In Winter It’s a Marshmallow World

Oh my gosh, so much snow yesterday. And perfect snow, too – downy, fluffy, sparkly bits of icy lace falling straight from the heavens. Beautiful and festive, yes, but also a royal pain in the arse to navigate – on snow days, if you don’t need to be out on the roads, you really shouldn’t be. Best to leave the marshmallow world to the snowmen, like these cute little charms my husband recently gifted me from Daily Charme, here atop KB Shimmer’s snowstorm-in-a-bottle, Snow Way. At least with their cute little scarves and jaunty hats, they’re warmly attired!

Nuh-Uh, Snow Way!

I woke up this morning to weather that looked a lot like this polish, KB Shimmer’s blizzard in a bottle, Snow Way.  At first I thought it was fog. The weather’s been all over the place lately, and as I live right on the edge of a river, fog is an all-the-time possibility.  But upon closer inspection, the fog revealed itself to be softly drifting snow – the first of the year, save for a few flakes last month.  And I’m not ashamed to admit that standing there in the dark of the morning’s very earliest hours, staring down the barrel of four or even five more months of icy, slushy, snowy weather, I cried.  In my city, the winter months are a time to be endured, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve done just about enough enduring this year already, you know? Smooth sailing needs to be the order of the day from here on out – easier said than done when the water’s all iced over.

But you can always, ALWAYS, have pretty nails…assuming, of course, you haven’t lost any extremities to frostbite.  And this polish goes a long way towards the pretty, even if its icy blue base and smattering of matte white glitter is more North Pole than Hawaiian beach.  KB Shimmer released Snow Way as part of last year’s holiday collection, but you can still find this blizzardy beauty at Harlow & Co. and, of course, KB itself.

What’s Old is New Again

As part of their winter 2014 collection, indie polish maker KB Shimmer re-released a handful of crowd pleasers from last year’s holiday collection. The ghosts of nail polishes past, if you will. I held out last year, not yet fully comprehending the meaning of the term “limited edition” as it applies to the world of nail polish (also known as “Get it now, now, NOW because in two days it’ll be gone forever and you’ll regret it, and oh lord, this is so stupid, it’s nail polish, but you should get it now, now, NOW because…” Repeat ad nauseam.) But liking last year’s polishes more than this year’s, I decided to concentrate my purchasing power on the re-releases, which nicely complement one of KB’s wintery polishes from last year that I already own.

First up we have All Decked Out, a mix of rainbow hex glitter and gold star glitter in a moss green jelly base that I refer to as “Christmas tree in a blender.” That description is actually pretty apt.

Next is Snow Much Fun, a fun, frosty-looking polish from last year that never actually seemed to leave the regular rotation. This is another one I have a cute little name for, this one being “Frozen in a bottle” (all fun trademark infringement aside, with its icy blue base, tiny holographic sparkles and sweet little snowflake glitter, this polish could be the official nail lacquer of Arendelle.)

Third in line is another re-release, this one being the ultra girly Merry Pinkmas. I love its super colourful palette of glitter against the neon baby pink base. The whole thing resembles my dream Christmas tree (a pink tree covered in ornaments the colour of this glitter mix, simply enough. Although not so simply, as pink Christmas trees are a thing that just don’t seem to exist. Merry Pinkmas will have to do for now.)

Finally, we have Snow Way!, a baby blue polish sprinkled with different sizes of white hex glitter and holographic micro glitter. This one reminds me of those furious little snowstorms that spin themselves out of nothingness on otherwise crystal clear, blue-skied days.

KB Shimmer’s polishes are available through their own website, but if you’re a Canuk like me, I’ll direct you to Harlow & Co.‘s site for all your KB needs, which, based on these fun polishes, could be considerable!

Today’s Weather is Snow Fun At All

Here’s a fairly accurate representation of today’s weather around my neck of the woods, as depicted through a handful of snow-themed nail polishes. Over on my thumb we have Serum No. 5’s glow-in-the-dark Blue Blazes, which was the clear, cloudless colour of the sky when I woke up this morning. On my index and middle fingers you’ll find the tiny flurries that began to swirl around the car as I drove to the coffee shop in the form of KB Shimmer’s baby blue and white glitter polish, Snow Way! And finally we have the snowstorm that started pounding down just a few moments after I returned home on my ring and little fingers in the form of KB Shimmer’s next level snow polish, Snow Much Fun. The whole thing lasted maybe 20 minutes, and since then it has been holding steady with banks of ominous-looking clouds and near-zero temperatures. Ah, Canadian winters, you are SUCH a special delight, but you do provide some pretty great inspiration for nail art!

Ah, and as nearly always, lending that extra little touch of verisimilitude is the tiny cat fur stuck to the side of my ring finger in every. single. photo., which is of course something I didn’t notice until after I had destroyed this manicure and long past the point of no return. Just one of them days, I guess.