Sweet Baby Octopolish!

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...

Continuing both my light & dark alternating manis and my deep dive into Enchanted untrieds in my stash, I pulled out one that I neglected for years.  It's funny how much your "mood" can play into whether a polish works for you or not. When I originally bought Enchanted's February 2017 mystery, I was pretty ho-hum about it, just another pastel holo.  I was wrong. indoor, bright CF lighting The 2017 mysteries were all "remixes" of early, hard-to-find colors, with this one being an updated version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.  The rarity and gotta-have-it-ness of the original (other nail blogs showed direct comparisons between this and the original as being extremely close) was frankly the only reason I kept this one, since I didn't think at the time it was something I'd necessarily love.   indoor, bright CF lighting Again, seriously y'all, I was wrong.  Feb 2017 is a desaturated, nearly white linear holo.  It's a little sheer on the fi...

 While my last look was spoopy cute but a little more reined in, this time it's back to glow-in-the-dark and dialed up to 11! Thriller night!!!  I've started with a white crème base, then brushed on one thin coat of Baroness X Never Trust the Living (I'm so not done with that ghostly blue glow!).  The tips of each nail are stamped in El Corazon True Red in drips & slashes from Dixie Plates Halloween 2017.  Though this was dry to the touch before topcoating, a lot of the red smeared into the white despite using a fairly new bottle of my trusty Glisten & Glow TC when using a thick, delicate hand to apply, and I had to wipe off the heavy quantity of red from the brush after each swipe.  Note to self - watch out when stamping with this stuff!  Fortunately, the messier the better with this look.  And oh YES that super glow!!  Charged  up in ordinary household lighting, this stuff would glow brightly for at least 4 hours, then faintly for a...

It's the height of summer dragonfly season, and I've been seeing so many beautiful jewels flying around that I was absolutely inspired to bring some with me everywhere I go. On my "jelly donut mani" base of 1 coat Fancy Gloss Got Milk + 1 coat Ethereal White Smoke, I've stamped several different dragonfly images from KADS Flower 015 and any other plate I found with a realistic looking design.  I then filled in the dragonfly bodies were with various holos, some as leadlighting and some as reverse-stamping... but then promptly could not get a bright sunlight photo to show off the sparkle.   I totally loved this look, wearing it for a whole week.  Hope you get out to enjoy some summer sunshine while it lasts! ~Michelle 

 Some of the super hot nail trends that pop up on everyone's feed really crack me up.  Most aren't so much a "trend" as "that one time someone did something over-the-top for a nail art competition, and someone felt the need to make a post about it."   outdoor, bright daylight This time around, though, the "trend" is certainly trending, with the "jelly donut look" gracing the fingers of celebs and city dwellers in the know all over instagram.  In my eyes, though, it's just a sheer, soft, white, and it just so happens I wanted exactly that for my next nail art look, so I wore it solo for a day too. indoor, bright CF lighting My version is a super shiny iridescent, but still translucent enough to look like the glaze on a donut (sidebar: why are these called jelly donuts and not glazed donut nails??).  I've used 1 coat Fancy Gloss Got Milk, then 1 coat Ethereal White Smoke, plus my usual base & top coats, and wow was this quick bu...

A friend called up this week with unexpected good news - they'd bought tickets to see Return of the Jedi with a live orchestra literally years ago, and it was rescheduled for this weekend, and the folks originally going with them now couldn't make it.  But we sure could! all photos indoor, CF lighting I decided to go with a light side & dark side look in black & white.  On my left hand I had the battle for the Death Star... And on my right, our best friends from the series. Images came from Mundo de Unas plates Seducao 11 and Star Wars 2.   May the force be with you! ~Michelle 

This series has been rather fun, ricocheting back and forth from light to dark.  After my last super vampy but not quite black, I rebounded all the way over to iridescent white. all photos indoors with bright CF lighting Shleee Polish has been a huge fave of mine for a couple of years now.  She's absolutely a master at shimmery sparkle that contrasts beautifully (but never clashes) with a different base color, and I keep being lured into her weekly releases though I'm trying my darndest to stick to a no-buy otherwise. Ghostly Snapshot is a barely mint-tinted white crelly base, jam packed with a lovely coarse-milled aurora shimmer that shifts from spring pink in direct light to gold at slight angles, then on over to vibrant metallic spring green at steeper angles.  I'm wearing 3 coats here to bring this to full opacity. I was fairly hard on my hands this week, and the weather is utter crap, so I have only bottle shots indoors and no outdoor sunshine.  Also, these phot...

