Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 One good "oops batch" deserves another, and I just so happen to have one vastly different than the previous example. indoor, bright CF lighting Crystal Skull was an "oops batch" released in May 2015, and is another one I'm not at all sure what it originally started as.  This is a sea-glass steel blue base filled to the brim with a greenish-gold shimmer and holographic glitters in one or two sizes. outdoor, bright daylight The shimmer overlay tilts the overall look toward aqua rather than blue, and it's prominent in both bright and lower lighting. indoor, shady/indirect daylight The holo glitters add a bit of texture to this polish, and I needed 2 layers of topcoat to smooth things out. indoor, bright CF lighting But wow do those glitters catch any possible glint of light and throw it back in beautiful sparkly rainbows!  This style of glitter is an absolute calling card for Femme Fatale, though she doesn't do as many of them anymore.  indoor, bright dire...

With so many untried Femme Fatale polishes to choose from, it's easy to select a thoroughly different look and mood with each example of my journey through the oldest parts of my collection indoor, CF lighting for all photos Falling Glacier was part of Femme Fatale's 2014 Autumn release, and is the only thing I have from that group.  I've filed it under "grey" since the base is a sheer pale grey, but it's really all about the super bright aqua shimmer.  This arc of metallic, electric aqua was visible in all lighting, and is more saturated and vibrant than the pics show. This one additionally has a lightly sparkling, fine milled holo just barely over the line to having a linear arc, most visible in bright light and utterly vanishing in lower light.  I'm wearing 3 coats here to achieve visual opacity, and each of them were very smooth and even.  Rating:  a lovely 4 out of 5 stars.  Formula and color like this is what made me fall thoroughly in love with...

Well, when you do one hand light and the other dark, it throws the whole "alternate each mani between those" plan to the wind, so I decided to reset with a fresh, light color.  indoor, bright CF lighting Arctic Chill was a custom made for Ethereal Lacquer's fan group back in 2020.  It's basically the super bright aurora shimmer that's very much a part of her house style loaded into a delicate aqua-blue base. outdoor, direct sunlight In any degree of sunlight, this is a stunner - super fiery, sparking bronze-red to gold in direct light, and shifting over to green at angles. outdoor, direct sunlight The base is quite sheer, as is evidenced by air bubble easily visible in the bottle shots, and I'm wearing 3 coats to get to the degree of opacity you see here. indoor, bright CF lighting The sheerness means this would would be perfectly effective as a topper over any color that complimented the base color (blues, aquas, greens, and cool-leaning purples). outdoor, di...

Sometimes when I do themed nails for book club, the design is inspired by the text, while other times the simple graphic design of the cover demands to be re-created - this month's book was firmly in the latter category. indoor, bright CF lighting for all The cover of Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen features a barely turquoise blue background graced with a golden leaf, and little gold coins (gold coins being a plot point in this Hallmark movie of a book): An old dead thermal with just a hint of shimmer was just ideal for the base color here.  The gold leaf is from KADS Nature 036, using El Corazon Fragrant Mimosa for that bright metallic gold flash.  Pahlish Goldsmith - a topper version of their fantastic crushed gold flake polishes - provided the perfect dusting of little gold coins in just one light coat.   While I wasn't a real fan of the book, I did love this nail art look and wore it happily all week.  Goldsmith is a real winner, and should probably be in heavie...

 The weather is turning a little crisp lately, and my nails are a touch longer than I usually keep them, so clearly it's thermal time! indoor, bright CF lighting Femme Fatale released Welkin at Dusk as an exclusive for her fan group in September 2020, and though thermal nail polishes are really only guaranteed to transition for 6 months, I had zero troubles with this shade a year later.   indoor, window-filtered daylight + office fluorescent lighting Welkin is an absolutely beautiful color combo, transitioning from a teal-leaning blue when warm to a deep indigo sapphire when cool.  There's chunky holo dust and tiny holo glitters nicely visible in any point of the thermal transition, yet this took only 2 coats to result in very good opacity even while in  the warm state. indoor, bright CF lighting Unfortunately for me, I just don't think I've done this polish justice with these pics.  For a bunch of reasons I just didn't devote time to getting good pics, so ...

