Lemming Monster

NOTD: Sugar Cookie

2011-09-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Um, did you miss me?

I don't think I can even begin to apologize for how long I've been away from this blog (I do love you Blog, I really do), but hopefully this awesome image of what I've been wearing while I've been away will help.

No, not the entire time I was away. I'm not completely lost yet!

This is a single coat of Milani Gems--the old-news Happy Birthday (Deborah Lippmann) wannabe, underneath Essie Marshmallow. Like others I've tried out the layering glitter underneath sheer polish thing with great success--Milani Gems is lovely, but frankly a little bit intimidating for somebody like me. The way I wore it looked like sugar cookies, and I got a ton of compliments, too. Not bad for a nail style.

While I get back into the groove of things, I'm gonna have to ask for your patience--I'm having trouble figuring out where I left off, what swatches are relevant, etc. etc.

Do you guys mind seeing the oldies?

MAC, Blue India

2010-12-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Hmm. I'm a little late on the uptake here, right? All things considering--Mac's Blue India having come out about nine months ago or such. Oops!

I won this polish from a giveaway that Wan from I Love Nail Polish (Hi Wan! Thanks for the polish! I miss your blog posts!) held a while ago. I received the package, oohed and aahed over its contents, and then it just sat in my stash, collecting dust.

See, I'm actually a seasonal polish wearer (I've been wearing exclusively red/green/glittery stuff lately, due to the christmas season--and once that passes I'll probably throw myself into the pale blues and greys that always remind me of the winter) and dusty colors feel most appropriate to me in the fall. And then Blue India is, well, blue--and I wear most of my blues in the winter. So really, this is actually the most perfect time for me to debut this polish. Yes?

No?

Well, in any case, it's lovely: two smooth, easy to apply coats (bravo, MAC! It's about time) of a perfect blue-grey that makes me think of stormy skies along the coastline. It's a melancholy shade that goes well with all the blues, greys, and blacks in my wardrobe, but would probably provide a counterpoint to pale pinks and creme shades in the spring. The pictures are after a day of wear--as you can see, it's still very intact.

(Urgh, cuticles. Macro, why are you so unforgiving on my hands?)

I like the way the color shifts from being more blue or more grey depending on its lighting. The above picture is far more blue than the one before that. Oh Blue India, you are so temperamental. :)

OPI, Let Me Entertain You

2010-12-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

When I first put on this polish it reminded me quite viscerally of the polishes I used to wear four years ago: mostly bright, metallic, almost-offensive hot pinks/fucshias/magentas that were not creme in any way, shape, or form. Let Me Entertain You could've nestled quite well with that old collection (I used it up). I'm not sure how I feel about that.

On the other hand, Let Me Entertain You is most certainly a winner of a polish: it's a bright, saturated, not-quite-pink-or-red polish in that glassflake-shimmer finish that's been so popular lately. (I'm beginning to think that this finish is the perfect alternative for people who love the way glitter looks but hates the way it removes. These aren't hard to remove at all with a good square of felt and your favorite nail polish remover.) I used two coats here and, although it's quite bright and true to the bottle, you can see a bit of VNL. If I wasn't so lazy I'd do a third coat.

I'm really loving that hot pink flash you see on the nail.

I have to admit: I think that Let Me Entertain You is the winner of the OPI Burlesque collection. I was feeling kind of 'meh' about the multicolored glitter--I like mine a little more fine and a little less multicolored--and I thought Tease-y Does It was really close to Ulta's For Bitten. I own The Show Must Go On and despite the amount of compliments I get on the color I can't quite get into it. But this one is showy, nostalgic, sassy, and I relish in the nostalgia and the brightness of my hands. :) It's a lovely color.

For anyone who's curious--it's also a dupe of Zoya Alegra. I'm fascinated to see how it'll compare to Hard Candy Fabuluxe, but I can't illustrate the comparison myself since I don't have the Hard Candy. Obviously the finish'll be different, but still...

Hmm, lots of dupes going on this year, dontchathink?

BB Couture, Vampy Varnish (take 2)

2010-12-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite polishes ever (it made the top 20 twice), but I've never ever ever been able to capture a good picture of this one. It is a black jelly with BBC's famous micro gold/green glitter, and it looks like the universe.

What you see here are three coats to get rid of any less pigmented spots on the nails. The polish is a little thicker than average and you may want to thin it for better control--I just work with it. Despite the glitter it's smooth as glass with one good coat of topcoat. I'm currently using Essie's Good to Go!.

Some bright bottle love (oh, look, there's a crack! Oh no! I'm sorry, Vampy Varnish. D:)

And here's how I've been wearing this polish lately...

China Glaze, Dynasty

2010-12-12T13:30:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite holiday polishes thus far. I love the warm, tomato-red jelly, the flashes of different-sized holographic glitter. It is sparkly and wears ridiculously well. Three coats.

