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.

Fall Favourites

Driving home after running some errands this crisp, sunny morning, I decided to take a shortcut via a meandering country road. The last time I took this route I rounded a corner and immediately had to stand on my brakes to avoid hitting the 30 or so wild turkeys that were strutting about the hot top. What brought me to a standstill today, however, was rounding that corner and noting that somehow, without my being totally conscious of it, fall arrived. And it will be gone very soon. And then I won’t be taking that shortcut at all, because I can’t deal with black ice and wild, disobedient turkeys.

But before fall slips through my grasp like so many burnished leaves fluttering lazily to the ground, I thought I’d keep it in the here and now and feature some of my favourite seasonal polishes of this year and years past.

Starting in the upper left-hand corner of the collage, we have KB Shimmer’s Soul Deep, a midnight blue creme that’s a neat twist on the traditional black mani. A one-coater to boot, Soul Deep also makes for an excellent background to all manner of nail art.

Next we have another KB Shimmer polish, this time burnished orange holo Rust No One. Despite not being the hugest booster for orange lacquers, I think Rust No One is one of my favourite polishes, period, flashing mad, ultra flattering fuchsia rainbows and shimmer. This is another one I use as the background for a lot of nail art, although it’s a lovely, lovely pick for not-so-simple everyday wear.

Rounding out the top row we have yet another KB Shimmer polish, this time chunky glitter jelly Leaf of Faith. This polish is like fall in a bottle, all crunchy leaves and rich, cranberry jelly (indeed, I recently used Leaf of Faith in a canned cranberry sauce manicure – it makes a more than adequate substitute for canned jelly, if that’s your nail bag.)

Moving down to the second row, we have Smitten Polish’s Can You BeLeaf These Puns?, a chocolate brown micro glitter that looks like holographic coffee grounds. It can be quite difficult to find a true, dark brown holo, but Smitten knows how to do them up right (Seasonal Lattes, an espresso brown linear holo, is another favourite.)

Next we have another Smitten lacquer, this time a glittery green pick from last year’s springtime collection, Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass. I think this polish, with its hint of texture and vaguely unnatural-looking hue, is actually a perfect stand-in for the ultra vibrant, still-green leaves that cling stubbornly to the trees at this time of year. It will also more than pull its weight come Halloween.

Moving down to the bottom left, we have KB Shimmer’s Such a Vlad-Ass, a vampy, blood red creme that is the very epitome of polished perfection. I love this polish so much; would paint my walls with it if I could.

Bottom centre we have a bit of an older pick, Lilypad Lacquer’s black holographic Rainbows in Space. To be sure, Rainbows’ holo rainbows are indeed lovely, but I love this polish because of the almost textured, flannel-type look it takes on in lower lighting, morphing from a rather standard black holo to a beautifully woolen-looking, somehow cozy flannel grey. Gorgeous.

Finally, we have another micro glitter from Smitten Polish, this time Orange You Glad It’s Pun-kin Season? As a friend pointed out, this polish is PURE PUMPKIN, although I also get a hint of 1970s shag carpeting. No mind, it’s the perfect pick for this time of year, whether you’re walking among the leaves or picking out a pumpkin yourself – that way you can make sure it matches your nails!

You can buy KB Shimmer’s polishes through their website here, or through Harlow & Co. if you’re an international customer. Smitten Polish’s lacquers are available through their site here. And finally, Lilypad Lacquer’s polishes are available through their site here.

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.)

You’re Unbe-leafable

Here’s another gorgeous, seasonally splendid lacquer from Smitten Polish’s What a Punny Autumn Collection, Can You BeLeaf These Puns? Like the polish I featured yesterday, collection mate Orange You Glad It’s Pun-kin Season, BeLeaf is a rich jelly polish, this time a warm, red-tinged brown, stuffed with gently glimmering holographic glitter. Once again, I think these polishes show their best selves in the shade, where they look deep and textured – in BeLeaf’s case, that slightly textured look reminds me of coffee grounds (tell no one, but sometimes when I make coffee, I just stick my face in the bag of grounds and inhale. I love to drink the stuff, but I might almost like to smell it more; one of life’s great fragrances.)

