PinkDipsyBulle Franken Polish - Queen Conch, Golden Apple, Nebula and Lady of the Lake Swatches & Reviews

GUYS HEY!

I'm 23 weeks pregnant yesterday and I can no longer bend over without grunting. So, anyway...

I actually have some swatches for you today! That is your reward for still subscribing to my junk... you get to see some stuff sometimes. Quality blogging, right there!

*Hallelujah Chorus interlude*

It's no secret that I'm a total PinkDipsyBulle fangirl, and I could not have been more excited to review some polish at the request of The Shimmer Wizard herself (which I'm going to call her from now on... sorry). If you'll recall, my first favorite indie polish ever was Indian Ocean and it continues to reign as champion of my heart; it's also the only polish in my entire (kind of pathetic, comparatively) 300-ish bottle collection that I have a backup of. That being said, my fanatic raving is completely genuine and honest.

First up is Queen Conch, a cool-toned bubblegum pink with electric blue flash. Good formula on this guy; the brushstrokes are much less apparent in person than the OttLite picture would have you believe, so don't let that deter you. The blue flash is also more flash-tastic in real life, of course.

Shown below is three thin coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Sunlight

Next stop: Golden Apple, a soft mint green with bright golden flash that seriously glows on the nail. The way this dude looks in the bottle makes me want to eat it... it looks as though maybe it would taste like the best, like, magic taffy in the universe. Can we just pretend there's any amount of sense in that? Thanks. So, uh, yeah... I've always wanted a shade like this but none that I've found that were similar (mint base/golden flash) had enough oomph, you know? Another good formula, also less brushstroke-y in reality.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Sunlight

OttLite

Now we're at Nebula, one of three recently released multichrome toppers. This guy shifts between violet to blue to teal, and has gold to green shifting glitters. Pretty much bottled divinity, if you wanted to know how I really felt.
A bit on the thicker side but not in an unreasonable way, which made for an easier application as I only needed one steady coat to achieve righteousness. If this polish doesn't make your extremities tingle even a tiny bit then I don't even know if we can be friends anymore.

Shown below is one coat with topcoat over black.

Sunlight... kinda

OttLite

OttLite

Shade

Shade

OttLite

And lastly, we have Lady of the Lake, a grape-violet jelly base with bright blue shimmer. Reminds me of Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie, except with a cooler, jelly-er base. A bit less opaque than the first two, I was still able to build to opacity in three coats. Lady of the Lake is a limited edition polish (read: she's only going to make a handful so I suggest jumping all over that noise if you want it). The blue shimmer in this is effing glorious -- it almost reads as a duochrome in some lights, and it has this sparkle that is just so yes.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Shade

Sunlight

Sunlight

So, right? And she has a whole shop full of polishes like these -- here! Each goes for $6 for 10 mL and they're 3-free. She's also releasing two other limited edition polishes along with Lady of the Lake and they're also gorgeous, and that's all you get to know.

On a side note: my pinky nail snapped in half the day after I was asked to swatch these, so I kept the nail in order to glue it back on for swatch purposes, but then I lost the damned nail. So I'm wearing a false nail for the photos which is why it looks kind of bizarre compared to the rest of my nails, in case you noticed that. Poor little freak-nail. 

Well maybe I'll see you around soon, you know? I'm still buying crap-tons of polish, just not swatching them so much these days. I've been workin' from home, with two endlessly energized children and the third in my belly, making not taking naps pretty much not an option if I get the opportunity. 

Oh, by the way, he's a boy. A little boy without a name yet and he's currently kicking me just to the right of my belly button. THERE IS A SMALL HUMAN BEING LIVING INSIDE OF MY BODY. It seriously doesn't get any less freaky the second time around. Pregnancy is SO WEIRRRRDD.

I used to seriously get gaggy thinking about just having organs. A HUMAN. Anyway. Hope you're all well. I miss you. XOXOX

Colors by Llarowe - Oops! Bag

Truth Time: I am a total mystery junkie. It's like, the chance of getting something awesome completely outweighs the risk of getting something lame. I can't get enough.

I just.. I just need one more hit... of mystery.

Anyway, Colors by Llarowe (whom I have a strong affinity towards as well) had a thing called Oops! Bags which contained three mystery (squeal!) polishes that were, you know, goofs.

Goofs, she says! Behold, these so-called goofs:

1. Oopscat
This guy shifts from gold to deep violet and has linear and scattered holographic particles. Are you serious with me right now? I'm thinking this was some kind of version of Hellcat that didn't make the cut. It's insane to me that Ms. Llarowe looked at this polish and was like "no... it needs to be better".

And just in case the second picture there didn't convince you of this polish's insanity:

You're welcome.

2. Radiant Tank Tops
I know radiant orchid is the buzz color of the year and I was pretty unimpressed with it originally. I'm still not completely won over by it yet, but I also don't want to not sit with it at the lunch table anymore. This polish looks like Tank Tops and Flip Flops but with that radiant orchid vibe. Actually, the more I look at swatches of Tank Tops and Flip Flops, the less I know what I'm talking about. Eh... well... literally I could have just said "this looks like Tank Tops and Flip Flops but brighter."

