Nail Polish for Hanukkah

Thinking here, of course, of the Daveed Diggs’ jam he recently released on Disney+ for Hanukkah 2020, Puppy for Hanukkah (and if we did celebrate Hanukkah, like so many of our neighbours do, we’d apparently be way out of step with this year’s most desired gift, because we just got a cat! More details about him than you’d really ever require in another post shortly.) 😉

But nail polish for Hanukkah can definitely be a thing, particularly when it’s a beautiful, rich blue that makes your fingernails look like they’re glowing from within.

This is Kathleen & Co.’s Superionic, another polish I grabbed from Polish Pickup back in who-knows-when.  It was just a few months ago, but with the way time has been moving this year, it could have been February.  Or yesterday.

So pretty, right?  And plush; one of those polishes that feels like you’re applying flowing silk to your nails.  And that colour?  *chef’s kiss*  What a stunner!  Perfect for any of the eight celebratory nights.

Beat the Heat

Wow, is there ever zero heat to be beat around Eastern Ontario come this time of year. It’s currently two measly degrees above zero, on its way down to minus 6. Yesterday it snowed. Why do we live here again?! Ah yes, because Canada is wonderful. But that wonderfulness also comes with about six months of shit weather from coast to coast, and the fleeting heat rarely factors!

Know what else doesn’t factor? I thought this gorgeous, colour-changing polish, Heather’s Hues’ Beat the Heat, was a thermal polish, meaning it would change from a vibrant neon orange to a cool, deep plum depending on the temperature of my hands and fingers. Think of it as mood polish.

So when I sat down to test out Beat the Heat for the first time, I was pleased with the consistency and application – so smooth in three light coats – but disappointed in the thermal effect, as it was completely non-existent. “Drat, looks like I got a bummer,” I thought as I went outside to take pictures of my decidedly non-colour-changing manicure.

Then I stepped into the sun, and to my amazement, Beat the Heat came alive, morphing quickly from a lush, neon pumpkin, to a warm, coral-y pink, and finally on to a rich, plummy purple. So pretty! And clearly totally unexpected.

Lesson learned here? Open your eyes and definitely DO judge a book by its cover – stamped right on the bottom of the bottle was the word “Solar.” Duh. 😉

I nabbed Beat the Heat during Polish Pickup‘s September release. They typically feature at least one Heather’s Hues polish per monthly release, and they’ve got another one coming up at the beginning of November. So if you like Beat the Heat – and I certainly do; for a polish that morphs through this many colours, it’s incredibly flattering – you may want to check out one of their other offerings.

Smurf Genome

Wuh oh, now we’re into the chromosomal make-up of a Smurf, and apparently they glow in the dark! Can’t say I remember that from the Smurfs’ adventures with Gargamel and Azrael (“adventures” being the most politically correct way of saying their entire lives were devoted to not being genocidally wiped out by a bi-polar, misshapen baldy and his raggedy cat.)

But I digress!  This is Polish Molish’s Smurf Genome, another lacquer I nabbed during Polish Pickup‘s September release.  And it would seem that much like the polish I highlighted yesterday – Nailed It’s magnetic Neural Network – and then the one the day before that – Different Dimension’s likewise magnetic It’s Electrifying – Smurf Genome is what I call a gimmick polish, or something beyond the standard, be it magnetic, thermal (one of those coming in a day or two), fluid art (ditto) or glow-in-the-dark.

And boy howdy, do these Smurfs ever glow in the dark!  The glow power, if you will, in this polish is STRONG – just the kickback off your phone screen will be enough to fire up your falanges. 😉  And the polish au naturel is darn pretty too, featuring a vibrant, blue jelly base positively stuffed with red hex and iridescent shard glitter.  Beautiful, and a fun polish to add to my collection.

Neural Network

To all those about to go “Whu…?” – I salute you!  Because there’s lots to whu…? about here, as in two different blog posts on two different days, and featuring two different polishes, no less!  It’s almost like I’m a semi-functioning nail blogger again (although, barely – WordPress’s not-remotely-new block editor is an exercise in extreme frustration.  Every time I’ve walked away from a post lately, it’s because I’ve just spent the past 45 minutes sifting through online tutorials, trying to find the answer to a question that used to be easily, readily apparent.  Life’s not crappy enough, WP?!)

