave, because I loooooove glow in the dark polish, so for my last look I felt like coming back to that. indoor, CF lighting I've started here with a base of Dance Legend Price of Beauty , a pretty color that sits on the cusp of blue and silver, packed with iridescent microflakie shimmer and a really nice blue glow in the dark effect.  Unfortunately, it'd thickened up a lot in the years since I've used it last, and with a good squirt of thinner was back to good as new... but I must have overdone it because 100% of the flakes & GITD powder settled to the bottom of the bottle 2 days later, whoops! I've rolled the dice plenty of times on cheapo chinese-made stamping plates off ebay, and sometimes you get what you pay for but sometimes things work out great.  KADS plates are absolutely stellar about 80% of the time, so for about $2 it's well worth that roll.  Nature 032 was a big win for me, and I've used the p...

Partway through Season 2 of our Star Trek The Next Generation rewatch, my next nail inspiration became clear:  the distinctive asymmetrical curved V neckline of Counselor Deanna Troi's turquoise dress. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight The obvious choice for Troi's out-of-this-world dress was Literary Lacquers Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster , a pretty perfect bright ocean turquoise that's both a sparkling linear holo as well as one sprinkled with holo microglitters.  I considered using a neutral polish on the fingers with the negative-space areas, but instead let my slightly milky base coat, Nail Tek Formula 2, carry that job solo, and it turned out completely lovely.  window-filtered sunlight To get that neckline just right, I used the doubled arc and straight line designs from Lina Feeling Shapely 10.  I stamped first in PGGB to mark where I wanted the design to be, then painted my nails from that point outward.  When I was done, I stamped back over in...

One of my fave makers recently came out with an absolutely adorable polish that looked like rainbow sprinkles on a white-frosted cupcake, and in an effort to rein myself in from clicking "buy" I remembered I had something in a similar vein so pulled that out to wear instead. indoor, bright CF lighting It's a Trap-eze was the stand out fave of China Glaze's 2012 Cirque du Soleil collection, and when I wore it the first time within a year or so of buying, it was a cool-toned white base jam-packed with jewel tone glitters (heavy on sky blue and magenta). window-filtered bright sunlight Remembering that the 3 coats this needed to reach complete opacity resulted in a chippy, gloopy mess of glitter, this time around I used one coat of Bee's Knees A Mantis Shrimp's Favorite Color, then one partially dabbed coat of Trap-eze. outdoor, overcast daylight This is not exactly the same polish as what it was on release.  It's highly probable that some o...