Nail Tape NOTD: Turquoise & Green Chevrons

My favorite sweater in the world is this color-blocked green and turquoise, super soft, comfy and warm thing (that pills like a maniac). I love turquoise to begin with, but the green yarn that was used to make the sweater is so pretty, it almost makes me like green.

But I still don't like green all that much. DEAL WITH IT.

So, um, this girl can't get enough nail tape chevrons in her life, right? I used Gap - Bright Pool and Layla - CE54 (which is seriously the only "true green" polish I own... I ain't playin' around with that not liking green thing) and Fingr's nail tape and anyway, chevrons.

Note: I understand that there isn't anybody in the history of the world who holds their polish bottles in such an obtuse way. Unfortunately for me, this is the only picture where my thumb was present that didn't super suck (I think my hands were made in a strange way... it's super awkward for me to get my thumb in pictures, like, ever). So, if you could just ignore the bottle, that'd be greeeeaaaat.

Flash. Why? I don't know, really.

Bright Pool does have a pretty pink shimmer to it that I completely failed to capture, which I guess works towards my, um, vision? as my sweater doesn't have a pink shimmer either.

In other news, I want my dang nails back.

Colors by Llarowe: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star Swatch & Review

Hey, Friday, hey!

I took advantage of Llarowe's most recent pre-order (which seemed to really work out nicely) and picked up Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (a Starry Starry Night dupe, if you didn't know) and a really lovely holo that I'll show you later.

TTLS is a midnight/navy jelly with tons of tiny silver glitter. It builds nicely to full coverage in three thin coats. I've used Essie Good to Go topcoat with these swatches:

Sunlight. Note: magenta reflection because of magenta camera. :/

Shade.

Shade.

TTLS definitely satisfies my lemming for SSN. Out of all the salons I've checked out in my area, only one used Essie polish, and there's no way I could afford SSN otherwise, so I'm quite happy with how wonderfully similar the two are.  

For the record, this was my first experience with CbL, and I'm impressed. I feel like Llarowe restocks are a little cray, but Leah Ann is communicative with her customers at least. I quite like the new bottles (without knowing what the old bottles were like) and I couldn't care less if they "only" hold 12ml instead of 13.3ml. I have over 300 bottles of nail polish in my possession currently, most of which I've only worn once, if at all, and that amount seems to be on the lower end of the spectrum in polish world. ANYWAY alls I'm saying is if you're going to bitch-out about 1.3ml of nail polish, then, like, you need to truly evaluate the quality of your life.

Brandy said, judgmentally.

Rimmel: Mania Swatch & Review

One step forward, two steps backwards.

So, these are my little nubbins again. It's also about to be winter here (boo hoo hoo) so the clouds are ever present and I just need a dang lighting setup, you know? Not even just for nail polishy things!

I picked up Rimmel Mania, like, I don't even know when. Lotsa years ago. In the bottle, it looks like one of those velveteen Christmas ornaments that are all satin-finish glass but have this weird depth to them. Do you have any idea what I mean?

Wis Flash!

Of course, I didn't capture what I'm talking about in the photo. But it's kind of pretty anyway, right?

This polish is kind of a super deep blue with that weird gold/yellow shimmer that makes it appear dark green on the nail, but it's like your brain knows it's not a green polish even though the shimmer blends into the base. Also in some lights you can really see the blue. It's thisclose to being a duochrome.

Cloudytimes. See the blue though?

Blurry flash.

That picture kind of shows what I'm talking about with the Christmas ornament thing. I don't have a lot of polishes that have that kind of effect.

Cloudy.

Flash.

It says on the bottle "Perfect coverage in one coat". That was almost true with this guy. It was just slightly patchy in some places because of how pigmented it is, so that it just looked blue. The formula is thick, but in a really pleasant, workable way. Of course, this color isn't sold in stores anymore so my review is soooort of irrelevant,  but I mean. I used to use my polish to paint all sorts of stuff (like pretty designs all over my caboodles, RIGHT?) so this bottle is running kind of low, which bums me out, as it's a downright awesome polish.

So... hi guys. Hi the four of you that might glance at this blog now and again. I can't promise I'm going to be updating frequently yet, but this is a start, now that my nail depression is settling down.

Nails Goed Bye-Bye, Sad Faces Forever

I just wrote the downeriest blog post ever about having nail-depression since all but 3 of my nails broke. I even filed them down a whole lotta bunches to ensure that they wouldn't break. But they all did break, except for three. Three! Thus my hiatus.