Sometimes glitter like this reminds me of the flurry of snow. :)

And blurry to show a little bit of its holographic spark..

I know I haven't been posting as much as before, but work just keeps piling! Please stay tuned, you guys: I've a giveaway coming up!

Franken, Vincent

2010-12-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

This is my second attempt at creating a starry night franken. It is by far my favorite.

I used a mostly empty bottle of Color Club Sex Symbol (all the glitter dried up on the edges), Borghese's Mezzanotte Blue (about half a bottle or more, I don't remember), and clear, regular topcoat for the rest of it.

(Excuse my cuticles!)

The color is vivid and flattering on my skin, the polish goes on smooth but a little thick in two coats. It wore on me for ages.

I also like how the glitter is of different sizes and looks pale blue because of the way the jelly glitter covers it. I also like how some glitters float to the top and remains silver, giving it depth. I just really like this polish. It was easy to make and wonderful to wear, and really, what else are we looking for in a franken other than that?

Nars, Zulu

2010-11-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

Ah, Nars Zulu. My first giant lemming. Started by perusing innocently through a bunch of blogs before finding my blackened-green jelly love that also happened to be ridiculously expensive and impossible to find without forking an untold amount of money on eBay.

I blame my addiction to true, deep greens entirely on Nars Zulu. I even blame my need for jellies as dark and moody in color on Nars Zulu. I used to want to attempt frankens, I considered buying Anna Sui's 915 (just as hard to find and elusive). I didn't believe all the hushed and frantic rumors that Zulu would be re-released. Why would such a thing come so easily? Who, besides np collectors like myself, would desire such a thing? It was a hopeless cause.

Except that Nars did re-release Zulu. And imagine my surprise when a little box filled with deep green jelly goodness showed up on my doorstep!

Zulu is two coats, with perfect application--like all jellies of its kind, it initially applies streakily and eases and levels with the second coat. It is lovely--deep near black in indoors light and shade, a true emerald in sunlight.

Oh, Zulu. We are meant to be.

OPI, We'll Always Have Paris: Take 2

2010-11-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

I don't get it. Last year, when I swatched this for the first time (don't look, people; the swatch is horrendous), the color looked... well, plum. Now it looks brown. So brown, in fact, that I'm beginning to wonder if I should do a comparison between this polish and RBL Au Chocolat--they've both got that red-brown chocolate-syrup color thing going on.

Anyway, two coats. Perfect.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone!

Orly, It's Not Rocket Science

2010-11-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Um, I really love this.

I think it might be safe to say that I thought Orly's Cosmic FX collection was awesome to begin with, but I own three of the colors and I love every single one of them to pieces. Look at this one.

On a lot of people, I know that It's Not Rocket Science read as a really, really glittery puke/slime/snot green. On me, it's very grassy. It reminds me of leaves, due to its texture and depth (see how it seems darker beyond the shimmer plates? See how when the light hits it, only the center turns a bright lime green? A deep, olive green color in shade?

Yeah.

Frankly I'm curious to see how this polish will hold up against Orly's blue-tinged green version, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe (I haven't swatched it yet), but I imagine that the colors would have a lot in common.

This is two coats (thickish: I've discovered that thick is the best way to get all the shimmer particles where you want 'em) and I had no problems with this. FYI (although most of you know this already), ChG's Zombie Zest is a dupe of this color. So is SpaRitual's Optical Illusion.

Franken, Strawberry Sorbet

2010-11-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

I created this franken in the attempt to create something soft, squishy, sheer pink, and glittery--probably after all of the lemming I did for ChG Carnival Lights. (I own Carnival Lights now. Is it dupey? No. Is it even similar? Not to my eye. Are they related? Yes.)

I don't even remember what goes into this--a little bit of Essie Jelly Apple, a lot of Wet n Wild's Kaleidoscope, and the remnant of that dodo pink japanese color that was my first Lemming Monster post.

Ignore the stainage.

This is three coats and relatively easy to make, and cute: I wore it to work for a couple of days and nobody even batted an eye (not that they ever do. More on that later). The pink masks the horrible yellow color that my nails have become and allows for a simple, clean look with a kick--for me, this means that this franken is a perfect palate-cleanser when I'm feeling oversaturated with polish.

So, the thing about work-appropriate polish: I work full-time now and I wear whatever dang nail polish I like. Nobody has said a thing. I got tons of compliments on Space Cadet. Take heart, ladies! Work-appropriate does not mean the same thing in every office.

Franken, Silk and Velvet

2010-11-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

Silk and Velvet is a franken of circumstance, and is the last franken I've ever made without measuring out and thinking about how much of each color in proportion to the bottle. The last. From this point on my frankens became more intuitive--and oddly enough, a lot prettier. Except now that they're prettier I can't give you recipes other than what I know went into it. Sigh.