Best of all, Can You BeLeaf These Puns? seems to be a colour dupe of another Smitten lacquer and one of my all time favourite polishes, linear holo Seasonal Lattes from last year’s fall collection. A good, super rich, chocolate brown holo is a hard thing to find, so you’ve got to jump on that java-hued goodness while you can. To that end, you can find Smitten’s beautiful polishes, including Can You BeLeaf These Puns?, here.

The Punny Punkin

This super festive polish, which looks like fall leaves, a Jack-o-Lantern and 1970s-style shag carpeting, is a Smitten Polish creation by the name of Orange You Glad It’s Pun-kin Season? I salute Smitten for the creative wordplay, this beautiful glitter polish coming from their four-piece What a Punny Autumn Collection (along with another gorgeous polish I’ll be featuring this weekend, espresso brown Can You BeLeaf These Puns?)

Readers of this blog and even casual stopper by-ers know that it’s puns aplenty here at Finger Candy, some super cheesy, while others are merely gouda (*grrrrroooooaaaaannnn*) So that quality certainly appealed to me about these polishes. But beyond that, they are absolutely lovely, with this particular formulation of Smitten’s, a mix of holographic micro glitter in a lush jelly base, being a favourite. Like a similar Smitten polish I already own and adore, turquoise Glacial Springs, Orange You Glad It’s Pun-kin Season? is a stunner under direct light, its holo glitter throwing off mad rainbows.

But in the shade is where I think these kind of polishes do their best work, taking on a deep, almost textured look where the glitter glimmers softly from the jelly depths. Poetic, right? 😉

Texture-wise, these polishes do have a bit – I’d expect nothing less from a micro glitter – so I’d recommend a layer or two of a good, glossy topcoat to smooth out the barest of rough edges and deepen up all that amazing glitter for a perfectly punny Pun-kin.

The Hospitality Pineapple

The (nearly) all-holo edition. Pineapples are the fruit of hospitality (which begs the question, what’s the weed of hospitality, or the fungus, or the root vegetable?) although this manicure was anything but hospitable to me during its creation. Some days your mojo just flips you off before up and departing, and I fear today was just such a day. Shame, too, since these were my very first attempt at pineapple nails. Two years of nail art, approximately 300 food-centric manis, a quarter of which deal with fruit, predominantly strawberries and watermelons, and yet no pineapples. Weird.

For these mostly holo nails, I used a handful of my favourite Cirque polishes, including grass green Panacea, golden Chyrsopoeia and cherry pink Powwow, accented by Smitten Polish’s dark brown Seasonal Lattes.

Don’t Get Chippy With Me

Or do; I suppose if we’re talking chocolate chips, like the ones in these delicious-looking nails, that would be all right. For this simple manicure that’s full of chocolatey goodness, I painted my index finger, pinkie and thumb (hee hee, what a funny word “pinkie” is) with three coats of Smitten Polish’s brownie-hued holographic, Seasonal Lattes. It is a stunning polish, with probably the most pronounced rainbow effect of any of my holographic lacquers. It’s also one of those ultra rare polishes that looks fantastic in both the sun, where holos always shine the brightest, and in the shade, where it takes on a deep, almost textured look.

Then on my two middle fingers, I topped two coats of a nude creme polish with two coats of Just Add Milk, a favourite glitter polish from Whimsical Ideas by Pam. I’ve talked up Just Add Milk in the past (have actually used it in about four or five manicures to date) but it bears repeating – this is one lovely, super unique polish about which I have never heard anything but raves. And you would think there would only be so many applications for such a polish, but I’ve used it more times than I’ve used other more multi-use-type lacquers, in everything from a Cookie Monster mani to nails inspired by my cat’s spotted tummy. I’d say that’s pretty varied!

So, you know, chip away at it all you’d like – that’s cool in my books. 😉