It's not even a good three! It's not even a three that I can still have somewhat reasonable looking swatches with! I'm just!

Anyway. I only have like 8 indie polishes which I feel lame about.

Um, I guess maybe I'll try to, like, do this again soon. Do this blog. Blog things.

OPI: DS Extravagance Swatch & Review

OMG the sun finally happened!! It's the middle of October and we haven't seen snow yet... maybe I'm not giving enough credit to Ohio. I talk about weather a lot, yeah?

My Pinterest shopping addiction has brought me DS Extravagance today. I love the particle action going on in these types of DSs... I don't even know what to call it. It's the same things that DS Fantasy and DS Illuminate have, which are the only two other DS polishes that I own besides DS Mystery, which is different. I am so helpful. I am so helpful blogger.

ALSO it's deep, jewel-toned raspberry/fuchsia color which looks just divine on my pale, spindly fingers and it has scattered holo, you know, things happening. And is opaque in two cats (keeping that) but isn't so pigmented that it's impossible to clean up without getting all up in yr cuticles (coughDSFantasycough).

OH I CUT ALL MY NAILS OFF DO YOU SEE THAT? I broke one (1) out of the three actually substantial nails remaining (on both hands, mind) so I was just like, f&*@ it. Now they're all kind of the same length, at least. WEEP.

Um, so, these swatches are 2 coats DS Extravagance with 1 coat OPI Sec n Dry (which I still kind of have mixed feelings on).

 

 

<3Sunlight<3

Sunlight, and like, karate hand.

Sunlight

Sunlight

Shade

So, yeah. I think this is a pretty appropriate fall color, but also feels kind of Christmas-presenty to me. It borderlines bright and deep, which I feel is a nice change from your standard "vampy" colors.

Dollish Polish: Expecto Patronum Swatch & Review

I've been an HP fangirl from day one, for realsies. There's nothing that gets me in the feels more than fantasy and magic and blah blah pushing my glasses up and living in my mom's basement and all of that. My patronus would for sure be, like, a potato. So, anyway...

Expecto Patronum is a (not too) sheer milky white base with small aqua hex glitter in varying degrees of smallness (some of which are holographic!) and magical iridescent shards. I know I rave, like, a lot on this blog, but I LOVE THIS POLISH.

Sunlight

Cloudlight

I bought this polish from a Pinterest sales board and it's slightly older, round-bottle style. Some of the glitter has settled against the side of the bottle (and I will be googling methods to correct this shortly), but the glitter payoff was still good. I didn't struggle getting an even dispersion of glitter at all. I used three coats for full opacity, but you could probably be fine with just 2. Also, I'll probably just layer this over while next time. It applied super smooth too.

This polish is definitely made of happy thoughts, man.

OPI: Peel Me a Gobi Grape Swatch

What a seriously perfect fall day in NEO. I'm pretty bummed that I have neither car nor stroller to be able to take advantage of it with the wee one. We explored the yard for a little while, but he's not so good about not running towards the street and all that. So it goes.

This'll be my first time wearing PMAGG (do people abbreviate this? It's kind of hilarious... pmagg...) since I bought it when I first started dusty hunting all those (What? Like 4?) months ago. The first bottle I had was BN but I ended up trading it and a BN bottle of China Glaze DV8 for some pretty righteous polishes. It was my first swap, as a matter of fact, and to Canada to boot! After swapping I bought the bottle the salon had on the shelf and it was still 3/4 full, so I pretty much lucked out there.

ANYWAY, here are some swatches. Of Pee-mag. In the sunlight. 2 coats. With SV.

Plum/bronze is my JAM, yo. Isn't it just delicious? And this came out in 1998 when pretty much everything was horrible.

Okay two things:
1. It took me a solid month to realize that DV8 was deviate. I kind of h8 myself.
2. The first time I went to that salon (it was the 3rd salon I had been to and the first that was willing to sell polish off the display shelves) I almost peed when I saw a big chunk of the CG OMG collection. I only bought DV8 that day. I went back like 3 days later and gathered the courage to start going through every single polish (because I was, and still pretty much am, completely ignorant when it comes to be able to spot HTF polishes) and when I picked up Peem-ahg I almost fist-pumped right there, with all the judge-y nail techs eying me. Man. I wish I didn't move an hour away from that place. There're still some polishes I want to pick up. I really need to check out the salons around here. But I get so derrrrvusssss. :(

Okay bye!