Shifty

Colour-shifty!  For these chromatic rainbow nails (if your definition of a rainbow includes mostly greens, blues and purples) I brushed on five Polish Me Silly multi-chromes, layering them lightly along their edges in a kind of vertical gradient.  The blended effect works best on my middle finger where the two polishes I used are slight tonal variations on each other, but I think this very mermaidy-looking mani is pretty cool, straight across the (modified) rainbow spectrum.

From index to pinkie (and left to right in the photo below) I used Polish Me Silly’s multi-chromatic Dreamer, Obsession and Paradise, and duo-chromes Guilty Pleasure and Holy Shift.

Obsession

Guess who might be a wee bit obsessed with Polish Me Silly’s Mega Multichrome polishes? Yup, this person! So how fortunate that the name of the third such polish I’m featuring this calendar week is Obsession, right? Because I’m feeling quite strongly about these polishes.

As in they’re fantabulous, and I want to immediately snap up all that I haven’t already purchased (which is actually not very many, sadly/not sadly for my wallet.) Obsession is a particularly lovely addition to the collection, shifting gorgeously between dark purple, jade green, turquoise, denim blue and a heathery kind of purple that I always refer to as “chemical haze.” So freakin’ beautiful.

I also don’t feel like I’ve harped on enough about the formula of these multi-chrome polishes, which is, across every single one of these lacquers, universally awesome. Like painting your nails with satin is how I recently described it, and that description stands. It’s very lush, very plush and applies like a dream about shiny rainbow things.

Huge recommendation on these polishes. Get yours at Polish Me Silly.

Jello Shot

Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots, shots, shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Ugh, actually, no, let’s skip the shots – I simply can’t handle that kind of debauchery at my advanced, dinosaur-like age. I learned that the hard way this past Christmas when I met up with some old high school friends and we partied, well, like it was high school (which is to say wantonly, and with very little regard for compatible alcohol flavours – fireball whiskey and champagne totally go together, right?)  I was hungover for about three days afterwards, and even talking about it now is making me feel slightly unwell.  The upside?  There were no jello shots involved that evening.  Had there been (particularly the jello shots I made in university, which were, for real, 50 percent hard alcohol) I probably would have wound up in the hospital.  Egads, my jello shots were pure, fruit-flavoured poison!  There but for the grace of a 19-year-old’s constitution nearly went I and all my friends unfortunate enough to have choked the things back.

So having established that I’m a pretty big wuss around alcohol now, you can see why this Jello Shot – another fabulous pick from ILNP, this time a glittery, holographic jelly – is right up my alley.  Jello Shot is the first jelly-type holo I’ve purchased from ILNP, and it’s utterly fantastic.  The formula is spectacular – a rich, glossy jelly that dries down to a smooth, squishy finish in three coats – as is the colour, a sheer, cerise pink glaze sprinkled with holographic micro flakes.  And the things Jello Shot does in the sun?  Incredible!  The term “nail porn” was made for polishes like this one.  Best of all, there are no photography tricks at play here – that bonkers rainbow holo effect is completely unfiltered, because that’s how Jello Shot looks all the time in direct sunlight. So gorgeous! Hmm, and most likely less poisonous than my actual jello shots…

Mega

Ooh, who’s a pretty girl then? This polish, definitely this polish, ILNP’s silver stunner, Mega, and the newest addition to my pile of holographic hotties.

Orly’s Mirrorball, a silver holo sprinkled with iridescent glitter, was last year’s pick for Most Valuable (Holo) Polish, though I never much cared for its sallow yellow tinge against my predominately pink hide. So I was delighted to find this ILNP beauty, a smooth and sparkly silver that leans towards a most flattering icy blue.

And the holographic effect? Second only to Color Club’s Crystal Baller in terms of rainbow-throwage – this mega polish really lives up to its Mega name!

Gaze Into My Crystal Ball

I’ve been quite bereft of creative nail art ideas lately, and so I thought I’d fall back – some might say spring forward – to some straight up rainbow holo nail porn, get this weekend party started right!  This polish, Crystal Baller from Color Club’s top of the line holographic collection, is the one I so very, very badly want to call Blue Baller.  It takes every ounce of my dirty minded willpower not to, actually.  So thank goodness this polish is just gorgeousness personified, because it sort of has a naughty name (no, it doesn’t, I’m just a big pervert!)

But just look at this polish!  What sorcery is this that puts rainbows IN A BOTTLE?  It’s too, too beautiful.  If it wouldn’t, I’m assuming, goop all up and immediately head to Funkytown, I’d just keep the bottle out on my desk, in the sun, and let it do its holo thang.

You can find Color Club’s holos – the most sought after of any of their polishes, I’d say – through a number of different international stocklists, including Nail Polish Canada.  But you’ll need to stay on top of any restocks if you’d like to snag a bottle, because these polishes fly off the shelves.  And deservedly so – they are beautifully made, and the holo effect is second to none.  So shop smart, shop early if gazing into your own crystal ball is telling you that you really need this polish!

Second Star to the Right, and Straight on ‘Til Birthday

As tomorrow is my birthday (and no, I’m not going to disclose how old I am; a lady never tells, particularly when the lady is thisclose to a major life milestone and feeling perhaps a bit freaked about it?) I thought I’d get a jump start on my birthday beauty with this manicure featuring one of my favourite lacquers, Glam Polish’s Peter Pan-inspired Straight on ‘Til Morning.

