Sweet Baby Octopolish!

This year has been incredibly tough, for a whole lot of reasons.  I'm really hoping that the worst is past now, but I was feeling beyond burnt out of life and work and pretty much everything.  When my younger sister suggested we all run away to Mexico to the same resort we'd loved last year, there was only one reasonable answer:  BOOK IT. outdoor, shaded bright sunlight for both I made a conscious effort for my vacation to be fully unplugged - I was mostly off facebook, I left my work phone at home, and I didn't get many pics of my nails, though i absolutely loved them.  One great Tonic prototype from the recent sale most certainly deserved another, so I put on two coats of one labeled in sharpie as 281*, a gorgeously metallic rose gold foil with just a pinch of scattered holo.  I had a super fun new dress and bathing suit in animal print, so used the snakeskin image from Creative Shop 16 in basic black.  I got tons of compliments on my snazzy mani an...

I'm having fun creating "event looks" lately - it's a nice change to actually play around with my stash instead of only swatching.  This past weekend, I spent a few days in the perfect weather of Napa California for 3 days of wine and music at BottleRock.  The line-up was fantastic, the company was great, there was literally wine for days... and I utterly forgot to take pics of my metallic nails gleaming in the west coast sunshine. indoor, with authentic wine bottle mani pic prop I wore Sinful Colors Kreme de la Kreme ( previously worn & reviewed here ) with arrows from the gorgeous new MoYou London Minimal 03 plate stamped in black.  As with other times I've used this polish, it's easy to work with and wears great - ideal for heading out of town for a few days when you have no plans to re-do nails partway through. ~Michelle

The moment I found Kreme de la Kreme, confirmed by the moment I put it on, I knew comparing it to the sold-out and sought-after Cirque Halcyon was necessary.  Turns out they're not exact dupes, but Kreme might help a whole lot if you're pining for Halcyon.  For all pics below, Halcyon is on the right. indoor, bright CF lighting indoor, less intense CF lighting from more diffuse source First things first:  the color isn't identical in these 2, with Halcyon being a little more rosy, though both look ROSE gold and not simply gold when worn. The shimmer particles are the major difference, with Halcyon being made up of metallic microflakes and Kreme a much finer metallic shimmer.  Halcyon gets the advantage here, with a blinding hammered-metal shine in the sun. Kreme de la Kreme is completely opaque in one coat, while Halcyon needs 2, giving Kreme the advantage in nail art if layering thickness is of concern. They're genuinely close enough that ...

Illyrian is blowing things up lately, and several of the shiny new things that just arrived at my house immediately clamored to jump to the head of the queue.  The gorgeous copper shimmer in Awaken Your Magic just happened to match the metallic rose gold of another new arrival, Sinful Colors Kreme de la Kreme, so the 2 got paired up tout suite. indoor, bright CF lighting Awaken Your Magic is a sheer lavender jelly with a rich coppery contrasting shimmer overlay and a sprinkling of silver holo microglitters.  It needed 3 coats for level of opacity seen here, which still shows some VNL, but in an even non-streaky way i'm fond of.  Each coat was perfectly self-leveling, so you could easily use this as a topper at one coat. indoor, bright CF lighting Kreme de la Kreme is an easy one coat wonder.  Though it's a bit thicker than ideal, that's likely to suspend all the metallic shimmer it's packed with.  Cleanup is rather tricky, since the shimmer dissolves...

I headed off out of town this past weekend for several days of birthday party shenanigans with Suzy, so I wanted to go with something a little blingy.  Here's Cirque's Halcyon. indirect, overcast daylight Halcyon was part of Cirque's 2015 Holiday collection, and purchase of it gave a charity donation to Girls Who Code, so that's pretty sweet too.  It's a luscious rose gold foil, almost a one-coater but perfect in two, supremely metallic and utterly blinding in the sun. indoor CF lighting I forgot to get a proper bottle shot with hand pose, but you can see in the macro here that the finish is made up of metallic microflakies in a presumably clear base.  It goes on deliciously smooth, is flawlessly self-leveling, and has a very subtle texture when dry before topcoat. indirect, shady morning daylight I stamped a 2-sided accent sunburst design from Bundle Monster's BM-402 plate using NanaCoco Love Black (srsly, best black stamping polish ever...