Anyway. I made Silk and Velvet with, oh, my mom's old colors that reeked of the early 2000s. Frosty metallic red. Warm pink with gold frost.

Not interested. So I frankened with them! Here's the recipe:

SILK AND VELVET:
-1/4 Sinful Colors Fire Red
-1/16 Nfu-Oh 119
-1/4 Sinful Colors Sharon's Heart
-3 drops Sally Hansen Invisible
-Shake Well

I'm not entirely sure if it's the creme blue or the clear polish that I threw into this, but it's not frosty at all--this is a deep, wine shimmer with a slight silver sheen--gold particles are interspersed throughout. Not enough to tell on the nail, obviously, but it's prominent in the bottle and you can occasionally catch snatches of the gold in light.

I like its texture, of which I actually do not own much of: its sheen is satiny, its look is somewhat luxurious. I might wear this again during holiday season, although it looks autumnal as well.

Oh--the application was somewhat goopy and it smells like franken (it stinks) but it settles well and wore well. I think that application issues might arise more from the bottle than the polish, actually--I've used it for frankening about 3 times and I think all that acetone has made it somewhat difficult to work with.

Wet n Wild Craze, Rustic

2010-11-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

Y'know, since autumn started I've worn this polish three times. Three. As a blogger and a nail polish collector I'm sure you can imagine that this sort of thing doesn't happen very often, wearing the same polish multiple times in a season and all (except that one time during Lent when I had to choose four polishes and wear just those for the entire duration. Blargh.), but yes. I wore Rustic three times.

There are a couple reasons for this: firstly, Rustic is gorgeous. It's a beautiful glowy metallic dark brown/bronze/copper color. See the way the light hits it at the bottom? It darkens the edges, and I can totally understand now why people love these "glow from within" polishes.

Secondly, the application is excellent. The brush is short and is somewhat difficult to work with, but it's not the fault of the polish as much as it is the bottle. Two coats. It dries quickly and you're ready to go.

Lastly (and on a more nostalgic basis), I wear bronze a lot in general because it was the first nail polish color I ever owned that was out of the pink/red/black range. I remember being very nervous about it (despite friends rolling their eyes and telling me that it was gorgeous) and kept thinking it was too close to my skin tone, it looked unnatural, etc.

Then I discovered that very shiny bronzey colors look great with navy. It all goes down from there.

I pull on this polish whenever I feel the need to remember where all of this madness came from. (Also, to match it with navy.) Does anybody else have a color that they blame their nail polish collection on?

NOTD: Seashell Shards

2010-11-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so... this isn't the best picture ever. Every nightmare I can think of for horrific nail pictures are in here. Stark lighting. Bubbles. Crazy lumpy topcoat. Shrinkage.

But this is because I made a mistake, and the mistake occurred because I have no patience. Here's the story:

I received a packet of pink-to-lavender crushed seashells from Viva La Nails in the mail and was trying to figure out how to utilize them in every day nail art when I thought, "hey, I can just use them like abstract rhinestones. Also, wouldn't it be cool if I could use them like, oh, I don't know, broken up mosaic pieces?"

This is the result. The problem is that if you have four coats of a pale pink streaky nightmare polish and nail art, you don't actually want to put quick-dry topcoat on it. Ever. Or that nightmare you see above occurs.

I've actually tried this on the opposite hand (I didn't take a picture because I am also horrible with non quick-dry polish and dinged my nails), and I can verify the above paragraph is truth.

On the whole, though, the image from far off isn't so bad:

(See, this is the opposite, dingy hand. Other than the dings, the manicure was a success here!)

I like how it looks like broken glass pieces. This is basically four coats of Nubar seashell, and then I pressed on the seashells at random with my opposite hand. Because the shells are rough in texture they just sort of stick to your skin; I just press it onto the nail from there. Use a light touch and do not use quick-dry topcoat. The end result is very cool.

See? The picture below is my favorite:

(ignore the bubbles. I really should've tried the look on black.)

It's odd, like a 3-d gradient/mosaic/flower petals. :) I like it.

(the polish is mine, but the shells were sent to me for review.)

Ulta, For Bitten

2010-10-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I've got one last Halloween-inspired manicure for y'all today, and that is Ulta's For Bitten. This shade was launched in a mini collection last year and inspired a huuge collecting frenzy, so imagine my surprise when I walked into Ulta and found a full-size bottle of this beauty!

I had my trepidations about this one, to be honest. The polish has this wonderful duochrome shimmer in its bottle--green to gold to a deep warm purple--that my instinct told me wouldn't transfer at all on the nail.

Wrong. Gloriously wrong. Observe:

(Gah, I know it's blurry.)

Here is the polish giving off a deep purple glimmer. It occasionally flares red at an angle like this when facing the light.

Here, you can see its transition to gold.

