Sweet Baby Octopolish!

indoor, CF lighting I can't remember what reminded me that it was past time for me to pull out a multichrome, but here's the lovely Tonic The Places You'll Go, part of her "May babies" duo from 2017. outdoor, direct sunlight The Places You'll Go appears to be an ILNP Sirene type shifter, tilting from green to blue to turquoise to purple.  In a rather unique twist, this is in an emerald green base rather than a neutral charcoal one.  In direct light, this polish was a gorgeous emerald green that was nearly impossible to catch on camera, since the slightest angle of the light caused the look to quickly shift to turquoise then over to purple. outdoor, direct sunlight outdoor, direct sunlight I'm wearing 3 coats here for total opacity.  Though the 3rd layer made no difference for some nails, it was needed for at least a few to have full color saturation to match the bottle.  indoor, CF lighting I was feeling like a very clean geometri...

As per usual when I need ideas on a starting point for my nails, I asked the man his opinion.  While he most typically gives me just a color, for some strange reason, he was unusually specific:  white and opalescent with lots of flakies.  *Shrug.*  Ok, here goes. indoor, bright CF lighting The result reminds me of shimmery, spangled disco jumpsuits & flashing lights, so I'm calling this a disco nail art look.  It's fun, but not something I would have come up with on my own, so I just popped my hip and flung the opposite pointer in the air and went with it. window-filtered sunlight I started out with a base of Hard Candy Coconut in hopes that its shimmer might peek through the flake base (lol, nope, it's still just plain white on the nail).  Since clearly more shimmer was needed, I then topped with Baroness X Fox Fires, an iridescent microflakie topcoat, which absolutely amped up the shimmer quotient.  Next, I used some french tip guide...

A sad-but-truism of polish-land is that though thermals are absolutely the easiest nail art to accomplish (being as how they require zero effort on the wearer's part), the clock is ticking and they'll die at a time you have no control over, somewhere between the cold and warm state.  When the weather is just right for thermals, then (spring and fall, cool rather than cold, works best for me), you gotta bust them out. indoor, bright CF lighting My Indie Polish released the fantastically named and hilariously inspired Shifter's Full as a custom for the Holy Shift thermal lovers fb group back in December of 2017, and I'm happy to report that it still transitions beautifully over a year later. outdoor, shady daylight In the cold state, Shifter is a vibrant aquamarine with a healthy dose of aurora type shifty shimmer that is bright pink when viewed directly, but tilts to gold and a subtle flash of green at angles. indoor, bright CF lighting As it warms up, ...

The very first  polish that came to mind when I decided I was going to revisit older things I'd never blogged/photographed before was Butter London Two Fingered Salute.  I swooned over this when The PolishAholic (sweet baby octopus I miss her blog and perfect pics!!) said it was an all-time fave, and yet it was distinctly underwhelming on me.  Definitely time for a reload! indoor, bright CF lighting Two Fingered Salute, an exclusive for Nordstrom from way back in 2012, is an earthy crelly somewhere between aqua and green, utterly jam packed full of shimmering copper microflake. outdoor, direct sunlight The microflake flashes between metallic copper and metallic pink - I never could decide if it was duochromatic or if there were two different types of shimmer, but it's a fun effect regardless.  If this was a more saturated aqua color in this shade, I'd end up with lobster hands for sure, but the earthy mutedness that makes this look dead-on for copper verd...

A serious fave of mine, a England Saint George didn't get to shine boldly in my last mani, and while it was out on my table I decided it very much deserved it's own moment.  I've paired it with another aE scattered holo gem, Princess Sabra. indoor, bright CF lighting Saint George is a very deep, super saturated teal that leans just a hair more to the green side than the blue.  Princess Sabra (aka Tristam Eyes, named for the maker's cat) is a warm, antique gold.  Both have that gorgeously unique aE scattered holo finish that's not at all greyed out in lower lighting, but shimmers with a rainbow sheen in bright sunlight. window-filtered bright afternoon sunlight outdoor, bright winter sunlight Princess Sabra absolutely needs the two coats shown here to get the depth of the color in the bottle.  Saint George is fine in one somewhat thicker coat, though I'm wearing two here.  Both have utterly perfect formulas and utterly perfect brushes that m...

