On the Hunt

Hop to it, friends, those chocolate eggs aren’t going to find themselves!  Wishing you all a nice end to your Easter weekends.  Mine is closing out with a big dinner at my mom and dad’s.  My mom’s an excellent cook, with a particular emphasis on blow-out holiday meals, so this should be fun!  Watch this space later for any updates I can manage on my turkey and roast potatoes and GRAVY coma. 😉

But talk of chocolate and holiday feasts aside, if you’re trying to hunt up this festive nail look for yourself, I regret to inform you that this is one of those deeply aggravating posts where I used two polishes (heck, potentially two brands) no longer in existence, Candy Lacquer’s Ring Pops glitter topper over Smitten Polish’s Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass (then whose Easter grass is it precisely?)  I believe Smitten operates under the name Dreamland these days and I’m really not sure of Candy Lacquer’s status.  But both of these polishes, despite being years old, are still trucking along just fine, and so I put them to good use in this very Springy manicure that looks like a macro shot of the inside of an Easter basket filled with sweet treats.

Fruity Fingers

These nails, which rely heavily on those little Fimo pieces that never, ever want to lay flat on your nails, turned out much better than anticipated.  Although the little Fimo fruits would not, could not, lay flat on my nails, and this manicure is impractical plus-plus.  So pretty much business as usual for 3D nail art embellishments. But cute?  So cute!

In combination, the two glittery polishes I used here, Smitten Polish’s green Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass and turquoise Glacial Springs, remind me of an icy tropical drink. And because no good, blue curacao-soaked frozen cocktail is complete with at least a bit of garnish, I added some of that, too.  Drink up – there’s lots of good-for-you fruit in there!

Bunny Leavings

Ugh, not those kind of leavings, gutterface, although I suppose I should have clarified – here I’m talking about Easter Bunny leavings.  Totally different thing!  Doing a manicure inspired by one is adorable and festive.  The other suggests some latent scatological leanings that I may need to address.  Still, although I’ll paint all manner of subject on my nails (the Guacamonut still ranks up there as a random favourite), I can guarantee you that shit will absolutely never be one of those things.  Sorry if you were hoping for this blog to take a deeply dirty turn at some point.

Okay, back to this end-of-the-day Easter manicure.  Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass from Smitten Polish (now Dreamland Lacquer) is the star of this show, acting as a very artificial-looking base for a smattering of pastel-hued, eggy dots.  I love this polish in the sun, its gold glitter twinkling prettily with every shift of my hands, but Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass does its very best work in the shade, taking on a look not unlike a Pointillist painting.  Or, going to the other end of the cultural spectrum, Floam.  I love it, I love it, I love it, AND it just happens to look great alongside some sweet and simple nail art.  The Bunny would approve – a more than fitting spot to park his bounty. 🙂

It’s Beginning to Look…

…not one iota like Christmas, because around my neck of the global woods at least, the snow has held off…thus far (so many ominous ellipses in this post!)  I, of course, have now damned my city to an immediate ice storm (which is no joke; the last one we had, in 1996, knocked out half the city’s power for a week.  It was actually sort of frightening.)

But snow or no snow (honestly, the snow can remain a no-go; I ain’t afraid of no green Christmas) it would seem the holiday season is now well and truly upon us, and as always, I need a matching manicure.  Here I layered what I think is my favourite polish, period, Candy Lacquer’s Candy Cane Fiesta, over what’s actually an Easter polish, Smitten Polish’s Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass, for a fun and festive look that saw me through two-thirds of the decoration of my tree, before I ran out of lights.  And patience.  And bourbon.

I’d also like to apologize for the crappy and chappy state of my mitts.  I am most allergic to my dusty, 12-year-old tree; I combat the itch only through repeated hand-washings.  Really, I think I went through about half a bottle of hand soap today alone.

I’ve Been Slimed!

This polish is so Slimer in a bottle, right?! Or Flubber with sparkle. Or Astroturf. Or Floam. It’s really quite diverse! Okay, so actually, this polish is another amazing pick from Smitten Polish, this time a throwback to one of their spring collections, Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass. What with being so fresh and vibrant and, well, artificial looking, you might mistake Easter Grass for one of those polishes that only works well in the spring. But I think there’s use for this stunner year-round, from winter holiday-themed nail art (the Grinch, an especially plastic-looking tree, Elf) to the current season’s fall and Halloween-themed designs (still-green leaves, aliens, zombies and Ghostbusters.) And Ghostbusters is clearly what I had on my mind when I titled this post, specifically grody old Slimer’s ectoplasm-covered pudge (for real, my favourite part of that movie are the odd little grunting noises he makes as he circles the hotel chandelier. They’re kind of adorable. Also when Dan Aykroyd suddenly commands everyone to come to a stop and listen, and then asks them, “Do you smell something?” And everything Rick Moranis, because my heart aches for the earnest nerd in glasses who worries about the temperature of his brie.)