This is really, really pretty and really, really effortless. Two coats, no complaints on application. It dries quickly and lasts for quite a while--I think I wore this for three days. The shimmer seems subtle from the pictures that I'm showing you, but I've also received an unbelievable amount of compliments on this--no regular black creme to the human eye, this one. It glares colors.

And look at that bottle!

This is my favorite black creme with colored shimmer to date. I like this a tad bit better than I like voodoo, but they evoke different moods.

I'm still feeling the kick for these irregular shimmer particles that Orly FX and Zoya Sparkles ran away with. I know other people are getting really tired of them, but man! Look at what these babies can do! They give you glitter-like sparkle, foil-like texture, and are very easy to remove. More please, and in more colors than, say, Space Cadet, which has two dupes out already. (I love Space Cadet, but seriously?) Or Zombie Zest/It's Not Rocket Science. Or Mr. Wrong/Purple Gala. Or Galaxy Girl/Formidable!.

Still, in the meantime, I'm gonna be overdosing on cremes in November since I'm a little oversaturated on the other finishes this month. Besides, sparkle season (Christmas!!! New Year's!!!) is coming up and I need to be ready for that, too. Who's with me?

Also, who'd appreciate a little RBL spam the night before the madness happens?

Funky Fingers, Voodoo

2010-10-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm workin' through the Halloween-inspired swatches. Can you tell?

Anyway, Funky Fingers' Voodoo is a black creme with little irregular flakes of gold/olive green. This is two coats. No application problems except for slight cuticle drag on the second coat--be careful not to push the polish around.

In real life this polish looks almost.... wooden. Or like stones. The gold sparkle shows up like texture in the creme. One would think that it'd look like stars or something--but organic is definitely the idea that comes to mind. The next picture might showcase that pretty well:

I wouldn't even say that it looks true black from far off. The gold warms the color to a deep muddy brown, brings it highlights, flares and flashes in sunlight. I liked it a lot. Moody, brooding, dark, earthy... Voodoo is practical magic at its best.

Hard Candy, Mischief

2010-10-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Missed me? I missed you!

And so we're going to start off with a wonderful Halloween-y bang with Hard Candy Mischief, a limited edition HC color that's available right now.

It's... well, it's lovely. I know that my pictures make it look like a bumpy, gritty mess, but it truly is. Observe:

There's a way that this polish looks like autumn leaves in rain water that I can't help but enjoy. I think--and I have a lot of these--but this is one of my more autumnal polishes, let alone a polish very appropriate for Halloween.

Mischief is an orange glitter held in--um--slime green jelly. No joke. In the bottle it looks kind of gross. On the nail, though, the green builds easily and adds a bit of contrast and depth to the nail. You almost think it looks black, but it isn't. You'd almost hope it's brown... but it isn't.

From far off it looks like very speckled burnt orange polish... like a glitter painted over black. It lends quite a bit of texture to the look.

(Do you see how it just flares and glows when the camera's not focused on it? Mmm. Like magic.)

I wish I had some good pictures of this look in the sun, but it's very foggy and cloudy where I am right now. This is the best I could do, and at the least it's true to life.

So yes! That is Hard Candy Mischief, complete in three coats (with slight cuticle drag on the second). Loverly polish. I will probably be wearing her again this week.

I'll also be keeping this week as Halloween-themed as possible (without freaking out my new coworkers, I hope)! Stay tuned!

Eeeep

2010-10-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, guys!

Sorry I've been MIA for a while now, and I'm even more sorry that things keep happening this way. This is because this is a tumultuous time for me: I've been employed since last Monday and had to travel down to another city in order to make it to work. Not a lot of free time right now, or even free time during daylight hours where I could swatch or something!

I'm not sure how long this absence will last--hopefully, it'll go over very soon and I'll find a place to stay and things will smooth over very quickly--but for now, we'll see! Thanks for being so patient with me!

Orly, Galaxy Girl

2010-10-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

Okay.

I do say this quite often, but this time it is imperative: click on the images to see the polish better. My pictures are generally very large. That will help.

I can't decide whether or not I like Galaxy Girl or Space Cadet better. They're so different, and both so awesome! Space Cadet reminds me of the shift of color in autumn leaves and the amount of colors that it shifts into is... just great. Galaxy Girl goes on the color of dried blood and then picks up this teal to magenta shimmer that's so strange and moody and complex. I mean, look below:

(Bottle pictures here show a lot of the color shift as well.) You know what, I'm just going to stop talking. Here. It's pretty. It's two coats for opacity. I adore this. Get it when you can. It's worth it. CVS is cheaper than e-tailers. It's also worth the quest.

Oh, has anybody missed my distance shots? Here:

Orly, Space Cadet

2010-10-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Orly's fall collection--that is, the Cosmix Fx--was a giant hit on the nail board even before the swatches came out. It sounded so promising, so complex, that we just couldn't wait for them to come out. Now that they are pretty much out for the general public... they've lived up (mostly) to their hype. These are gorgeous, and Space Cadet is my clear winner.

