Sweet Baby Octopolish!

Well it seems I'm all mixed up on my alternating light then dark looks... so I'm pushing "reset" with a paler shade. indoor, bright CF lighting The man said "blue" when I asked for color inspo, and I decided that would be a soft sky blue instead of a big stormy saturated one.   window-filtered indirect daylight Cadillacquer released Trolljegeren for the October 2021 Monsters & Mythicals PPU.  It's a very sheer, barely-there sky blue that's been jam-packed full of aurora shimmer and opaque matte blue hex glitters in at least 2 sizes. window-filtered indirect daylight The formula on this was absolutely superb, with no fishing or placement needed to get the glitters to spread out roughly evenly, and with extremely simple cleanup. indoor, bright CF lighting It's a bit of a chameleon, looking more sparkly and leaning much warmer in bright light when the aurora shimmer is most prominent.  In lower lighting, the aurora takes a back seat to the subtl...

Today, I have Cadillacquer's luscious jade green crelly, Masterpiece. indoor, bright CF lighting Masterpiece is from a 2013 Dexter-themed collection (it's a blood splatter, see?), and in the time it's been hanging out untried in my stash, it's developed the slightest hint of UBS and the glitter has all settled to the bottom.  Fortunately, a vigorous shake corrected both of these issues, but I did have to stop and re-shake every couple of fingers to re-suspend the glitters. window-filtered morning daylight The crelly formula is sheer, but not quite watery, which both really let the glitters show through nicely and also brought out a fantastic shine even before topcoat.  The smaller glitters dispersed very evenly, but the larger ones needed just a dab of placement here and there to even out.  I was worried that the larger hexes would poke out of the thinner crelly base a bit, but nope, only one layer of regular (not "glitter taming" type) topcoat was...

Continuing both my Cadillacquer untrieds and my neutral/traditional color following a bold one, today i have Winston, also from the Eat the Rude (Hannibal) collection. indoor, CF lighting Winston, named for the main character of the show's shaggy dog, is a grey-leaning taupe with Cadillacquer's signature loosely linear/tightly scattered holo, and an  interesting flash of blue courtesy of some microflake shimmer. indoor, window-filtered daylight - check out those blue sparkles This is a warm or putty type of taupe (debatably grey) that's cooled down interestingly by the blue flash.  Same typically creamy formula from Cadillacquer, with the propensity to stay only where you put it, minimizing necessary clean-up. indoor, window-filtered daylight The holo sparkle is both pretty and subtle, far more integrated than in-your-face, as typical for this maker. indoor, bright CF lighting With our recent snowpocalpse (we had over 30" in one weekend here!!!!...

I only have a few Cadillacquers left in my untried pile, and conveniently, one's a dark and dramatic color while the other is a modern neutral, so my alternates game can continue if I go through them both.  Wolf Trap, from the recent Eat the Rude collection inspired by Hannibal (we loved this show at my house!!) is first up. indoor, bright CF lighting Wolf Trap (named for the region in Virginia that the show's main character lives in) is a rich hunter green with the same loosely linear/sparkly scattered holo that I'm now convinced is very much Cadillacquer's calling card.  It additionally has some blue-tinged green microflake shimmer that adds interest in lower lighting. outdoor, filtered early morning daylight outdoor, indirect overcast daylight same early morning daylight Office lighting also played prettily with the microflake: check out the blue sparkle of the flakes on my ring finger I realized after a couple days of wearing Wolf ...

Continuing my back-and-forth of dramatic vampy winter colors alternating with neutrals, today I have Cadillacquer's A Dragon is Not a Slave, from their 2015 GOT collection. indoor, bright CF lighting The lovely bronze-copper flash on the edge of the bottle and down the middle of the nail is not at all a trick of the light - this is absolutely how Dragon rolls.  We have here a warm, taupe-y grey with a delicate linear holo and plenty of fiery shimmer. UNF.  DAT SHIMMER. The shimmer is subtly duochromatic, appearing more reddish coppery directly, and more golden bronze at angles. outdoor, direct sunlight The holo here, as with both of the other Cadillacquer polishes I've tried, is what some people call "scattered linear," not the sort with a blinding holo flame.  The very fine refractive particles create sort of a light dusting of rainbow. outdoor, direct sunlight The overall effect is of a smouldering fire within smoky ashes, and it's a ...

Earlier this fall, Swiss nail polish artiste Cadillacquer released her "Eat the Rude" collection, inspired by the recent Hannibal TV show.  While I don't usually get sucked into fun fandom nail polish based on names alone, that impulse managed to have me only stop short of buying the whole collection.  This is pretty much my favorite show in YEARS, and these were gorgeous polishes. indoor, bright CF lighting Memory Palace is a soft, creamy color somewhere between grey and green - I seriously had a hard time filing it (my stash is sorted based on color), and ultimately went with green, but it looks a little different in every lighting condition, and leans more one way or the other. indoor, window-filtered overcast daylight In cool, low light, Memory Palace is definitively green, of an earthy sort you'd expect to find as part of a wild bird's eggshell.  In most all lighting conditions, there's a twinkling glint from bronze microflakies mixed througho...

I'm a sucker for anything that's 2 things at once, especially when one of those things is green, so Game Over from Cadillacquer's 2014 Halloween collection was an easy must-have. indirect late afternoon sunlight Game Over is a creamy, rich brown, sprinkled with a jade green shimmer and a lightly sparkly holo.  It's the sort of holo particle that lines up to an arc of rainbow flame, yet is far more delicate than most of the in-your-face things you'd actually call "linear" holos. direct bright sunlight The pale green shimmer translates as both a silvery dusting in the shade, and as a bold flash in bright light. shady morning sunlight bright, direct sunlight Though the bottle looks distinctly mahogany brown (i.e., with a decided reddish cast to it - both bottle pics are accurate to what it looks like), on the nail it was a medium brown without any warm tones.  In shady light, it looked a bit too...um...organic for my tastes.  In bright l...