After the summer lingered unseasonably warm for months, a switch has been flipped to super chilly here on the east coast.  It drives me absolutely bonkers to turn the a/c off then the heat on all in the same week, but hey, that also means it's thermal season. indoor, bright CF lighting Fancy Gloss released Captured Butterfly as part of the books theme for this past March's Polish Pickup.  It's a fairly reactive thermal that on me tends to stay on the warm side - this was the kind of polish that was already turning colors as each coat was still drying.  In its cold state, it's a very dark, moody slate teal. outdoor, bright direct sunlight While in the warm state it's an unusual violet purple that drove my camera nutty. outdoor, bright direct sunlight The funky french tip effect was in fine form, and would have been much more dramatic if I'd left my nails a bit longer.  Over both the warm and cool states, Captured Butterfly has a gorgeous bright ...

My life is in more than a little bit of an upheaval - my car is crapping out hard core which has made my every waking priority researching a new one, I just came back from a lovely trip with my sister and am busy planning a big overseas trip before the end of the year with a friend, my major annual conference is coming up almost simultaneously with my dad visiting - not all of it bad things, but everything is way more hectic than usual around here.  My posts aren't on my regular twice-weekly schedule, and that's because I'm not painting my nails twice weekly.  Sometimes life just rearranges your priorities, and when this usually fun and relaxing hobby becomes a stressor, well, I'm kinda taking a step back for a while. indoor, bright CF lighting That doesn't mean my nails are going nekkid, that means I'm not as on-the-ball about getting plenty of good photos, I'm wearing each mani longer than I normally would, and my posts will probably be shorter than ...

One good Femme Fatale deserves another, only with the color scheme flipped over to the cooler side, so... indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale's older holos of the type she released in these square bottles are all just fantastic.  Like the rest of these, Gentlemen's Scuffle is a richly pigmented, creamy teal holo with an almost metallic look.  It's fully opaque in one coat (my second thin one didn't deepen the color at all), and stamps beautifully (if your plate cooperates). indoor, bright CF lighting Ray of Golden Sunshine is also holographic, but where Gentlemen's Scuffle does one thing exceptionally well, there's a bunch of other flourishes in this soft, cool gold.  Ray has a lovely seafoam-aqua shimmer overlay as well as some suuuuuper tiny gold holo microglitters added to the mix.  Because of the other sparkling elements, this one is a bit more sheer and defintely needs that second coat to come to opacity. window-filtered daylight I lov...

This year has brought us a smorgasbord of polishes using the aurora pigments that are similar but much more available versions of the impossible to find Clarins 230-type red-to-green shifty shimmer.  I may have  ended up with a double handful of what I swear was the hottest color combo around, fiery red aurora in cool, deep navy, and I was trying to slow my roll.  Then I saw someone's swatches of this and YOINK!! indoor, CF lighting So.  Yeah.  What you see in that bottle shot above is basically everything you needed to know about this little number.  We have a deep slate-teal jelly base, liberally dusted with red-to-green aurora shift, then topped up with flakies that shift in nearly the same color spectrum. overcast morning daylight I love polishes that look different, but just as lovely, in different lighting conditions.  In shade or low light, of course, the flakies really take center stage, and I'm sure this would be really interest...

One of my FB nail groups has been blowing up lately with bright summery designs using foaming polishes for fluid nail art.  My 3 bottles of these special effects polish are underused, but despite the prodigious volume of nail polish in this house, I'm always hesitant to try out techniques that involve using huge quantities of polish or pouring it straight out of the bottle (!!).  indoor, bright CF lighting While the stamper technique to get the cells to form worked well for me last time , this round was all about watching a half dozen tutorials like this one where polish was dabbed, dripped, or poured onto a silicone nail art mat, the mat was folded, and POOF cells foam right on up.  That insta video is exactly how I did this one, including the use of a single thin coat of one of the base colors painted onto each nail for the decals to stick onto. outdoor, bright sunlight I also managed to get over my aversion to pouring out polish by using stuff that I'm oth...