Space Cadet is a polish whose finish is very similar to, say, Hard Candy's Mr. Wrong: a colored sheer finish with a ridiculous amount of irregularly-shaped flakes/glitter pieces. The difference is that Space Cadet has a teal base and is filled with glitter that flashes alternately green, gold, rose, deep violet, etc.--depending on the light. I've tried to take pictures that showcase this, but pictures do it no justice. This polish is gorgeous.

This is three coats of Space Cadet--I believe that layering this polish over another color will preserve it a little, although I can't say for certain. (Check out that bit of blue peeking through the polish color. Gah.)

So I took a video:

Wow. The quality is a little bad, but it is my camera video, so... I hope you can forgive me for that! > <

China Glaze, Stroll

2010-10-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

My pictures have changed in quality, haven't they? I've taken to taking pictures in a very well-lit indoor room because I feel as though the color takes center stage and is also more color-accurate than when I take them in washed-out outdoor pictures. :D What do you guys think?

Anyway, this is China Glaze Stroll--a polish that I found in a dusty pile at one of my favorite nail supply stores in my college town. This is also one of those colors that I've worn for a while now--it showed up in my review for LA Colors' Addict--but I've never swatched and reviewed on its own.

Stroll is a deep, warm red jelly with interspersed irregular gold glitter. It takes three coats for full opacity and is a wonderful, glowy autumnal color. The polish dries to a smooth finish despite the glitter and is also relatively easy to remove in comparison to most glitter standards.

But see, here's the thing: I like this color, and I think it's deep and sexy, but I can't help but be disappointed with the glitter thing. When a polish is described with gold glitter, I want to see gold. I don't in Stroll--not on the nail or in the bottle. Once I start removing the polish I can see its coloring but mostly the glitter sinks too much, giving the polish a textured, slightly pinky color that catches and glows in the light. But compare that to LA Girls' Addict, whose coloring is admittedly a lot less pigmented but when close up looks like standing under a tree with red and gold leaves. I prefer Addict by far...

But I've worn Stroll more often.

I've come to the conclusion that the real reason as to why I've done so is personal--the color matches exactly with the color of my glasses, semi-translucence and all. Sigh. Sometimes, vanity knows no bounds, huh?

Franken, Hamadryad

2010-09-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

:) Frankening is one of my favorite pasttimes, but I hadn't done it quite as often as I used to. (Mostly because I had no empty nail polish bottles and stainless steel mixing balls, but I digress.) Anyway, I'd wanted to create a normal green jelly ala zulu when I'd mixed American Apparel's Hunter with a load of clear when I realized it was a little too blue and a little too murky for the job. Not to mention that the jelly version of Hunter looked just like... well, Hunter. (Which I haven't swatched yet, dangit.) Augh. Why make a franken when it looks just like what you started out with?

After that, I started experimenting. I threw in a little bit of Onyx, that LA Splash Glitter I was having so much fun with, just to see how it holds (it sank and bled color, just so you know). I threw in a little bit of tiny, square pink glitter (didn't sink, but bled profusely and turned silver). Then in a fit of fury--and also because my Color Club Sex Symbol was almost out and I figured that if I mixed SSN Franken part 2 in there I'd need to get most of the glittter out to be as sparse as possible--I threw in some of -that-. About fifteen or so drops of it.

And now... I think I rather like this color.

Look how light and blue it is in the sun, and moody and green indoors. :) The glitters in Sex Symbol are irregularly shaped and slightly flake-like, which adds interest. It reminds me of speckled green river stones.

Three coats, and you'll need to be a light touch. It gave me serious cuticle drag. .

Had the base color been blue, I might have considered this a Starry Night success. Oh well. :) I will probably be reaching for this one around Christmastime. :D

The Recipe:
-1/8 American Apparel Hunter
-5/8 Sally Hansen Invisible
-15 drops of Color Club's Sex Symbol
-Shake Well
Oh, I almost forgot--this bottle also has no frankenballz. I'm positive that a lot of the glitter even from Sex Symbol has sunk as well, so you may want to be lighthanded with the glitter if you like the sparkle quotient to remain subtle as it has in this picture. Glitter's often the easiest to handle in terms of color mixing, since the logic is fairly simple: more glitter = more grit + more sparkle. Make it as you like it. :)

OPI, Dazzled By Gold

2010-09-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Dazzled By Gold is an Ulta-exclusive Holiday OPI that came out in 2009. I saw it at Ulta, picked it up, heard tons of raves about the awesomeness of this polish, and then never wore it.