3. Trueshine... Mooncolors...
This one, if you somehow couldn't tell, looks like True Colors and Moonshine ran into each other really fast and became one thing. If I had to choose (which it's not like anybody is forcing me or anything) this would be my least favorite of the three, if only because vampy colors like this look a bit vampire-esque  on my pale, spindly fingers.

The Colors by Llarowe Oops! Bags sold out in five minutes apparently at the last restock. I'd LOVE to get another one this time around but I don't know if I'll be so lucky again. Either way, this is one of the loveliest collection of mistakes I've seen.

OPI: Man of La Mancha Swatches

I can't get enough of this multichrome OPI gloriousness (spell check seriously thinks I'm illiterate for the record). I'm a total OPI fangirl and I'm not ashamed to admit it. So, about this polish: Man of La Mancha is also from the Holiday on Broadway Collection. I looked at a thousand swatches of La Boheme (a lemming for me for a while) but after swatching this and Movin' Out I don't think I even need it anymore is how righteous this polish is.

The swatches are 2 coats of Man of La Mancha over German-icure by OPI (which is freaking awesome also), topped with SV.

Overcast Sunlight

One coat made for a nice, sheer, sparkling red-orange topper to the rich shimmery burgundy of German-icure. And I know chromes over black make for the best, you know, color shifts, but I wanted to mess around with the deep red tones of La Mancha. I'll have to try it over black too, as I don't know if it made a difference or not (but I dig the contrast on the accent nails and I much prefer German-icure to straight black). I also wanted the full impact of La Mancha, so I went for the second coat. Instant nail polish obsession time.

Man of La Mancha shifts between ruby to coral to orange to yellow and even to lime green in very certain lights. Example A:

Facing away from Overcast Sunlight

Example B:

Artificial Light

This one has red/orange scatterd microglitter in it too, cuz it's not already amazing. Application was great, or whatever, and I just realized that I didn't lay down a base coat. Bummer. I'll be chipping the crap out of this in no time!

OPI: Movin' Out Swatches

So a tip from a new friend-in-nails (get it kind of?) (HEY visit her blog: lacquerheaded) lead me to purchasing two of my very first lemmings: OPI - Movin' Out and Man of La Mancha. Today I have for you a few swatches of the most excellent Movin' Out, from the 2003 Holiday on Broadway collection.

Yellow Wall, courtesy of 1994

Movin' Out is one of the rainbowest in-the-bottle polishes I've seen. It looks like liquified dreams. I'm holding it right now and in my living room light, it looks like it's got this ectoplasm-green shimmer. I tried taking a picture of it and failed, so you just get to imagine how awesome that looks.

While the spectrum of colors don't translate onto the nail entirely, there's still a huge and delightful range o' colors. I will show them to you now (I used 3 coats of Movin' Out over 2 coats of Orly - Velvet Rope with 1 coat of SV for all photos below.. kind of labor-intensive but wooooorth itttttt).

Sunlight

That looks like a nice bright mauve shimmery delight, yes? The red/orange blurry dots on the leftmost nail give the best color accuracy of the scattered microglitter in this sweetheart.

Shade

The chrome-ality is much more apparent out of direct light (like all multi-chrome polishes, I'm finding out, likely because of ... stuff. Indirect light beams and scattered sun particles and, you know, really scientific things).

Artifical light / Shade

Aaand in indirect artificial light was where I was able to pull the most color shifting from. Plum, mauve, bronze, gold, yellow, green. And that glitter! <3

<3 <3 <3

So, there it is. The scattered glitter is apparent in Man of La Mancha, too. It reminds me of camera flashes in a stadium (OR A THEATER, BROADWAY COLLECTION...). I'm super happy I was able to get a hold of this polish. While it's not suuuuuuper htf, it's still a polish I'm quite pleased with adding to my stash-a-roo.

Orly: Space Cadet Swatch & Review

Good day to you!

I know this is polish is a few years old but I just picked it up a couple weeks ago at Ulta when all of their Orly polishes were $4.99. What the hay?

Space Cadet is rad. It's been pretty dreary and chilly here the last few days so while it's not a summer color, it definitely fits the weather currently.

3 coats, cloudy sunlight

The particles flash between a pinkish mauve to a nice grass green with bronze and gold in between, and even a bit of blue and purple in the right conditions. Like I said, rad.

Blurred for your enjoyment, shade

Under a running tap (?), cloudy sunlight

I've been seeing chromatic polishes photographed under water because the light diffusion allows for a wider range of, like, colors happening. Or something. But I literally don't have a single sink in this apartment (out of 2) that I can plug up without going through some trouble and I don't know what the baby did with the tub plug. But I think the effect is there anyway, somewhat. 

That's that! I need to pack more. Mooooreeee. More always. Moving. Is. The. WORST.

Oh, um, application was pretty solid. 3 layers did it for me. Things and things.