The Gardens on the Moon

 

I'm attending an office party today, and the attire is business casual but I was in the mood to be glam! Enter ORLY Lunar Eclipse topped with Lynnderella The Garden of Even. I was originally planning on wearing The Garden of Even over ORLY Bubbly Bombshell, but then I decided to pick undies that would help the fuchsia glitters pop more. I hear jewel tones are still in.
 

Shown here is 3 coats of Lunar Eclipse, 1 coat of The Garden of Even. Lunar Eclipse had a great, thin formula as usual, and a stunning cobalt-purple color shift. It was part of the Cosmic FX collection, which is actually the collection that started it all, the polishes that birthed my obsession with polish, so I am quite fond of it out of nostalgia as well as because it's completely breathtaking.

The Garden of Even did not exactly apply completely even--it's from Lady Lynn's Summer Solstice collection, and contains "intentionally bleeding glitter" as a component to tint the base a translucent, slightly neon fuchsia. Unfortunately since the base is very thick (all the better to suspend the glitter with my dear!) while I had no problems with actual application and was able to get away with brushing it on like with a normal polish as opposed to using the "dab method", the slight tint of fuchsia in the base did apply somewhat unevenly because the formula didn't level well. It's hardly noticeable over a darker base like Lunar Eclipse, but I suspect it will be more obvious over pale underwear so something to keep in mind. Overall though, I'm extremely pleased with this mani and I can't wait to get to the party!

Lynnderella nail lacquer is available for purchase through her Ebay store for $22.50.

Holographic Pokemon cards are better than regular, so I figured that applies to nail polish.

This is a mani done with Urban Outfitters Holo Pink. It's so pretty and shimmering and rainbow-y that I can't stop staring at my nails. I started a new job yesterday and even my coworkers noticed it--and when I mentioned what a hard time I'd been having finding employment, one guy said "well that's because you didn't show them your AWESOME nail paint"...hahaha.

in sunlight

in artificial light

with flash

These had a lovely, thin, easy-to-work with formula, very pigmented and packed with holographic pigments. It took only 2 coats to achieve opacity! One of the more expensive polishes in my collection, but to me it's completely worth it.

Urban Outfitters Holo Pink is $10 at your local UO :)

A Very Holo Holidays

I ordered a few things from Urban Outfitters yesterday, and right before checking out I remembered I wanted to get a few of their holographic nail polishes too. I pull up the page on their website only to see they were sold out online! Drat.

Today after my job interview I realized there was a UO right on the next block...the temptation to browse was too great (my eternal downfall) so I strolled in, and lo and behold, they had a huge display full of the holos! I picked up the pink and green "hologram" polishes. I'm still pretty happy since these are the first polishes in my collection to have such strong holo :D I might even have to go back and get the silver one too.  

 Urban Outfitters Hologram polishes are $10 each. They're sold out (for now--cross your fingers for a restock!) online, but you might still be able to find them at your local UO!

A Lavender Compromise

Today I was in the mood for a lavender, but shockingly I had none in my ballooning stash that was the precise shade I wanted...so I decided to get creative. I love layering--it's an easy way to get a lot of different, unique nail looks out of your stash, and can sometimes bring out the best in a polish that may look blah by itself.

 

This is what I came up with: my franken "Sweetsleep" layered over ORLY Pixie Dust. Pixie dust is one of my favorite ORLYs--a gorgeous dusty, shimmery blue, part of the Once Upon a Time collection. Despite its name, what it really reminds me of is Cinderella's gown in the Disney movie. It has a great formula for a pastel--3 thin coats to opacity--and I love to wear it alone, but it made a gorgeous base for Sweetsleep!

CrowsToes Hell Hath No Fury

It's another Indie day! 3 coats Sinful Colors Daddy's Girl with 1 coat CrowsToes Hell Hath No Fury. Leave it to Crowstoes to make me like bar glitter and ORANGE in one polish (for the record, I really dislike bar glitter and orange, forget ORANGE bar glitter). Hell Hath No Fury has a very nice formula for such a chunky glitter--application was super easy, although you do have to nudge the bar glitter around a bit if it protrudes over the edge of your nail, as is the nature of bar glitter. And how much do I love those giant red hex glitters?? This one will definitely be a contender for "most epic holiday mani" over a red...for now I'm enjoying it over the luscious grape-y goodness of SC Daddy's Girl. I like how the iridescent purple glitters peep out from among the red and sets this one apart from other red-themed glitter topcoats.