Isn't that absolutely insane? The truth, though, is that I'm very uncomfortable about wearing gold. Although it has a tendency to look good on my skin, I think it blends a little too much with it and then turns the bling into something a lot more obnoxious. It always, always, always looks good on me--but I'm always afraid of wearing it initially. In any case, I found it in my drawer just a while ago and sucked it up. Good thing, too, because this baby is beautiful.

Here it is coming alive in the glint of sun:

What makes Dazzled by Gold so wearable is the fact that it's made entirely of little flakes of two (at least, I can only identify two kinds) kinds of gold: glitzy, lux 24K; paler and more demure gold glitter. The overall look is foily and much like the finish on both Hard Candy's Mr. Wrong and Milani's I'm Online--the texture is partly what brings out this polish's appeal.

And look at how it shines in the sun and how it just glows in shade.

This was three coats. You can still kind of see the (messy) tips of my fingers--I might wear some sort of opaque nude color underneath this just to make the layering a lot easier. Gorgeous polish--I'll probably reach for this again during the holiday season.

Illamasqua Rampage

2010-09-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

I humbly introduce to you Illamasqua Rampage, which I have worn for ages but haven't shown you guys because of my inability to take a decent picture of it. This is still not decent--the gloss keeps getting in the way of all of the color's translucence and purity of pigment, but for now I think this will do.

I think the reasons as to why I like it should be both obvious and maybe a little embarrassing in consistency. I like dark green. Rampage is dark green. I like jellies. Rampage is a jelly. I also like sleek, square bottles that ooze pretentious class, and, well, Illamasqua's bottles are laser-cut on the inside to make it even squarer and more compact and there's a pop-off square lid with its brand symbol on it and it comes in a glossy black box and--well, the brand's British. (I have the impression that the The-British-Are-So-Much-Cooler-Than-We-Are thing only applies to Americans. More on that another time.)

Heh.

On a more purely polish-related level, though, jelly greens allow for the viewer to experience looking through green glass bottles as a child and marveling at color and translucency, but on your nails. Like this:

So... yes, that's that. :)

Do you see how Rampage just changes in the light? It's gorgeous.

By the way, this is two coats, perfect application. I have no other words.

RBL Grunge, Take Two

2010-09-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

I wear polishes over and over again, and I'd taken a picture of this one early on in my blogging history. I figured it was about time to try to do this one justice--it's top five for me, for certain, and my work appropriate color of choice due to application, wear, and the way it just looks so dang good on my hands.

This is two easy coats.

I took this on a gray morning, but in the sun it has a flash of secret golden shimmer. Yes, it's awesome. :)

Oh my!

2010-09-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

Happy First Birthday for Lemming Monster!!

I'd totally forgotten about it until just a few minutes ago, so I'm afraid that I will have to pull together a rougher article than the one that I'd imagined. Today, this little nail blog of mine turned one years old. Isn't that incredible?

This was one of the ways that I could keep track of the colors I've worn and how it looked. I'd created Lemming Monster to be useful for myself as an easily accessible way to organize my thoughts on a product I have way too much of, and I have never even dreamed that it could possibly be useful to anybody else, as well. I am lucky, and touched, and so extremely grateful to have the following that I have now. Thank you very much. Your existence has been essential for this blog to become what it has.

I'd intended to have this GIANT and extremely valuable giveaway for this day, but I have been on a no-buy for a while since I have no income with which to fuel such a thing. I'd also intended to have a giant giveaway for 250 followers, but I'm hoping that if I push the number back to 300 I'd be able to throw an even bigger and better giveaway. Are you guys willing to wait for it? I hope so!

In the meantime, let's have a little blast from the past:

Thank you all so much. :)

NOTD: Onyx

2010-09-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Has anybody ever been curious about the LA Splash glitters, yet? I don't mean the polish, I mean the nail art glitters they give you in little round plastic containers so that you can dip your nail in and feel sparkly.

I've been very interested in these--primarily Onyx, the one that seemed to be filled with iridescent hex glitter and gunmetal square glitter as well, but it collected dust in my drawer until recently, when I pulled out Zoya Raven, did two coats, and decided it needed more of a kick.

Basically, this is the kick. by the way, I highly recommend NOT dipping your finger into the tub as they suggest. It works the first few timew when the glitter remains high and one doesn't have to dip fingertips into glitter at an angle. By the time I hit my eighth finger my hands resembled fur coats more than they resembled what you see above--the glitter was all sticking up and was too close for me to either remove or to flatten down. Then there are bubbles when you apply topcoat and--yeah, bad news bears. Take a piece of paper underneath the hand that you are applying and tap the glitter onto the nail carefully. Then you can even save on glitter and it's far smoother and easier to control than with dipping.

I think it's awesome that the hex glitter takes on a duochrome effect on dark polish--orange/gold in certain lights, green-blue in others. It looks very alive and is very, very flashy. I also liked how my black polish took on a blue tint due to the gunmetal glitter.

