Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 Funny how these alternating manis sometimes end up truly the opposite of each other! indoor, bright CF lighting for all For my last round of Enchanted Polish deep-diving, I went with the very holiday themed Pre-lit Opal Tree, originally released as part of the 2016 holiday collection.  It's a deep Christmas tree green jelly filled with a light scattering of holo sparkle and iridescent glitters in small hexes and tiny bits. The formula was a touch thick, and became completely opaque in just 2 coats.  No fishing for glitter was necessary, but wow was there way more glitter on the sides of the bottle than visible on the nail - the texture left on the nail said otherwise, and I think that's because the glitters are iridescent, so easily covered by the moderately opaque polish or seen through.  I frankly may have liked the look better if I had an iridescent glitter topper over a pine green crème or holo. Rating:  a solid 3 out of 5 stars, this is a quite nice holida...

One of the Enchanteds I was able to pick up in my recent destash purchase was the re-release of an old fave, Austin Powers.  I was never able to get a hold of the original or the re-release, so had been pretty happy with the other gold holos in my collection, but when it was available for a reasonable price, well... indoor, bright CF lighting Austin Powers is a lovely champagne gold linear holo that's made even more blingy by being packed with translucent copper micro flakies. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight The flakes take center stage in low lighting, and then that holo BAM when the sun comes out... outdoor, direct daylight The polish is quite sheer, and needed 3 coats for full opacity.  Every coat went on smooth and even and self-leveled flawlessly, and dried nice & quick.  Some 3-coaters can be real PITA, but this was all good. indoor, bright CF lighting The other thing 3-coaters are prone to is chipping quickly, since the total mani ends up rather thick.  N...

Oh yes, I still have plenty of Enchanteds now calling my name, and it's been way too long since I wore a deep, luscious purple.  indoor, bright CF lighting Awwww yeaaaaah that's my kind of color. outdoor, direct daylight Enchanted Polish released Telenovela with their 2016 Midwinter Night's Dream collection, and indeed it's a juicy berry perfect for the time of the year where jewel tones are de rigueur.   indoor, bright CF lighting I have this shade filed with purple, but you could make a reasonable argument for it being wine instead due to the pinky contrast shimmer that forms a metallic gleam of brighter, warmer color down the center in bright light.   outdoor, direct daylight There's a real theme going on here in quality & finish for my untried mountain of Enchanted Polishes:  we have a finely milled linear holo sparkle very nicely complimented by a super smooth borderline metallic contrasty shimmer. outdoor, direct daylight The formula was perhaps a touc...

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...

I'd originally intended to stamp my last mani with some fall leaves, but that color was just too distracting to cover up.  Then last week, I received from older Enchanted Polishes from an estate sale, which reminded me of how much I loved their stuff, so take 2 for fall leaves: indoor, bright CF lighting Hooboy, pulling this one out of the vault!  Enchanted Polish released Hot Chocolate for Unicorns way back in 2014.  As you can see here, my bottle has a pretty fantastic case of "ugly bottle syndrome" where the chalky white pigment that makes the polish opaque (and not a sheer jelly) has started to precipitate out onto the bottom of the bottle.  It looks orange here, but nah, it's actually white. window-filtered bright daylight Hot Chocolate is an utterly perfect shade of melted Hershey bar.  It's super smooth and creamy, and is a one-coater if you have a heavy hand.  I found that a 2nd coat deepened the color, though it had no real effect on opacity. ...

One excellent Enchanted deserves another, and this beauty was a surprise new color that came up when Grass Stain was restocked.  Despite the lack of any swatch photos other than what was on the sale listing, this blue-purple glowing YES meant I could not pass this one up. indoor, bright CF lighting Good call, me! outdoor, overcast daylight Pursuit of Happiness starts with an intensely saturated violet base that when layered with the duochromatic shimmer appears to exactly straddle the base between blue and purple.  Only when I finally removed this (after more than a week!) could I definitively decide it was purple. outdoor, bright direct sunlight In bright, direct light, the shimmer flares into an absolutely electric blue that makes the base by contrast look even darker, producing that spectacular "glowing from within" look that so many polish nerds swoon over. indoor, diffuse lighting from nearby window + incandescent Magically, you do not need ...

An unfortunate happenstance in any indie polish collector's life is to fall for a limited release years after it's come and gone.  When I saw a pic just a few weeks ago of Cirque Martinique, I absolutely swooned... and promptly started searching for similar (possibly attainable) things.  The day after someone suggested Enchanted Polish Grass Stain, that color was restocked. indoor, CF lighting I don't usually go for plain crème polishes, the lack of shimmer or sparkle or shift is just not my usual jam.  THIS polish right here makes me understand all my crème queen pals. window-filtered morning daylight Grass Stain is exactly that - an absolutely organic shade of kelly green that leans very slightly toward yellow.  It has the "squish" and glassy shine of a crelly or jelly polish, but it's completely opaque.  Paint careful, because you know a color like this will cling to your cuticles forever, but it's totally worth it.  outdoor, shady dayli...

Pulling Asylum out of my stash this past week reminded me that I'd originally bought it just a couple of months after Tonic polish released their amazing Dryad's Grove in a collab box.  I wanted the Tonic very much, but had no interest in the rest of the polishes, and unfortunately that was the case for a whole lot of people - prices quickly soared on the secondhand market.  Another month or so later, and Great Lakes Lacquer released O'Rlyeh?, another gorgeous green in the same vein.  I also managed to snap up a bottle of Enchanted's Holiday LE from 2014 from a destash.  And then last year, Tonic sent another few dozen bottles of Dryad's Grove out into the world as part of a mystery bag sale. indoor, CF lighting All swatches go in order of the bottle shots here: Index: Glitter Daze Asylum Middle:  Tonic Dryad's Grove Ring:  Great Lakes Lacquer O'Rlyeh? Pinky:  Enchanted Polish Holiday 2014 So right up front:  none of these are 100% ...