Disclaimer: This bottle of Hell Hath No Fury was sent to me as a gift. My undying love for it is my own!
You can purchase your own bottle of CrowsToes Hell Hath No Fury for $10 from Llarowe!

Anemone

Today I have a review/rave for CoverGirl Natureluxe Gloss Balm in Anemone. This is one of my favorite lip colors. It gives my lips a pretty rosy, pigmented red color without the laser precision that red lipstick requires--very nice for a mirror-free application! Plus, it is super glossy. The wear time is a couple hours as long as I don't eat or drink anything. I actually bought this a year ago, but I recently rediscovered it in the pocket of my winter coat, and oh how I missed it!

As a little girl I remember watching Disney's The Little Mermaid and being fixated by the scene where Ursula plucks a mollusc from a shelf and uses it as lipstick, and naturally the name "Anemone" reminded me of that. Ursula may have been one bad bitch, but the lady was FANCY.

Prismatic

This is 3 thin coats of Wet 'n Wild Speak when Spoken To. I rarely purchase every polish in a collection, but the Be Jeweled collection was one of the exceptions. I love these so much that I actually kind of want the China Glaze series (of which the WnW collection is a dupe of) too.

All of the polishes in this collection follow the same basic idea: small multicolored glitter in a shimmering duochromatic base. Speak When Spoken To happens to have a blue-magenta shift. The entire series is pretty ethereal and magical looking, so much so that I'm surprised it hasn't garnered a unicorn-bodily-fluid name, like Unicorn Sweat or something.

Casual Sunday Brunch

Really simple one today, I am really tired and grumpy from a slow-healing burn and just not in the state of mind to think about it. I went out and got some really delicious fish and chips and lemon pie, which improved my mood significantly.

Geri C New York charcoal button down sweater
Truly Madly Deeply cobalt 3/4 sleeve fitted open-back tee
Blank NYC Big Melons pale pink jeans
ALDO black leather sneakers

Jeweled Lizards

Nail of the Day is OPI Just Spotted the Lizard from the Spiderman Collection, one of the many dupes of last year's very popular Chanel Peridot.

JStL is opaque at three thin coats and has pretty decent duochrome action going on, pale gold with turquoise-green flash. Just for fun, though, I stuck it underwater to bring out the full strength of the duochrome:

BAM. Underwater you can see the strong teal shift that appears in the corners of the bottle but never makes an appearance on the nail...under normal circumstances, at least.

Just Spotted the Lizard has a very thin, pleasant formula that is easy to work with, and that coupled with the OPI Pro Wide brush (which not everyone loves, but I do) makes applying this color a cinch. Since it is a metallic, it will have a tendency to show brushstrokes, but if you have good technique it shouldn't be difficult to get a smooth application.

Winterization

So basically nearly all my clothes year-round are more or less the same clothes. I just layer everything or shed layers as needed to suit the weather. Since NYC had its first snow day yesterday, I bundled up when I ran out to mail a package this morning.

J. Jill black drawstring cardigan
E&You ivory sweater
Forever21 sheer white high-low blouse
Forever21 pale pink shorts
Sock Dreams Long Cuffable Scrunchable Socks in grey
Wet Seal combat boots
Random Grey Ebay Scarf from China
Me&City white tote

Welcome to the Dark Parade

I have another awesome indie on my fingers today: Pahlish Dark Parades, a deep indigo jelly with green glassfleck and confetti glitter.Shown here is 3 thin coats of Dark Parades by itself, plus 3 more coats of topcoat to smooth everything out.

This one is really glitter packed, so naturally the formula is very thick. It was manageable for me, but if you don't have much experience applying glitterbombs you might want to add some thinner!

The colors of the glitter are a perfect compliment for the indigo jelly. Also, may I say that adding the green glassfleck to the indigo base was a stroke of genius? It makes me think of creepy carnival.