This is really sparkly, by the way:

(a little too blurry for my taste, but eh. effective anyhow.)

Also, it glows like ember indoors.

I think if anybody was very disappointed with the new Lippmann glitters, these are the far better investment. I don't think you can use it for frankening--the hex is probably really heavy and likely to bleed--but it's really, really sparkly, and easy to control. You can even layer with them! What's not to love?

Hard Candy, Mr. Wrong

2010-09-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

What, exactly, is this color?

Purple? Pewter? Gold? That weird, classy, and wonderful purpley-taupe that's become famous lately, highlighted of course by Chanel Paradoxal?

For that matter, what, exactly, is this finish? Foil? Jelly shimmer? Irregularly-shaped glitter?

I'm not entirely sure. All and none of the above, probably. Mr. Wrong is the (revamped) Hard Candy's showstealer, a dusty sheer purple that encases irregularly-shaped pale gold flakes that come together to create a foil finish. The conglomeration of colors playing with light is probably what causes it to look the way it does. It's gorgeous, complex, and blends in perfectly with my yellow-toned skin, and takes three coats for opacity.

The gold is far more predominant indoors than out, where it just takes on the shine from the sun. :)

See?

On a more personal note, this is the second time I wore Mr. Wrong. The first time I wasn't sure whether or not I liked it, and it just confused me. Still, I received a ton of compliments on this color, including one from a friend who's not fond of either shimmer or purple. I'm glad I gave it a second try. I think this color is great, and well worth its price and the trek to Walmart. It may just make my favorite go-to list (which, if you wanted to know, is tagged under HG in this here blog)... but I might need to wear it one more time to make sure. :P

Zoya, Veruschka

2010-09-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

I wore this polish for last Christmas, in lieu of all the people wearing ChG Emerald Sparkle/Ruby Pumps/things that are red, green, gold, silver, and shiny. I liked the velvety look of Veruschka, like expensive wrapping paper or like warm comforter. It suited my favorite part of Christmas more--less about the glitz and the parties and the wrapping paper, more about the fireplace glow of the holiday.

Anyway, it's September now (already) and Veruschka still seems appropriate for heralding in crisp mornings and red leaves and gray skies. It's a deep, blue-based forest green with a velvety sheen and little tiny silver shimmer particles interspersed within the polish to give it more depth than a flat, creme-like matte base would usually allow. I'm under the impression that it also helps with the overall smoothness of the polish--matte may normally allow for a lot of mistakes to show, but I could be wrong. Veruschka is my only matte polish.

Like any other matte (so far as I know), Veruschka dries extremely quickly, so there is little time to paint a nail completely. I still found application fairly easy and applied two coats just in case--if I were faster and more careful, one would probably have been enough. Of course, one should wait until the base coat is completely dry or not wear it at all--this rule also applies to topcoat.

And, of course, this is what it looks like without topcoat--kind of like a finish between the scattered and distinctly-particled glitter/glassfleck, and also the fineness and easily-removeable shimmer. I liked it a lot--it looked like it had tons of depth, although I can't really speak much for the sparkle. The gray days continue. :)

On to other news: I've recently purged and reorganized my stash in a drawer underneath my desk and I've discovered that I'm a lot less of a brand collector than I thought I was. Also, that I had a ton more OPIs than any other brand. I'd somehow assumed that the list would be dominated by either Essie or China Glaze, but I have one Essie (that is, Jelly Apple: I gave away the others to people who would've appreciated and used them more) and four China Glazes. My dominant finish of choice is creme or glitter, and there's hardly any other sort in sight. I have never not been on low-buy, and due to my nonexistent budget--I need every single coin I have--I have been on super-low-buy for months.

I know the must-haves for every single upcomming/recent collection, lately, and quite a huge lemming list of my own. But now I'm curious: what are your top used/nostalgic/signature polishes that you can't live without, regardless of the new trends and the crazy lemmings? What brings you back to all of this, again and again?
What have you noticed about your own collecting habits, if you collect at all? :)

Aaand it's back!

2010-09-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

I couldn't find a camera charger, so I bought one, and it got here today! I didn't think I could waste another minute more than I already have, so here you go--today's NOTD. :)

This is LA Girls' Party Animal from the Rock Star line, topped with Pure Ice Heartbreaker, a blue sheer with a blue/green shimmer and a layering favorite on the MUA Nail Board. I picked it up due to the hubbub the last time I was at Walmart, and I think it's a stunner--especially over contrasting colors like this vampy shade. More pics?

See that color shift from nail to nail?

You may want to click on the image to really see the shimmer--I did my best, but it's a dreary grey day in Southern California and the camera didn't want to cooperate. Also, sorry about the tip wear--this is day three and it shows.

