Sweet Baby Octopolish!

I've been feeling the fall vibes lately, with crunchy leaves all around and the drop in temperature, and an ad for a England's latest collection reminded me I had a perfect fall polish waiting in the wings. indoor, bright CF lighting Flaming June is named for the iconic Leighton painting of a sleeping woman decked in a gauzy orange dress.  The color is a perfect match for the fabric in that image, a warm coppery metallic orange.  Even though orange is firmly not my jam, I absolutely had to have this the moment I saw it.  outdoor, bright direct sunlight That sale ad for the new collection somehow led me down a rabbit hole of looking at the rest of the polishes in this collection, Leighton's Nymphs, and other than the polish named for Leighton himself, the rest have this soft green contrasting shimmer.  I'm convinced that it's here in Flaming June also, making the metallic flash in the center a cooler tone than the warm orange of the base. indoor, bright CF lighting I...

Alrighty y'all, it's time for ALL HALLOWEEN ALL MONTH WOOOOOOOOOO First up, I'm going to start with probably the most Halloween-y named polish in my stash, Wet N Wild Morbid. indoor, CF lighting Morbid is absolutely perfectly named - it's the color scheme for every movie poster about vampires and werewolves going bump in the night, where it's not just black & white, it's murky teal and dirty charcoal. ya know what I mean? And this polish is only a hair older than that movie poster color scheme, being released as part of the "craze" line in ~2009.   bright afternoon daylight Morbid is an off-black base, slightly brownish-tinted and not a true neutral charcoal, giving it a "dirty" grungy look.  It's jam-packed with a borderline metallic deep teal shimmer that's fairly subtle in low light but blazes beautifully in brighter lighting. outdoor, bright direct daylight The brush and bottle are kinda weird to work with, since the bottle ca...

Many different brands keep releasing staggeringly gorgeous aurora shimmers that take a slice out of the rainbow to dance across your nails.  I'm trying like anything to not buy multiple versions of what I already have, so pulling this lovely example out this week: indoor, bright CF lighting Lust At Sea was KBShimmer's offering for the August 2021 Elements themed PPU.  It's a deep violet-purple base overflowing with this rainbow-y aurora shimmer that flashes gold to green to peachy to electric blue. window-filtered indirect daylight This color was always visually opaque with two perfect coats IRL, but it's clear in some photos that the base is somewhat sheer, with the dense shimmer that's providing coverage.  It shifts every color of the ocean, with mostly cool-toned gold and aqua sparks. outdoor, bright direct daylight In bright and direct lighting, the purple base takes center stage, with just a flash of icy champagne gold highlights, looking far more medium-purple...

For my next dark/saturated colored look, I wanted to go with something springtime, or traditionally girly, and reached for a rich wine. indoor, bright CF lighting Pahlish released What Would Carole Baskin Do? as their contribution to the December 2020 "everything's fine" themed PPU.  I never watched 'Tiger King' and certainly DGAF about the drama on that show, but I do love me a rich wine nail polish. outdoor, shady/indirect daylight WWCBD (which certainly wins as one of the most unwieldy names in my collection) is an incredibly saturated dark magenta in direct light, a bit more pink than wine, perhaps, and I honestly wondered why I'd been so keen on this one (not being a connoisseur of pinks). outdoor, bright angled daylight Then I saw that duochromatic shimmer flash in the sunlight and aaaaaaah yes, I remembered exactly why I felt the need to grab this beauty.  indoor, bright CF lighting The shimmer goes from wine to gold to peridot green, giving the overall...

Purple was the man's pick for the next color, and soon as he said it I knew what I'd be reaching for... indoor, bright CF lighting When Tonic first released Indiglo, I passed because surely there must be a handful of similar things in my collection, like Prince's Plums or Belinda or any number of the luscious purple-plum-indigo beauties I can't help myself from hoarding. outdoor, bright direct sunlight Enough stunningly beautiful swatches appeared all over the interwebs to convince me, quite rightly as it turns out, that I was dead wrong.  Indiglo is indeed ALL THAT , and while she may be a sister to the other richly saturated, somewhat shifty purples in my stash, she is truly unique. Thank all that's holy for destashes helping you out when you made a wrong decision the first time! indoor, bright CF lighting Indiglo's base is a smooth, lightly sheer, distinctly red-leaning plummy purple that is loaded with a staggeringly beautiful electric blue aurora shimmer. ...

 I keep asking myself "how on earth could something so beautiful be locked away untried in the stash for so long?" when I pull out an older yet inexplicably unloved polish... and then something like this leaps out of the package and straight onto my nails because OOH SHINY. outdoor, shady daylight Ethereal Lacquer is easily the most accurately named brand out there, with these beautifully otherworldly shimmer polishes being her distinctive house style.   outdoor, bright daylight Silver Crystal is not even slightly silver, but is most certainly crystalline, tilting from gold to green to aqua to pink.  It's a clear base with very fine-milled iridescent shimmer particle of a sort that several brands have released lately.  Most folks are either showing this over white to get a faery-worthy pearlesence, or of course over black to make the shifty shimmer really pop, but the density of the shimmer had me wanting to try this on its own. window-filtered direct daylight I...

 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)....

After wearing such a complex polish as CrowsToes Betelgeuse, a neutral was in order to change things up. indoor, CF lighting Yet another polish left to languish untried for far too long, Pretty Serious released The Night Before... with their Holiday 2015 collection.  It's a deep, dark, not-quite-black filled to the brim with silver metallic microflake shimmer, resulting in an overall foil look. indoor, bright CF lighting This went on perfectly smooth and perfectly opaque in 2 coats.  It's definitely not the most flashy or complex polish in my stash, but wow is it an incredible base for nail art.  Speaking of which... outdoor, overcast daylight Because we were getting our first heavy snowstorm of winter around here, the man said it obviously called for a snowflake look.  Who am I to refuse an inspiration that direct?  This is of course the lovely assortment of individual snowflakes from HeHe Fairy Tale 03 - I've used this plate for similar looks before and probab...

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...