 One last holiday nail art look to close out the year! indoor, CF lighting for both Baroness X has been releasing tons of seriously amazing fluid polishes for at least a year now, things that make beautiful marbled designs with a little extra oomph.  Fancy Gloss is known for their soft sheer crelly line (less so than for their thermals, but Got Milk is a frequently recommended fave white polish for a lot of folks).  Put 'em together and we get this! I started my Christmas tree look with 2 coats of Fancy Gloss Got Milk, a soft (not stark) white that's flawlessly leveling on each coat and gave me zero issues with application.  Then I made a sheet of fluid art marble with OPI Christmas Gone Plaid, Sinful Colors Under 18, and Baroness X Glam - a bright metallic gold flake/foil that also happens to crate this cool effect.  When the marble sheet was dry, I peeled it off my silicone mat, snipped it into tall narrow triangles, and applied with a touch of sticky basecoat...

 I love themed nail art looks, so holidays are a real must-do for me (despite not actually celebrating several of them).  We're still missing out on community fireworks this year, but there's always room for a red, white, and blue mani this time of year, and I can always use an excuse to bust out the fluid art polish. indoor, bright CF lighting Baroness X is the undisputed queen of fluid nail art polishes, going beyond mere basic colors (though she has those too) and adding some unique elements to this technique.  Snow Leopard is a neutral, creamy white that happens to also have some translucent shimmer mixed in. outdoor, bright direct daylight There are tons of youtube videos that show how to create fluid art cells, but here's the short version for those of you that prefer text to video.  First off, select a fluid art polish - this won't work without one - and then pick some contrasting colors to go with it.  More contrasty colors make the cells pop.  In t...

 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)....

 It's my birthday month, so I decided a celebratory look toward hopeful stars was in order. indoor, CF lighting Bee's Knees released The White Witch as part of an Outlander-themed Fandom Flakies box for March 2019.  It's a lovely barely-ivory (not stark white) filled with aurora shimmer and flakies that shift red to gold to green. window-filtered daylight I'm wearing 3 thin coats here, which was enough for complete opacity.  The aurora shimmer warmed up the ivory base another couple of degrees, with an overall look of pearlescent shell. indoor, bright CF lighting outdoor, bright direct sunlight For the stamped design, I'm using a few cute Pisces images and tiny stars from Mundo de Unas SF Zodiac plate, in MoYou London Midnight Green. window-filtered daylight indoor, CF lighting Rating:  4 out of 5 stars.  In the right lighting, this is gloriously sparkly... while in low lighting it's a soft, office-appropriate neutral.  White nail polish often has the unfor...

 As a scientist, I'm unapologetically liberal in my political leanings, and WOW did I breathe a sigh of relief this week!  A celebration of a peaceful transition of political era was most definitely in order. outdoor, cloudy daylight I've started with a trio of polishes with quite different holo finishes.  My index nail is Dance Legend Triumph, a navy with larger silver holo flake.  My middle finger is Shleee Ghostly Snapshot, a lovely iridescent white with a light scattering of very fine holo dust.  The red nails are Emily de Molly Understatement, a jelly packed full of holo glitters. indoor, bright CF lighting Over my variously sparkly red, white, and blue base, I've layered Justice Ginsberg's dissent collars in silver holo, and the feminist power symbol in blue holo, all in celebration of our first black woman elected to the Vice Presidency.  Images are from a custom Lantern & Wren plate memorializing "The Notorious RBG," which stamped great. indoor,...