Electric Pee!

At the beginning of the first National Lampoon’s Vacation movie, enthusiastic family man Clark Griswold takes possession of a ludicrously large and rectangular station wagon, behind the wheel of which he will safely, but definitely not stylishly, chauffeur his family from their stately home in Chicago to California, where Walley World, a Disney-type amusement park, awaits their every vacationing pleasure.

That the station wagon (model name: Wagon Queen Family Truckster) is absolutely not the vehicle he ordered in anticipation of the cross-country trip is somewhat besides the point, as when it arrives, it’s clad in a sickly green hue dubbed “Electric Pea” (and about a rec room’s worth of faux wood paneling.)  Even the coolest little sports car in the world couldn’t overcome that particular paint job.

But owing to some odd combination of poor colour resolution in taped-off-the-TV ’80s movies and my own childlike grossness, I’ve always thought of the Pea as Pee.  Because peas are super cute, and the prettiest shade of grass green.  But a gigantic wood paneled station wagon painted the flat, queasy colour of a urine sample is decidedly less cute!

Know what else doesn’t fare particularly well in shades of urine?  Nail polish!  Like this uniquely-hued lacquer, Enchanted Polish’s House of the Rising Sun.  Bearing virtually nothing in common with either the life-sustaining ball of fire OR the 1964 Animals’ tune, I’m completely confused by this polish’s name, because it is 100 PERCENT Electric Pee. For real, I’m holding a touch-up bottle of car paint for the Griswolds’ Wagon Queen Family Truckster here!

I’m still not entirely sure why I purchased House of the Rising Sun.  I’m going to chalk it up to Black Friday Blindness – you just don’t pass up an in-stock Enchanted Polish at 50 percent off, even if it’s the colour of wee. All the same, I can’t imagine using this polish for anything other than detail work in nail art, as it is SPECTACULARLY unflattering against my pale pink hide.  Those with very dark skin tones, however, would look simply stunning in this unique hue.  I can picture Lupita Nyong’o rocking the hell out of it, and probably with the matching lipstick, too.

Having said all that, it’s still an Enchanted Polish, which means it’s beautifully formulated, applies like a dream and wears like iron.  And at 50 percent off?  Well, I can’t complain too much about that. 🙂

Holiday Road

My favourite National Lampoon’s Vacation movie is Christmas Vacation, but I have fond memories of watching the Griswold family navigate their giant, wood-panelled station wagon across the California desert in the original movie on their way to vacation hotspot Walley World, which is, regrettably for the Griswolds – spoiler alert! – closed. Clark has a not-too-surprising breakdown and storms the gates of the theme park, taking a random maintenance worker hostage and pressing him into not-totally-unwilling action in getting the dormant rides up and running. The family is very nearly arrested (when are they not?), and there’s a fantastic scene somewhere in there where Clark and his son, Rusty, run in delirious slo-mo towards the gates of the park as Chariots of Fire plays in the background. In the end they all learn the value of love and family and return to Chicago with surprisingly few criminal convictions.

I always thought the cherry on the crap sundae was the colour of the Griswold family station wagon, which Clark describes as “Electric Pea” (“Electric Pee” would also be quite apt.) That’s the first thought I had upon swiping on a few coats of this new green Cirque polish, Panacea, which looks every bit like the detailing work on the Griswold family boat. For these nails, I attempted to capture some of the highlights of the Electric Peamobile, including its decorative wooden side panels and square, no nonsense profile. You’ve got the right nails now, so jump on in and hit that Holiday Road! Just remember to check the Walley World schedule before you leave.

The Redemption of Pea Green

It’s really easy: Just take the ugliest colour in your bag of polished beauty tricks – I can practically guarantee it’s the aforementioned pea green, or maybe even an orangey rust or dog poo brown – and cover it with one and a half coats of a fun neon glitter topper seemingly designed expressly to beautify such objectionable nail polish colours.  I mean, I don’t wish to pick on this guy, Essence’s L.O.L. (oh, I’m LOL-ing, all right) but he’s ever so ugly.  It’s a particularly unflattering shade against my pale, WASPy hide, although I can’t imagine a skin tone in this world it *would* flatter.  And yet, when it’s paired with a funfetti-ish glitter like this one, Polish Me Silly’s Over the Rainbow, it takes on a grassy, springy look, like Easter goodies nestled in a basket of fake plastic grass, as opposed to the paint on the outside of the Griswold family station wagon in the first Vacation movie, a unique shade that went by the name “Electric Pea” (or is it “Electric Pee”?  No matter, both apply.)  It also helps if you throw in an accent nail in a colour that doesn’t remind you of medical waste, here Nails Inc.’s perfect robin’s egg blue, Royal Botanical Gardens. See, not all is lost for the noble pea. 😉

The Christmas Sweater

In my favourite Christmas movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Ellen Griswold, family matriarch and the only thing standing between her husband Clark and certain death, wears the most amazing black cashmere sweater printed with little white snowflakes and red hearts. I loved that sweater when I was a kid and I continue to love it now; it certainly feels like something ModCloth might come through for me on!

Here I took the black and white and red theme and turned it a bit on its head, adding some wintery design details to three coats of my favourite new base, OPI’s My Vampire is Buff. I then topped the whole thing off with Essie’s Matte About You, which I regrettably applied a touch too early, resulting in a bit of smudging. Or I *meant* to do that and those are tiny pulls in the “fabric” of the “sweater”…yeah, okay, we’ll go with that. 😉