This pretty polish is Nailed It!’s Neural Network, another magnetic polish I grabbed during Polish Pickup‘s September release.  Like the magnetic polish I featured yesterday, Different Dimension’s It’s Electrifying, Neural Network is packed with glittery metallic flakies.  Can’t speak to the hue of snapping synapses, but I imagine this burst of jagged metallic rainbows is a pretty good mimic for a neural network’s mimicry.

This polish is so gorgeous, but the flakies, just like It’s Electrifying, obscure the intended magnetic effect.  I didn’t see much difference between Neural Network in the bottle and then magnetized on my nails.  Perhaps there was a tiny deepening of the base colour, a peacocky, bluey-purple-green, but nothing that made me stand back and go, “Yup, Nailed It.” 😉

Still, it wore like the dickens and made my nails look pretty for a week.  Who’s going to argue with themselves – or a computer trying to mimic themselves – over that?!

Creeping Darkness

Yeesh, doesn’t that sound final?  Also sounds like an affliction a Jedi might suffer from.  Emo Ren, for instance?  Now, there’s a dude who is ALWAYS suffering from a major case of Creeping Darkness.  Hot, tantrum-y weirdo.

Ahem!  Sorry, we’re not here to discuss the light and the dark side.  Rather, we’re here to discuss this fun polish that morphs from the light to the dark, and back again (hey, just like…!)  This is Colores de Carol’s Blackest Soul, a duo-thermal holographic topper that morphs from an ethereal, silvery nude, to a deep, rainbow-speckled charcoal.

Two coats over any base polish will give that colour a neat, ombre-type effect as it darkens to black towards the tips of your nails, but I like Blackest Soul as is – it lends your manicure a very cool, sooty-and-smudgy kind of look.

I nabbed Blackest Soul from Polish Pickup during their October pre-order, along with this quartet of cuticle oils from Northern Star Polish that smell like all your favourite Halloween treats (with the exception of Clown Tears; that one smells like cinnamon hearts, which is DEFINITELY a Valentine’s Day thing.)  They’re nice and nourishing, a good blend of oils to keep your hands happy and your cuticles calm.

Hidden Agenda

Not-so hidden agenda for this nail art blog?  To get back to some actual nail art!  Or, to paraphrase King of the Hill’s Hank Hill, to get back to nail art and nail art-related activities.  Groundbreaking, I know!  But first the move, during which I will surely re-break all of my nails, and then we’ll be right back here again. 🙂

So while my nails are long-ish (hahahaha!) and not breaking off every two seconds, let’s take a look at this fun thermal polish I purchased from Polish Pickup, a new-to-me vendor that stocks all sorts of cool indie beauty wares.

This is KB Shimmer’s Hidden Agenda, a duo-thermal lacquer exclusive to Polish Pickup for the month of October, and inspired, if I’m not mistaken, by Area 51.  Or more specifically, inspired by that silly Storm Area 51 non-event that never actually, you know, evented.  I thought for sure we were going to see footage of people getting tased out on the outskirts of the Nevada desert, but nope – more rational heads prevailed.  Smart.  Storming secretive military installations never works out well for anyone.  Just ask Bob of Stranger Things.  Oh, wait…

Like the other KB Shimmer thermals I own, Hidden Agenda is super responsive, morphing from a shimmery, peachy pink, to an icy metallic blue.  And just like the other thermals, this one wears like iron.  Sans topcoat, this manicure has lasted chip-free for a week, even in the midst of my packing-intensive activities.  Very impressive.

But unlike those other thermals, I don’t care for Hidden Agenda’s texture when it’s in its un-topcoated state.  Not quite textured, but also a long way from smooth, it’s a shimmery matte that applies a touch too thickly, and dries down to a slightly pebbled finish.  It actually reminds me of very, very fine gauge sandpaper.

But I suppose the true secret about Hidden Agenda is that it’s a glow-in-the-dark polish, albeit a very, very weak one.  I wasn’t able to snap any photos of it in this state, though, as the weather’s been cruddy and overcast, and its glow powers are simply not strong enough.  Shame – what else is going to light my way as I’m Naruto running through the pitch black desert? 😉

The Underdogs

Here’s a couple of polishes I forgot I even owned (renos, man – you’ll misplace every single thing you ever owned, and then spend the next three months trying to hunt it all down again) Dance Legend’s Sun Still Sleeps from their Candy Flakes collection, and Layla’s unfortunately-named CE52.  Both of these polishes are OLD – at least four years – but relatively unused (because I keep forgetting I own them) so they’re still in excellent condition.  I can’t even remember where I bought these (think I got the Layla one from Nail Polish Canada, and I know the Dance Legend one was an import, because DL is a Russian brand.)  I’m sorry, I’m becoming a really crap nail blogger in my advancing years – too many polishes that all vaguely look the same!

