Sweet Baby Octopolish!

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 

While I'm not at all a monarchist, I am a bit of an anglophile, and in honor of the queen's passing I pulled out Girly Bits' lovely November 2018 PPU offering, My Name is Elizabeth. indoor, bright CF lighting Elizabeth is a lush royal berry wine shade, filled with holographic microglitters, holo flake, and iridescent flakies. window-filtered bright daylight This went on in two smooth coats, and the formula and brush were exactly as nice as you'd expect from Girly Bits. outdoor, shady late afternoon daylight The flakies & tiny glitters were very well behaved, and though this dries a little satin, one regular layer of topcoat was all that's needed to bring it up to a smooth shine. indoor, bright CF lighting This wore a little more quickly than ideal, showing some edgewear by day 3, but I enjoyed the color enough to wear it most of the week anyway. outdoor, late afternoon daylight indoor, CF lighting Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, this is a classy and classically femin

For a couple of years, Pahlish has been using some absolutely lovely crushed gold flake in an offering here and there in one of her collections, and after loving the first one I tried I've been scooping up the colors that appeal to me. indoor, bright CF lighting for both Wild Rushes is a faded khaki green, a very organic and soft color, filled with these lovely gold flakes.  Like the others of this type I have, the base is fairly sheer so the flakies don't get swamped, and I'm showing 3 coats to opacity here.  Work and life and stuff have all been super crazy, so I somehow failed to take adequate photos of this - just a quick review here. Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  Somehow, this one just didn't work for me.  The green was more faded/greyed IRL (these photos ironically look slightly more saturated, like how I expected the polish to be from the sales swatches), and it wore very quickly.  Still very much worth giving another try when I'm in the mood because it's a

I've been blogging here for 9 years now (what?!) and it's fascinating to look back at my first pics and see what a difference practice and skill has made over time.  I found myself having the same conversation twice with friends in the past week about nail care for specifically "our" type of nails, so I figured since I have research, opinions, and things that work I might as well write it down for anyone else who'd find it useful! bare nails here, prepped with nothing but oil First off, your nail type: Fingernails are just like hair - sheets of keratin produced by growth centers -  and just like hair, we have different types & textures.  In the same way there's a million brands and types of shampoo specifically intended to improve your hair type, you need to select products that match your nail type.  Some folks have hard, thick nails.  Some have flexible or even oily-textured nails.  I happen to have very thin, weak nails that will peel apart in layers li

A friend was over this week and picked out a blinding holo for me to do her nails with... which got me nostalgic for back in the day when linear holos were the height of indie nail polish fashion... which made me realize this gorgeous thing had been sitting in the vault unloved for way too long! indoor, bright CF lighting Awwww yeaaaaah, check out that sweet sweet holo flame: outdoor, bright daylight Darling Diva released Nightbird as part of her 2014 Stevie Nicks-themed White Witch collection, most all of which were bright linear holographic polishes.  This one is a deeply saturated sapphire blue, with a readily visible rainbow flame in bright light. indoor, office fluorescent lighting When indoor or in lower light, Nightbird was a barely violet-leaning navy with a subtle grey cast from the holo dust.  outdoor, bright daylight This took two coats to get to perfect opacity, and I had zero problems with the formula.  Fortunately, though this has a hint of violet to the blue, it's no