I loveity love love this polish and its similarly formula’d collection mates, Wednesday and Lydia, rich scattered holos stuffed with shimmery micro glitter.  The colour-bending glitter gives these polishes – particularly bluey-purple Straight on ‘Til Morning – a super cool, nearly sequined type of look, full of depth and visual interest.  Sublime, and the perfect manicure with which (on which?) to grow another year older, if I really must, and I suppose I must, as I haven’t figured out a way to stop the clock…yet. 😉

The Huntress

So there’s something sort of odd going on with me lately (where to start, right?)  Odd in that I’ll think of something for the first time in years, do a bit of research to re-familiarize myself with the subject and then discover that there’s actually some pretty recent news regarding that something.  The other day it was Bunnicula, a favourite book of mine when I was a kid that I had not thought of in probably 20 years.  It just suddenly popped into my head one day – I actually wondered if the book might be suitable for a friend’s daughter – but I couldn’t remember anything about it other than the broadest strokes of the story.  So I did a bit of online research, and that’s when I discovered that just this past February, The Cartoon Network began airing a Bunnicula TV show (perhaps that should not come as such a surprise, given the industry’s propensity towards “everything old is everything we’re rebooting.”)

Earlier today I ran across a similar moment of kismet (like kismet, I guess, but more backwards-er?) when I thought about this gorgeous polish, Gloss ‘N Sparkle’s The Huntress, for the first time in about a year.  It’s not that I don’t like it.  On the contrary, I think it’s beautiful, and it looks like a dark fairy’s pixie dust.  But being the only Gloss ‘N Sparkle polish in my collection, I overlook it time and time again in favour of my KBs, my Enchanteds, my Candy Lacquers.  Those are the polishes in my collection that have some serious numbers behind them.  That in turn led me to wonder if Gloss ‘N Sparkle, an Australian indie brand, was even still in business.  I figured they had been out of the game for quite some time.  So I typed in their web address and was redirected to their Facebook page, where I discovered that they had in fact just shut down the business, once again this past February.

Also, my bathroom might be haunted, but that’s ever so slightly besides the point right now.  Let’s just enjoy this pretty polish (which is not as remotely lumpy-looking in real life as it’s presenting in these photos) and marvel at the weirdness of the universe!

Great Neptune’s Beard!

If we are to go by Johnny Depp’s beloved interpretation, pirates err on the side of being more than a touch metrosexual – rascals, devils, thieves, yes, but in want of a nice manicure?  NEVER.  So I think any pirates in search of a fun new hue would yo-ho, yo-ho all over this drop dead gorgeous lacquer, Enchanted Polish’s turquoise-to-indigo duochrome, Neptune.   A watery-hued cousin of another favourite Enchanted polish, plum-to-purple duochrome Entwined, Neptune features a subtle green-to-blue colour shift that reminds me of gently rolling waves.  Its smattering of delicate holographic glitter really aids in the whole “briny deep” feel, glimmering softly in Neptune’s teal depths like phosphorescent plankton. It’s really quite spectacular.  Big, beautiful recommendation on this one.

I’m in Awe

Of how beautiful this polish is, I Love Nail Polish’s ridiculously pretty chromatic flakie, The Road to Awe. I own two other ILNP Ultra Chrome Flakies, hot pink-to-green Electric Carnival and purple-to-teal Supernova, and both of them are among my favourite polishes of 2015. The Road to Awe shares a similar formula with EC and Supernova – that is to say, a fabulous one. Chromatic flakies like these don’t stick to your nails the way iridescent shards will, and remove with the ease of a creme polish. You can get these flakie polishes opaque in three coats, too, but I find they take on an almost furry look that I don’t much care for. So I always layer them over a deep and dark creme, preferably black, just like I did here with The Road to Awe, for a sleek look that really highlights the bonkers colour-shift in these gorgeous polishes.

And what of The Road to Awe’s colour-shift? Bonkers. 😉 And so gorgeous, swinging from violet to vibrant fuchsia, then on to marigold and the barest hints of teal. It reminds me of both the sunrise and the sunset, all at the same time. An especially lovely addition to the Ultra Chrome family of flakie polishes.

What’s in a Name?

Oh, pretty much everything, you dumb bint – it’s basically why you and loverboy eat dirt at the end of the play as opposed to riding off into the Verona sunset to have lots of sex and babies.

Take this GORGEOUS holographic polish from Color Club, for instance. Somewhere between checkout and delivery I forgot that its name was Crystal Baller (baller indeed; check out that linear holo!) and I started referring to it as Blue Baller.  I was legitimately crushed when I tore open my nail mail yesterday and discovered that its name is in fact Crystal Baller and I am, as always, a bit of a pervert (that came as less of a surprise.)

It’s not even like it’s a fitting name either – Crystal Baller is a polish that will never leave you wanting more (ba-dum *ching*!)  Sorry, just had to slip that in on you there (hey-oh!)  Seriously, just give me a sec to finish you off.  THIS!  Finish THIS off.

Ahem.  As I was saying, Crystal Baller is a stupendous polish, and one that’s making me regret having already put together my “Best of 2015” photo collage, because it would absolutely be on there.  In addition to being just a lovely shade of silver shimmer-tinged periwinkle, it applies nicely, provides completely opaque coverage in two easy coats and throws off more rainbows than a box of Lucky Charms.  The holo effect is strong in this one, indeed.  Just a fantastic polish.  I got my bottle through Nail Polish Canada, although Color Club is a brand carried by a wide variety of nail polish stocklists.  The holos do tend to fly off the shelves rather quickly, however, so shop smart, shop early.  No frustrations. 😉