Sharp Edges

For this geometric mani, I used a couple of polishes that made separate appearances earlier in the week, China Glaze’s jade green Four Leaf Clover and Nails Inc.’s cobalt Baker Street. Both rich, saturated jewel tones, they were the perfect colour choice(s) for these totally free-handed nails (no striping tape, boo-yah!) that were just as fussy and time-consuming to complete as you’d think.  Not gonna hide that fact.  Although sitting around waiting for all that black outlining to dry did enable me to listen to two and a half hours of a commentary track writer/director/professional talker Kevin Smith recorded for the 1992 Tim Burton movie, Batman Returns.  It was absolutely hilarious, and peppered with all sorts of fun trivia, and made me laugh so hard, I zigged when I should have zagged and nearly had to redo my index finger.  Bit of a warning there when it comes to guffawing whilst nail art-ing.  Still, pretty funny stuff.

A Speckled Egg of a Different Sort

Yeah, you don’t see them in electric cobalt blue all that often, do you?  I certainly can’t deny that the overall look of this manicure – Ardene’s black-and-blue glitter topper, Following, over Nails Inc.’s blue creme, Baker Street – is Easter Egg ramped all the way up to 11, first with a glossy topcoat, and then dialed back a bit with the addition of a matte topcoat, Zoya’s Matte Velvet, to highlight all that nearly-hidden blue glitter (matte topcoats, as always, also destroy your manicure; I’ve yet to encounter one, no matter the brand, formulation, age, etc., that doesn’t deposit white fleckies all over your hard work. It’s a cool look, but regrettably also a destructive one.)

Where For Art Thou, Chromeo?

Yeah, I’ve been sitting on that groaner for a while in anticipation of receiving these new chrome flakie polishes from Polish Me Silly. Flakies are all the rage in the world of indie polishes at the moment, with multichrome-packed flakies being the coolest of a pretty bitchin’ bunch. These two beauties, Polish Me Silly’s Party Hearty and Stop Flaking on Me, are just two out of a whole collection of gorgeous chromatic topcoats that are beautiful and beautifully made.

First we have Party Hearty, a clear polish stuffed with tiny flakes of purple-to-blue-to-green-leaning chrome…glitter? Except it’s not quite glitter, is it? It’s more like tiny shards of colour-shifting chromatic nail polish in a clear base. Except it’s not quite shards either. This topper behaves exactly like a regular old creme polish – it goes on smooth, dries down totally smooth and shiny (these photos show both polishes without a topcoat) and removes in a flash, no struggle, no fuss, no binding your nails in aluminum foil-wrapped acetone baths. Here I’ve shown Party Hearty over Nails Inc.’s cobalt blue Baker Street. I love how the plummy undertones of the little flakies pull out the purple notes in Baker Street, giving it a grape soda sort of hue.Here’s a nice outdoors shot of Party Hearty that shows off its textureless…ness. No pitting, no curving, no issues.

And here we have Stop Flaking on Me, a pink-to-green-to-gold-leaning chromatic flakie. A simple black creme background polish is always a wise and chic choice, but I think these polishes look best over darker polishes that pull out some of the complimentary colours in the flakes. Here I layered one coat of Stop Flaking on Me over OPI’s gold-tinged dark green, Live and Let Die.

There are so many indies out there right now doing amazing things with ultra trendy flakies, but I think these colour-shifting chromatics from Polish Me Silly lead the pack – it’s hard to top a beautiful, of-the-moment look like this one, especially when it’s executed so beautifully. All-around winners. You can find Polish Me Silly’s products on their Etsy site here.

Mr. Bubble

Or, upon laughter-inducing second thought, Mr. Bubble’s can’t-be-remotely-legal, non-unionized representative. But sure, we’ll say that giant-nosed pink blob is Mr. Bubble, king of many a child (and adult’s) bubblegum-scented bath time!

For this manicure, I made good use of a couple of Nails Inc. polishes, topping a favourite bubbly pink, Picture Polish’s Electric Dream, with Nails Inc.’s cobalt Baker Street and Feathers top coat in Cornwall. With their naturally sweet overtones (baby rooms! baby clothes! baby everything!) pink and blue colour combos often come across as cloying and maybe a tad juvenile, but thanks to the ultra vivid polishes I used in this manicure and the short, geometric bars of the blue and white top coat, it’s anything but. Wonkily-branded cartoon figurehead aside, this glitter-topped gradient would make for a fun spring look with a touch more edge than the all-pastels-all-the-time manis you typically see around this time of year.