The Show Must Go On!

Hi all! Today I have a very quickly done mani for you - I had to paint my nails before I played with hair dye, and you know me - I can't just leave it at clear coat. I went with OPI The Show Must Go On, from the Burlesque collection - one of my favorites that was, unfortunately, before my love affair with nail polish, so they've been tough to track down. I received this lovely in a swap! Shown is two coats - the first coat went on VERY streaky and patchy, but luckily, the second evened things out. TSMGO is a lovely duochrome glitter that's almost metallic - I get flashes of red and gold, depending on the light. I topped it off with a coat of Poshe.

On my middle fingers and thumb, I added a thin coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire. The purple made those nails look slightly darker, but the multichrome goodness of FF was mostly lost in the flashiness of TSMGO. In super low lights, though, I could see the green shimmer - I just couldn't catch it on camera.

No cleanup here - I didn't expect the mani to last through my hair dye ordeal, but it did (and so did some of the unwanted hair color). Off I go to fix it - Thanks for reading!

A lot of summer with a little fall.

Hi all! Today I have a lovely pink from Zoya's Surf collection, Kimber. It's a glowy, metallic hot pink that screams summertime - and it's almost a one coater. There was some visible nail line after one thin coat, so I went over it a second time for full coverage. Application was a dream.

Yesterday when I left to run errands, I noticed some yellow leaves here and there - plus classes start next week - fall has crept up on me without me noticing. To celebrate, I layered HITS Lambada on top - a flakie that flashes copper and green mostly, with a little yellow and turquoise here and there - it reminds me of trees that haven't completely turned yet. The flakies are a little shy on top of the super-bright Kimber, but when they come out to play in the sun, it's the perfect between-seasons look for me! The pictures don't show quite as many flakies as you can see in real life...Lambada is pretty dense, like Essie Shine of the Times, but with smaller flakes.

I am still working on my cleanup-with-brushes skills, so apologies for the mess - I wanted to take pictures beforehand in case I screwed up and had to take it off.

What are your favorite colors between the seasons?

Thanks for reading!

Stash Porn, and a poll.

Good afternoon readers! First off, I know I have been gone for a while. Long story short, my life has been a bit of a mess - I am trying to get back on track, and that includes with this blog. I hope you didn't miss me too much!

Today I decided to re-organize my polish stash while on the hunt for my next mani colors. It was sort of organized by color, which led to it being particularly difficult to find colors when I knew exactly what I wanted; I seem to do better with them organized by brand. So, on to the pictures...

The unorganized stash.

Let's start with drugstore polish! These are brands I don't own too many of. Top is Pure Ice, Nina Ultra Pro, Sinful, Ruby Kisses. Bottom is Milani and Essence. The two off to the side are a Colorphase (apparently made by Styli-Style) and a Konad special polish. I adore the Nina formula, and the Pure Ice are fabulous for layering.

Wet 'n Wild. I mostly have limited editions - the whole Chrome collection; and a few from Ice Baby and Be Jeweled. The Fastdry are okay - they're two of the first polishes I bought when I started painting my nails again.

Revlon - three of their very well-known high end polish dupes, two Moon Candy that were a bit disappointing but still pretty, and a great jelly white with gold shimmer from the Colorstay line.

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms. The standing ones are extra bottles of the ones they're behind. I wish I had more of these, I love them...but the ebay prices are exorbitant. Bring them back!

Other Sally Hansen: Some HD, a crackle that doesn't crack much, a couple nice shimmers, some Xtreme Wear that vary in quality for me, two Complete Salon that I got on clearance, and an old Chrome that I bought growing up (which they should also bring back).

Brazilian polishes: UP Colors, HITS, and Jade. All of these have great formulas, and the holographics are SO good. Bet you can't tell which one is my favorite. :)

Aussie polishes: Picture Polish, Ozotic, Glitter Gal. With a special appearance by Fantasy Fire!

One-offs of higher end brands: Julep, MAC, Deborah Lippmann, and CND. I love the CND effects, and I really love Lippmann polishes. Pity they cost so much...

Some Orly. I love their rubberized caps, and their formula has always been good to me.

Of course, my favorites have been their Cosmic FX and Mineral FX collections. Glitter! Multichrome! How can I resist? The formulas are top-notch, too. Also included: Mermaid Tale, of the Flash Glam FX collection. I'm not a huge fan of chunky glitter, but I like this one for layering - there are one or two more I'm considering.

Finger Paints: two random colors and the flakie collection. I wish I had a back up of Twisted :( Formula on these is good; I may look into their creams.

Color Club! I tend to not get these unless I find the big packs at Ross or TJ Maxx...SUCH good deals! The ones I've used have had good formulas. Totally worth 8 bucks for 6 good polishes...

Essies. I didn't get into these until the Luxeffects collection...and even then, not until Mirror Metallics did I pick up many. I usually prefer wider brushes, but they make some great colors that I've had a hard time finding elsewhere.

Zoya! Also a recent love. They do so many special deals, and the Share the Love program is great as well, though I've yet to benefit much from it. Reva is my favorite holiday season polish, and Freya is my favorite neutral. They can run a little thin, but that's ok.

My only indie polish: Fuego, by Hot Mess Lacquers. The lady who runs it is a sweetheart, and VERY focused on putting out quality product. I used to own the NerdLacquer Firefly set, but had to sell them during a tough time - $200 for nail polish is hard to pass up...