You can purchase Dark Parades for $9 from the creator Shannon on her Etsy store, Pahlish!

Champagne Glitter

The color I'm wearing today is called Mushroom Glitter by NYX. No idea where they got the name, as it's not mushroomy to me at all, but it's a gorgeous shade so I'm willing to overlook it. Mushroom Glitter is actually a very sheer microglitter; if you're really persistent and do 5 coats like me you can get this  foil effect, but at one coat it's for all intents and purposes a microglitter topcoat. Luckily, it has good drytime and an easy-to-work-with formula, so doing  coats isn't as terrible as it might be.

The color is unique from other silver foils in that it's more of a very pale "white gold" (i.e. slightly yellow-toned) rather than straight cool-toned silver, which makes it really flattering to my warm skin. It's also one of the rare non-gritty glitters, probably because the glitter particles are so fine--I'd run out of topcoat when I did this, but even without topcoat it's pretty smooth.

Lavender Dots

This is a mani from the vault today, because I've been testing out a new topcoat and as it turns out it has the constitution of a particularly moody teenager. Zoya Caitlin, Love & Beauty Lavender, Sally Hansen White Veil nail art. I've been playing around with my dotting tools lately, it's quite fun.

A note about Zoya Caitlin: this is one of those colors that seem to have a huge variation among swatches. Scrangie describes it as a "medium grey creme with purple tones" and notes that her photo is not color-accurate, but on me it's more of a dusty lavender than a grey; in many blogger's swatches it looks grey, but looking at my mani in person, it is definitely purple and looks more or less exactly like my photo here. It's also a shade darker and purpler on the nail than it is in the bottle...who knows why? q O - O p Must be a skintones thing. Ah, so mysterious...Either way though I'm a fan! This is my second-ever Caitlin mani, and given how large my stash has grown for a polish to be used more than once within the same year is quite an achievement.

I really ought to do a manicure more prominently featuring White Veil, though, it's one of the more unique drugstore glitters I've come across. In fact Sally Hansen has a pretty good track record of hitting it out of the the park with originality (Glass Slipper, anyone?)...a little recognition please? Sally may be one of the more underrated polish brands out there.

HARE Cast in Bronze

In the aftermath of Sandy messing up the ENTIRE METRO SYSTEM (eff you Sandy, please go get a yeast infection), I decided I needed some cheering, and nothing does the job like my first-ever indie! HARE is one of the first indie polish makers to catch the nail community's attention, and she remains one of my favorites. I have a lemming for Bisbee that began practically the day of my indoctrination into polish hoarding, but I opted to pick up one of her new creations this time, the very amazing Cast in Bronze from her Fall 2012 Finder's Keepers collection.

Gorgeous. This was two coats of Cast in Bronze by itself, a beautiful lilac jelly packed with tons of shimmer and bronze colored hex and square glitters. If you look hard in real life you could probably see visible nail line, but to me the sheer, squishy jelly-ness of this is part of the charm so I opted to wear it alone.

Formula-wise, I had no problems at all. The base is thicker than most polishes to better suspend the glittery goodness, which is normal and expected and can be fixed by a few drops of thinner, but even without thinning I didn't have much trouble getting this on my nails. There was a brief moment after applying the first coat during which I feared the sheerness might also result in streakiness, since the distribution of color seemed a bit uneven, but the second coat erased all those doubts (and frankly it was probably my own fault anyway because I was using Revlon's 2-in-1 TC/BC, which is a terrible basecoat--so slippery, doesn't help with even polish distribution at all).

All in all, I had a great experience with HARE and can't wait to get more!

Dear Sandy

You don't scare me!

I have another franken today; this one is named "Sting-Me-Not".

“I made him a poultice of firepod and sting-me-not and bound it in a lambskin...There is great healing magic in fire, even your hairless men know that.” -Game of Thrones

3 coats of Sting-Me-Not by itself.

 

Closeup swatch--Sting-Me-Not is a teal jelly with multi-sized gold hex glitter, iridescent square glitter, and clear flakies.

Study in Knits

Nothing fancy, just staying home and working on sketches. It's been getting chilly and my heating hasn't come on yet, so a sweater + beanie keeps me cozy.

