Sweet Baby Octopolish!

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...

New month, new brand!  Today we have the polish that inspired this year's blog theme for me, which I've put out ISOs on the resell fb groups, pinterest, and destashes for several years (I found an old ISO post from 6 years ago!)… and then from out of the blue, it became available just last month, and it's HERE! indoor, bright CF lighting Let me tell you a little tale of "if I knew then what I know now":  once upon a time in 2013 when I was starting to have to worry about storing all the polish I was acquiring from all these wonderful indie stores and stockists, I tried to put the brakes on going overboard.  I'm not someone who worries about being a completist, and if the 2nd book in a series really sucks, there's no reason to keep reading.  I originally bought only about half of Femme Fatale's 2013 collection comprised of linear holos with amazing contrast shimmer.  I loved every single one I wore - these are all 4 or 5 star polishes, easy.  But I fail...

Winter is just absolutely the worst time of year to try and show off a nice nail polish.  When the work day is a lot longer than the day light, you're pretty well stuck with indoor and bottle shots... until a coworker informs you of some amazingly cool celestial phenomenon happening right outside , prompting you to get a nice sunlight photo of your coincidentally celestially-named polish.   outdoor, bright direct sunlight Chasing Northern Lights was Pahlish's contribution to the December 2015 Holo Hookup box (blast from the past, yo!).  It's a cool greenish-leaning bronze linear holographic with a subtly duochromatic contrast shimmer that goes from coppery (center of my pinky) to gold to chartreuse (index finger) at angles.  I'm wearing 2 coats of this smooth perfect formula for complete opacity. Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, this is a lovely edgy neutral color that was very flattering on my skin tone.  The only flaw was that it wore a little quickly, but...

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...

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. ...

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 blu...

 It's been gloriously sunny with warm summertime weather lately, so I felt it was time to pull out a super linear holo, and it's been way too long since I've had a green mani.  Trawling through my stash I found something that'd been on Mount Untried for far too long. indoor, bright CF lighting Is Vapid Lacquer's Spider and the Fly a summer color?  Heck yes, because anything you want to wear this season is for this season.  That being said, it was released originally as part of a fall collection, and it is perfection for a warm autumnal palette... but these rainbows are all summertime. bright direct daylight I can't quite figure out if Spider and the Fly is an army green vs an emerald green with contrasting bronze-gold shimmer in the mix.  In either case, the end result is a deeply saturated, richer-than-velvet olive-leaning green. window-filtered indirect daylight The formula on this was smooth and perfect, needing 2 coats to get to complete opacity.  ...

 Our latest book club pick did not sit well with me.  I had a huge hate for that book, and tossed it in the "life is too short" pile and moved on.  I'm not going to mention the particular book for a whole lot of reasons that have to do with avoiding search engine shenaniganery, and so instead let's focus on the fiery duochromes that went into my "F this book" look. indoor, bright CF lighting I started this look with a base of straight piano-black crème, then pulled out a bottle  of very long untried Dragon Heartstring from Nvr Enuff. outdoor, bright daylight Dragon Heartstring is a topper that's got a whole lot going on - that means it's actually dense enough to wear solo if you don't mind 3-4 coats, but the flashy elements play much better over darker colors, and I'm using classic black to make it really sing. outdoor, bright daylight There's a generous helping of linear holo in this mix, as well as duochromatic pigment that flips from w...