Look Up, Look Way Up

I missed last night’s Perseid meteor shower, thanks to the cloud cover that moved in right at peak viewing time, and on account of the fact that I went to bed at 9:00, because I’m an old and I need my rest. No excuse, I know, but cut a lady some slack – yesterday came with its own peculiar set of stressors, and sometimes the only way to deal with a day like that is to just close your eyes and hope tomorrow is better. So apologies, Perseid – I’m sure your big show was just lovely.

So in lieu of watching an actual cosmic event, I thought I’d paint my nails with a bit of stardust, or more specifically, Lac Attack’s glow-in-the-dark APWBD (Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, or Professor Dumbledore for short.) APWBD, which is stuffed with all manner of holographic half moons, squares and bars, leans towards the green on account of its glow-in-the-dark pigment, and so I paired it with Mentality Nail Polish’s Shindig, a green-adjacent turquoise from their fantastic line of jellychrome polishes. There’s a nice little hit of pink shimmer running throughout Shindig as well, which plays off nicely against the purple holo glitter. Not quite Perseids-level impressive, but pretty nonetheless!

Aquamarine

Here’s another pick from Mentality Nail Polish’s fabulous line of jellychrome polishes, opalescent beauty Shindig. In certain lights this polish can look a lot like its sister, Gala, both being of the watery-hued variety shot through with tons of gorgeous pink shimmer. But on closer inspection, Shindig is actually quite green; a true aquamarine to Gala’s Bachelor Button blue. To-may-toe, To-mah-toe (is anyone else out there watching The Last Man on Earth? Carol is like some evil dark mischief fairy, right?) they’re both fabulous.

Although it must be said that this line of polishes is really outstanding. In a product landscape littered with the same old, same old (the nail polish world is quite bandwagonesque) Mentality is not only putting out a product that’s unique and complex (these polishes are classified as matte duochrome jellies stuffed with glass shard shimmer) but also beautifully executed – these jellychromes apply like a dream in two easy coats and wear surprisingly well for a matte polish meant to be worn sans topcoat (of course, you also have the option of adding a topcoat – shiny or matte – to protect your mani and draw out all that beautiful opalescent shimmer.)

These jellychromes are available through Mentality Nail Polish, although I’ve always snagged mine from Harlow & Co., which – knock on wood – has yet to do wrong by me in any way. Nothing but good things to say about them, the least of which is that they carry Mentality’s gorgeous products in the first place!

Fairy Fire

So I just looked up exactly what Fairy Fire is, and quite contrary to my belief that it’s just a cutesy name for the sparkly chemtrails flying fairies leave in their wake (as well as the inspiration for these glittery nails, which use Candy Lacquer’s holographic Fairyland glitter topper), it’s actually a type of bioluminescence emitted by certain species of fungi found in decaying wood. Sexy! Which I think we can all agree is significantly less attractive (and inspiring) than twinkling Tink dust! Still, there must be a touch of fairy dust in the air for a creation technically named after off-gassing mushrooms to be so beautiful. 🙂

Here I layered one dabbed-on coat of Fairyland over two coats of Mentality’s Barbie pink Bash.

Sugar Skulls

Iridescent, glittery sweet sugar skulls for week three’s theme of skulls in February’s N.A.I.L. Challenge. Two more of Mentality’s gorgeous jellychromes, turquoise Shindig and hot pink Hoopla, act as the perfect background polishes, their colour-shifting glass shimmer adding beautiful shading and depth to my first-time ever sugar skull mani.

Just Straight Up Nail Porn

This might be Finger Candy, home of the candy-coated nails, but let’s not sugar coat this particular post too much – like the title says, this one’s just straight up nail porn! Here’s Bash, another colour-shifting jellychrome from Mentality Nail Polish, sister to Gala, a lacquer I featured last week to great reception. And little wonder; these polishes are DOPE.

Here I’ve shown Bash, a matte, rosy pink polish shot through with blue shimmer, in five different types of light, from sunny and direct to shaded and diffuse. Most polishes show their visual weaknesses when you attempt to photograph them in the shade (many ONLY look good whilst sparkling under the sun), but these jellychromes are quite the opposite, coming positively alive in lower lighting, the shimmer and slightly matte base provoking all sorts of cool visual effects from the same bottle of polish. Bash is thankfully no exception to this wonderful little discovery, morphing from a clear, coral pink one moment to an almost frosted-looking purple the next, with stops at traditional Barbie pink and soft rose in between. Like its sister, Gala (and maybe the other three I bought as well…) Bash applies beautifully in two coats and wears abnormally well. You actually have to work to remove it, perhaps because its gorgeous shimmer seems to be of the glass-type variety, which really bonds to nails and invariably requires extra elbow grease come removal time.

You can purchase Mentality’s beautiful products through their site here, although I’ve had great luck with Harlow & Co. here in Canada, whose shipping practices (buy on Monday, here on Wednesday) are absolutely second to none.

And now, as the Simpsons would say, on to the thing we really all came here to see: Hardcore nudity! Or, sorry, really beautiful nail polish. 😉

A Gala Affair

In a recent frenzy of post-holiday nail polish procurement, I bought a number of lovelies from new-to-me manufacturers, indie and commercial alike, including the makers of this gorgeous lacquer, Mentality Nail Polish. This is Gala, part of what Mentality calls their jellychrome line, and it’s a stunner, one of those highly covetable polishes that can look like five different beauties depending on the angle of your hand and the quality of the light. Indeed quite jelly-ish in texture and multichromatic in colour, Gala is also a matte polish, which adds a sweet little hit of visual interest to this best-in-the-shade shade whose pink glass shimmer shines through as a rich, opalescent flare. Gala has a glossy sister polish of sorts in Detonate, a similarly hued polish, although Mentality calls Detonate a holographic jellychrome. Toemay-toe, toemah-toe, they’re both absolutely gorgeous. I can easily see these polishes turning into a thing, you know, in the vein of other recent must-haves like Orly’s Mirroball and L’Oreal’s Masked Affair. It’s just a matter of discovering them. I discovered mine at Harlow & Co., if you’re likewise charmed.

Getting down to the nitty gritty, here’s the 411 on Gala: Application was a breeze. Gala is a touch thick, but not unmanageably so. These photos show two coats of Gala sans topcoat, although it’s very nearly opaque in one if you’re not too particular about visible nail lines. Colour-wise, Gala swings through the opalescent spectrum, presenting as clear turquoise and periwinkle blue in the sun, to an almost purple shimmer-tinged silver in the shade. It also wore like absolute iron, and looked pretty fantastic as the base for some frosty, glittery nail art, if I may be not so humble! A really fantastic polish, and already a favourite of 2015.