 When ya got time to paint and are ready to deal with the precision needed to make magnetics work... indoor, bright CF lighting I'm just gonna say:  HOT DAMN. outdoor, bright sunlight Bee's Knees released the magic that is Losing My Mind (srsly, mind is lost, just wwooowwww) as part of the album covers theme with March 2019 PPU.  This will obviously be a pic-heavy post, both because this polish has a lot going on, and because it's just too pretty for me to cut back the photos.  indoor, bright CF lighting To start with, this polish is quite sheer to let all these gorgeously shimmery elements shine forth, so I've layered 2 coats of it over a single coat of a piano black crème.  In the bottle, LMM is a dusty plummy purple full of iridescent flakies, with flashes of red and gold.  But when you magnetize it... indoor, CF lighting And THERE'S where the magic is revealed.  Losing My Mind is a black base filled to the brim with everyone's favorite Clarins 230 ...

 The man picked "purple" when I was stumped for a color, but I was feeling very pastel instead of vampy and this little gem fit my mood just right. indoor, bright CF lighting Ethereal has a certain aesthetic she sticks to most of the time, and this polish falls right within that type - it is indeed ethereal, cool-toned and sheer, with enough sparkles for a faery queen. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight This particular example starts with a softly sheer lavender base - I file polishes by color, and this one is with other lavender purples - that is absolutely filled to the brim with a duochromatic shimmer that's a metallic light aqua in direct light, then shifts to a lavender almost the same color as the base at angles. outdoor, bright angled sunlight Added to the sparkle factor, this proto has a very finely milled linear holo that's beautiful in bright light and fully hidden by the contrast shimmer in lower light. indoor, bright CF lighting You can see a bit of VNL in s...

About a year ago, Shleee released a polish in my fave color, with my name (almost) right on it... and as with pretty much everything when one has a mountain of untrieds, it sat unloved FAR too long.  indoor, bright CF lighting Michele (which should have 2 L's, ahem) is an absolute ocean dream.  It's a lovely mid-toned aqua just right in the middle of blue and green, loaded up with a holo flake sparkle and a stunning contrast shimmer. outdoor, afternoon sunlight In almost any lighting condition, that contrast shimmer shows as a seriously intense pink flash - few pics show it even halfway accurately, so just dial up the bright pink reflection down the center of my nails by several notches.  This shimmer does shift to a gorgeous green in angled light, which changes up the look of the polish quite a bit, but shows up in these pics only as a flash around the curve of the nail.  indoor, bright CF lighting If this polish looks somewhat familiar, well, it did to me too:...

 My sister came by for a visit last weekend (we made dinner for her birthday!) and while our chef was cooking, I was doing her nails.  She picked a England Proserpine (known and loved by me for quite some time) and a paisley design from BP-10 (also an old fave). indoor, CF lighting I liked it so much on her that I flipped it just a little and then did the same for me - this plate's paisley designs end in curlicues that look like waves, and there's some accent shells to boot.   outdoor, bright sunlight Getting back to normalcy with loved ones is the best!  ~Michelle 

 There's a super helpful comparisons group on fb that has on more than one occasion reminded me that something previously purchased is going to waste while sitting on Mount Untried... indoor, CF lighting Lucky 13's punnily named Kind of a Big Teal'c was from the space-themed PPU of exactly one year ago, and is quite obviously designed for me.  Flakie, somewhere between emerald and oceanic aqua, all yes. outdoor, late afternoon sunlight After days of wearing this polish, I still can't 100% settle on what the base color is.  "Teal" is probably the best descriptor, but the iridescent ocean-type flakies in there that shift from bright blue to aqua to purple make the overall look lean anywhere from turquoise to emerald in different lighting.  outdoor, shady/overcast daylight Some lighter aqua shades, especially those with warmer-toned pink or reddish shimmer, are particularly bad at the dreaded lobster hands.  Teal'c is saturated and dark enough, though, that t...