Like these two!  The only thing that separates these two polishes, aside from the companies that produce them, is one is blue and one is purple.  Otherwise, they’re both jelly bases (that’s what gives them that squishy sort of look, even when topped with a matte topcoat) loaded with red-to-green iridescent flakes.

That red/green combination is a popular one in the world of nail polish, because when it’s paired with darker shades, like this blue and this purple, it creates these incredible linear rainbows that run alongside the bottle, and the edges of your nails.  It’s such a pretty look.

But a MESSY look.  After taking this polish off, I remembered why I don’t use these flakie-type polishes very often – because when you do take them off, the acetone will strip off the colour immediately, leaving you with nothing but flakes, all of which will be resolutely stuck to your nails.  So get ready to put some elbow grease into it, because these polishes do not remove easily.

If you’re in love with either of these long-in-the-tooth, probably discontinued polishes, you can recreate this exact look with a blue and purple polish of your choice, topped with an iridescent flakie topper.  Just about every manufacturer has at least one of these fun, colour-changing “effects” polishes, even the drugstore brands, so there’s lots of choice out there.  Enjoy!

Regal-ize It

It has been an absolute donkey’s age since I’ve purchased a treat for myself (been lean this spring and summer as we recover from all this reno business) and even longer since that treat was nail polish.  I think the last new shades I purchased were these Polished For Days lovelies in April of 2018.

But in the aftermath of the renos, I binned a ton of cruddy, dried-out old polishes, some duds I never quite found a use for, but also a few discontinued favourites that simply couldn’t be salvaged.  The kind of glitter-intensive polishes I favour don’t hold up very well to the rigors of time and use (and BOY, have I used the heck out of those polishes!)  I was sad to see them go, but excited to re-organize my polish collection in this sweet little rolling cart my mom nabbed from IKEA.

Anyhow, it was time to call in some reinforcements on a couple of fallen comrades (been watching Stranger Things much?), so I placed an order with Kitchener company Harlow & Co. for a trio of KB Shimmer polishes, including this indigo blue stunner, Regal-ize It.

Pretty, isn’t she?  This polish is Finger Candy catnip, from the lush jelly base, to the rich violet hue, to the smattering of golden holographic glitter that glimmers within its squishy, jewel-toned depths.  Brings out in the romantic in me, too. 😉  I also just like KB Shimmer polishes.  They’re of really great quality (I tossed just one KB in The Great De-Polishing, and that’s because it was five years old and a dried-out quarter full) and they’re always trying something just a little bit different.  Which includes an update to their branding and packaging.

Regal-ize it is just lovely, and a lot more subtle than I was expecting from a golden glitter-studded purple jelly polish.  A bit of a chameleon, too, changing from a clear, indigo blue to a velvety purple depending on the lighting conditions and the time of day.  So more bang for your buck, and another winner from KB for me. 🙂  Looking forward to sharing the other two with you soon.

Fish Flakes

Chromatic flakes, actually, in the form of ILNP’s fabulously fun Ferris Wheel, adorned with a couple of golden fish bone charms.  Lots of F-word punning going on around here today. 😉

Polar Vortex

Are we still in one?  I really wouldn’t know, seeing as none of my limbs have been warm in about three weeks, and my eyeballs may have frozen over.  HOW WILL WE KNOW WHEN WE’VE EXITED THE VORTEX???  Also, do you suppose this is how Jack Torrence felt before he went all Jack Torrence?  Best keep me away from any abandoned hotels – all freezing and no heat makes Sandra something-something. 😦

They say you write what you know, and the same holds true, apparently, for nail art – all I know is cold these days, so more frozen nail art it is.  Here I painted a smattering of delicate, lacy snowflakes over OPI’s colour-shifting Northern Lights before frosting the entire thing in Enchanted Polish’s Rainbow Juice (With Pulp.)   I like this polish’s mix of holographic shimmer, glitter and tiny, jagged shards – it makes everything it touches look like its been haphazardly dusted with sparkling snow.  Pretty, and ever so fitting given the present weather conditions (see above, re: cold and miserable.)