Indus+ry sweater
Piu by Celapiu teddy bear beanie
Blank NYC Big Melons pale pink jeans
Deena & Ozzy multi-strap wedge sandal
Random white ruffly dress from China


Will probably go get McD's later. Klassy.

FRANKEN: Crystal Ink Sweetsleep

This post features one of my own creations, named "Sweetsleep" after the sweet poison in G.R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire world.

"A pinch will bring sound and dreamless sleep, while three pinches brings death."

The above picture is 2 coats of Sweetsleep over POP Foggy.

POP Foggy by itself

3 coats of Sweetsleep by itself--a sheer lilac-tinted jelly with pink glassfleck and pink and blue glitter.

The Big Reveal

I may be the most inconsistent blogger ever, but I am pretty good about keeping my nails polished. This was a nail-of-the-yesterday, Orly Royal Navy. 3 coats, an amazing vibrant blue jelly with turquoise shimmer. The best parts of this polish likes to hide itself away indoors, where it simply looks like a shimmery navy, but once you step into the sunlight...BAM. It's electric! Believe it or not in full sunlight in real life the color is even more intense than this, bordering on indigo, practically searing your retinas with its intensity. This polish probably has a touch of neon pigment in it, seeing as it dries to a satin finish, and it definitely needs to be topcoated.

Sugar Skulls

I was supposed to meet a friend in Midtown but he bailed at the last minute because he had a train to catch...it's starting to get pretty chilly up here in the North East.

I wore my new Zara Skull Print Scarf for the first time, and I really adore it. The pattern is reminiscent of Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls. They're currently out of stock on Zara's website, but are marked as being restocked, so there's still an opportunity to pick one up.

Piu by Celapiu Teddy Bear Beanie
Zara Skull Print Scarf
Asos Navy Wool Coat
Romwe Backless Nude Dress
Sock Dreams O Chevron Black over the knee socks
Jeffrey Campbell Back Offs

Sun Faded

I'm really not a fan of flip-flop stye shoes, I feel uncomfortable wearing any sort of loose shoe out of doors--I prefer something firmly attached to my foot. Pretty much the only time I ever do is if I'm just running out to pick up something from the drugstore or a forgotten dinner ingredient.

E&You ivory Sweater
Forever21 white racerback tank top
Forever21 pale pink shorts
Deena & Ozzy Multi-Strap Wedge Sandal

Opening Fall

My outfit for an IKEA run--breezy top and comfy flats.

Everyone in the world has IKEA furniture, but I don't think popularity always signifies a bad thing despite the trendy thing right now is small companies, local farms, and indie brands. I like IKEA's simple, sleek styles and some of their designs are actually pretty clever. Until I can afford my more expensive love, MUJI, I will be sticking with IKEA.

White tiered spaghetti-strap dress
Neue grey open back T-shirt with silver stars
Gomax Days 01 black suede pointy toe flats

St. Patrick's Day2

OPI Jade is the New Black + Sinful Colors Green Ocean

I see what people were saying when they said Green Ocean's mylar flakies are chunky...a few flakes decided to wrinkle up in horrible lumps on my nail, and it took FOUR coats of GCS to smooth it out! Yikes. On the plus side my nails have achieved a glassy perfection that they rarely do thanks to all the extra topcoat.

OPI Save Me

OPI Save Me, from the Nicki Minaj collection.

I originally bought this as a "secret santa" gift, only to check my giftee's spreadsheet to see she already had it! Drat.

It's super cloudy today so I couldn't capture how super-holo the bar glitter is, so you'll have to just take my word that it is SO HOLO-Y. Very fun to watch change colors.

That being said I've had this on for two days and it just hasn't grown on me...as hard as I try to love bar glitter I think she and I just weren't meant to be. Every time I look down on my nails it looks like there's hair on them. Rainbow prismatic unicorn hair, but hair nonetheless. And something about this doesn't satisfy me somehow--it needs a base color other than clear, perhaps, or some other color glitter to give it some depth. It's too dense to layer well, and the bar glitter just looks messy to me over another color. This one's probably going on the swap list...