A few Nicole by OPI, and a mini of OPI Take the Stage. I don't like the NOPI bottle much, but my love of the colors overrides my hate of a bottle shape. The pink, Kim-pletely in Love, is my go-to "work safe" polish for interviews and the like - the blue shimmer keeps it interesting.

OPI reds, pinks, oranges, golds, browns. For some reason, the shimmer in Congeniality Is My Middle Name doesn't like to mix with the polish...

Greens, blues, purples, and silvers.

China Glaze pinks, red, oranges, and yellows. Can you tell I really prefer shimmers over creams?

Greens - from seafoam to olive. The neon, In the Limelight, made my phone freak a little bit.

Blues and purples! Plenty of glitter here, too. The fuchsias are pulling really pink here.

White, grey, and black, as well as two layering polishes.

Browns - from gold to bronze, as well as a peach and a purple-grey (Channelesque). Super-shimmery bronzes are my favorite fall colors.

Crazy, huh? That said, I am looking to pare it down a little, or trade some of what I've got. If you're interested, my 'stash' tab does have things marked that I would definitely swap or sell, as well as things I have multiple bottles of, which I am definitely looking to get rid of...I have a wish list, but if you have particular things you're also wanting to swap, please tell me :)

So, on to the next question - what polish would you like me to feature next? You can check my 'Stash' tab, or you can pick a particular color in a picture if you're not sure what it's called! Let me know in comments.

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, and a water marble

Hi all! Today was a lazy day, and my last day off for the foreseeable future, so I figured I'd take the time to do my nails. Per request, I chose a light blue - China Glaze Kinetic Candy, from the Electropop collection (pretty widely available via etailers still, doubt you'll see it in stores anymore). It's pretty bright for a pastel, but soft, and it covered fairly well in two coats (it was a little streaky, but topcoat pretty much evened it out). A bubble here and there, but I am going to blame the air in here. Here it is with a coat of Out the Door, indoor light:

I decided that I'd give a water marble accent nail a shot tonight - it's only my third time doing it, and I'm not quite comfortable with a whole marble mani yet. I did that the first time I tried it, and not only did it take almost two hours - I drove my fiance nuts - but it didn't turn out all that great.

For this one, I decided to go with greens, blues, and purple. Left to right: China Glaze Kinetic Candy, OPI Mermaid's Tears, CG Aquadelic, Zoya Robyn, CG First Mate, and CG Tempest. Not exactly color-true - thanks, phone camera! I need to get a new camera, mine's been abused to death.

Also visible: hammer. Not involved in today's mani :)

When I marble, I coat the finger in petroleum jelly or lip balm to make cleanup slightly easier, though I've heard it will just peel off your finger anyway - I'd rather avoid having crazy polish stains on my fingers! Here's my left and right middle fingers, pre-cleanup - I'm not ready for topcoat quite yet, so I'm chilling here at the comp with crazy blue swirls on my fingers...

I'm ok with them - marbling always looks better with more nail to work with, I think, and Tempest and Mermaid's Tears aren't as vibrant as I'd like...oh, and the designs aren't as good as they could've been. But it could've been worse! Maybe I'll add some holo topcoat tomorrow...

Have you ever done a water marble? Got any ideas or tips? I'd love to hear them!

Jade Magia Negra, and a layering experiment.

Hello all! First, I'd like to apologize for my absence. Aside from a few occasions, I have not felt like painting my nails. I blame work mostly - I work around heavy equipment, and nail breakage happens often. But things have slowed down for the moment - I am running part of VT Orientation, which involves hitting buttons only, and they have finally (mostly) grown to the point that I felt like doing this again...though I wish I had pictures of my mani for my sister's wedding!

Today I am working a concert outside, so it felt like a perfect holo day! I decided to dive into my unused holos (a rare thing around here). I chose Magia Negra, a black holo, though bordering more on charcoal grey. I got it from Llarowe, where it is currently available for $10. She has always had excellent customer service and lightning-quick shipping for me! If you have not bought Brazilian polish yet, you will find it smells VERY strong (moreso than the common 3-frees), but dries quicker, in my opinion.

Magia Negra has a good formula; smooth, not streaky, with two-coat coverage. I had a bit of an issue with bubbling, but I blame the excessive humidity today! It rained yesterday and now this whole town feels like a sauna. The brush was also slightly wonky, but nothing I couldn't work with - I hope this is a one-off issue, but I have no other Jades to compare it to - yet!

Here's two coats, pre-cleanup, no topcoat. Look at that great holo - it looks even better in the sun, but it was behind a cloud :(

I had read about layering thin multichromes over holo polishes to cool effect. This immediately made me think of how neat the Ozotic Mish Mash polishes are, so I had to give it a try! It was tough to pick a multichrome, as I have a lot of old Nail Prisms and the like...but I settled for Ozotic 505, which has a watery, sheer (but buildable) formula and insane green-turquoise-purple multichrome. How could it not be awesome? I added one coat once the Magia Negra dried.

The effect was pretty subtle, pre-topcoat. It changed the holo flashes towards the green-blue part of the spectrum - before, it felt more like an even mix of oranges and blues. In the sun, the multichrome was more apparent. Inside, the 505 is much more apparent; it gives the mani a little something in lower light. Holos tend to lose a lot of their glitz indoors or at night.

A coat of Out the Door enhanced the green flash from 505 in indoor light, but in direct light, had no effect.

Overall, I love how this turned out. It's fun and flashy both inside and outside - and it was done and dry fast, which is always awesome when I'm rushing out for a long work day!

What do you think? Have you layered jellies or duochromes with a holo polish before?