Still frosty, still frozen, only now we Canadians have a lot of American company – welcome to continuous sub-zeros, my southern friends. Ain’t she glorious? I seriously haven’t been warm in weeks. I just live in little furry boot slippers and every layer I can get my frostbitten hands on. Looking forward to enjoying some sunnier Florida temps soon.
Until then, another icy-looking mani featuring ILNP’s silver holo, Mega, under a frosted dusting of Enchanted Polish’s Freeze Machine. Brrrr…
As Queen Elsa herself might sing.
It’s been an odd week. Without getting into all the sad details, my grandmother passed away last weekend, and this week has been dominated by all of what I call the “administrative tasks” of closing the door on a life well lived. Because you’re all such nice people, I’ll thank you for your kind condolences in advance, but rest somewhat assured that her passing does not fall into the realm of a bad thing – she lived a full 92 years and suffered unduly at the end; she needed this rest, and she more than earned it.
But the upshot in my world is that all week long, I’ve been plagued by this kind of lingering malaise – like a hangover, just without the benefit of having had anything deliciously alcoholic to drink in the first place (although I did have a mango-chili margarita this week, and it was splendid.) Although, after a full week of receptions and reception preparation and visitations and trips to the family cemetery out in the middle of rural nowhere and feeling ALL the feelings all day long, I’d be surprised if I weren’t feeling more than a little twitchy.
But I haven’t painted my nails in days (no time, even though my grandmother definitely would have approved) and I wanted my first foray back into the Land of the Painted to be something super easy and eye-catchingly flashy – no sad nails around here. And so I layered two coats of Enchanted Polish’s neon orchid holo, Dope Jam, with two careful coats of Enchanted’s Freeze Machine, a glitter topper stuffed with shards, squares and hexes of blue and purple iridescent glitter. I think that Freeze Machine looks a bit like the early morning frost on a windshield, and I love the way its iridescent glitter plays off against the vibrant purple of Dope Jam, lighting up like a little polished LEDs. Definitely no sad nails here.
Ka-chow, this is more like it, Enchanted! I’m sorry we ever squabbled. Now just keep making polishes that look like this one and we’ll be five by five.
This is Enchanted Polish’s mystery pick for August 2015, a perfectly purple, grape-hued holo that is my favourite of the entire mystery buy “program” to date. I adore these kind of super flattering grapey purples; had a beloved turtleneck sweater from the Gap in university, actually, that fit like a dream and was this exact shade of grape milkshake. But aside from the nostalgia factor, August 2015 is just a straight up gorgeous polish, with one of the most pronounced holo effects of any of my lacquers. And like all of the mystery buys thus far, August is sprinkled with a sweet little hit of shimmer – this time blue – that makes it look almost textured in indirect light. Application, as always, was a breeze, as Enchanted’s formulations are never anything but rock solid. All in all, a MOST fine way to end the summer.
And in case you were curious as to how August 2015 looks topped with one coat of Enchanted’s iridescent glitter topper, Freeze Machine, the answer is great. It looks great. 🙂
Well, if that doesn’t bring in the readers, nothing will. 😉
But actually, looks like it’s time for another serving of jelly sandwich manis with these nails that combine Nfu Oh’s unimaginatively named JS12 (a puzzlingly boring move for a company that packages their nail polish in bottles that look like BEWBS) with Enchanted Polish’s Freeze Machine (super mega ’90s crap movie brownie points if you just read that and intoned, in deadpan Schwarzenegger-ese, “Ice to meet you.”) Freeze Machine is a beast of a glitter – there’s iridescent glass shards and holographic glimmer aplenty – and stunningly gorgeous in a frozen mermaid kind of way, but it has the not-really-a-problem tendency to look a bit samey, no matter the base polish it’s paired with. The solution to that was to layer it between coats of JS12, an orchid-hued polish from Nfu Oh’s fantastic line of jellies, which resulted in this speckled Easter egg-type mani. Pretty, and a great way to stretch the utility of both polishes.
But back to the bewbs for a second (but come now, did we ever actually leave?) 😉 Nfu Oh’s bottles are a thing of beauty, curved, embellished glass bottles with surprisingly easy to handle tops designed to look like an intricate corset and bustle. They’re drop dead gorgeous and so unique, in large part because they’re topped with, well, breasts. See?
Or underboob. I guess that’s a thing now. In any event, it turns out I like some curves on my nail polish! Best of all, the stuff inside the bottles is second to none – the best jellies I’ve ever used. Fully opaque in three coats, they dry down to a squishy-looking, super high shine finish that’s colour true and diamond hard. Nfu Oh’s polishes are available through a number of international stocklists, although I get mine from Nail Polish Canada.
Okay, okay, no need to shout; I can hear you! And I am SO ahead of you, because it has been freaking freezing around here lately. And the bone-chilling, eyelash-freezing, eyeball-singeing, it-hurts-to-breathe-outdoors variety, too. Winter’s unforgiving chill, if we’re being poetic, and one that’s had my city in a sort of stranglehold for about three straight weeks now. We had a bit of a reprieve last week when the temperatures moved into the low double minus digits (it’s a stupid day indeed when you wake up, look at the temperature and think, “Huh, -13. Not bad, not bad”) but on the whole it’s been bitter and unforgiving. But it’s my own dumb fault, because I’m the moron who chooses to live in these conditions for five to seven months out of the year when I could be toasty warm on a beach in Florida (no, actually, I couldn’t – humidity makes me wilt like a pansy and I’m also not that fond of extreme heat. Basically, I should be living in an environment-controlled terrarium with a bunch of tiny, ceramic gnomes.)
This manicure, a gorgeous combination of Mentality Nail Polish’s opalescent matte duochrome, Gala, and Enchanted Polish’s iridescent glitter, Freeze Machine, is a pretty accurate representation of the weather around these parts as of late – crisp and icy, sparkly and sharp, beautiful and ooh, brrr, cold. Lovely!
Finger Candy 