Trust me when I say that it is FAR more vibrant in real life. In real life it also glows predominantly green, but the blue is very visible. This kind of semi-surreal color/shimmer combinations always make me think of unnatural things. This is a color a witch might wear. I had a lot of fun with it. :)

It's good to be back, everyone!

I miss my camera. D:

2010-08-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

Um, hey guys! :/

I'm posting to let you all know that Lemming Monster isn't dead--oh, far from it. I've got a bunch of ideas and swatches I'd love to show you, except that in the process of moving back home I've misplaced my camera charger and I've no idea where it went. A few days of digging through my stuff proved fruitless. I may have to buy a new one, but I'm trying to hold out on it. Chances are, I put it "somewhere special where the placement is so random I'd have to find it", but you know how that works. (It doesn't.)

In the meantime, please stick around! I think I have a few images from the vault to provide at least a couple swatch pics.

And my days of being MIA have allowed for a little revelation--one thin coat of Milani's Totally Cool is a great layering polish. My NOTD is American Apparel Hunter with Totally Cool over it, and it looks like magic. Deep, blackened green with an eerie purple/pink/bronze overtone. I love it.

Also, I've started making greek frappes. Oh, sweet, sweet caffeinated glory, where have you been all my life?

Nubar, Seashell

2010-08-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

Um... hello, summer. Take a look at that flood of light! First time all summer that it did that.

Anyway.

This is my first Nubar! I got it in a swap with a very wonderful mua-er when I was in the mood for looking at opaque pink polishes, and she'd sent me this. As far as Nubars go, however, I don't think this is the one to start a good impression on...

Seashell, that pale, stark almost-white pink--is five coats.

Five streaky, streaky coats. In fact, it probably would have been opaque in about two or three, but I put on the extra to be really anal-retentive. And even then--is that visible nail line on the rightmost finger?

Oh, little gods.

Luckily, under the face of the super bright summer sun, it's really, really, really difficult to tell. And it didn't bubble, not at all. This is a bit stark for a professional color, but a professional color it is. I... don't hate it, but I can't profess dying love for this one. It'll do, for now. Meanwhile, my search for a perfect opaque pale pink continues...

OPI, Mad as a Hatter

2010-08-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

It just occurred to me that, although I've shown you swatches of MaaH on my birthday, I've never shown you a complete swatch. Well, summer is great time to wear glitter, anyway, so here it is!

It has a uniform silver flash, I think, which is what startled a lot of people when they figured out that this color had multicolored glitter in it, but I think that's why I love it. Three coats, a little bit thick, but easy to work with. Also, its lasting time is much longer than Absolutely Alice, but ... well, AA is sparklier.

Mmmm, nom.

OPI, Deer Valley Spice

2010-08-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

So, I found this little pretty when I was out browsing in the dusty old attic of a vintage shop when I found this old thing, black label, pretty red, and all dried up. I figured this could be the point where I made my Great Argument On The General Awesomeness of Thinner by going home and showing everybody how awesome thinner can be with this polish.

So I bought it, and took it home, envisioning thinner awesomeness on a beautiful old color, and wearing it proudly. then I walked into my apartment and about five minutes later we suffered a complete blackout.

Not that it deterred me, oh no. I restored this polish to its original, chemically, fluid goodness with the help of candlelight. It took a lot of shaking and peering through the dimness to see if any chunks were left, and then giving it a lot more shaking than normal just to be a twat. This is about the time when I started the orange-red failgradient.

Turns out that Deer Valley Spice is part of the OPI classic collection. Oh well.

It's a lovely color, nonetheless--less a blue-red shimmer and more a blue-red creme with a whole lot of pink shimmer particle, Deer Valley Spice took three coats because it was so sheer. I can't speak for whether or not that's how the formula is or that's how the formula reacts when most of the bottle is Seche Restore, but nonetheless that is how many coats I took. It's a bit of a firebomb, classic red... and I do love it. Despite its juiciness it can't help but remind me of fall at its best. Or of really obnoxious red sportscars.

(Yeah, okay, maybe that's not the best picture.)

I miss the good old times when OPI polishes weren't horrifically not-punny.

OPI, Sedona Seduction

2010-08-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

OPI Sedona seduction is a black label from the 1998 Spring-Summer collection, which means... it's about twelve years old. (Awesome.) This was given to me from a friend of mine--hi, friend~--who was very supportive of my crazy.

You can totally tell that this polish is a 1990s survivor, though--look at that frost! It was a bit of a bugger to apply--see the index finger; that's me trying to cover up dings but discovering that frosts don't like covering things up--but I think the color itself is actually kind of cool. It took three coats, in a wonderfully normal OPI brush, and a really, really steady hand. (My nails are frankly too small for the OPI pro-wide, although it does create a nice shape at the top.)

I don't think I hate frosts as much as I think I do--Sedona Seduction reminds me of Cinderella's ballgown, or the cold light of the moon, or airbrushed metal, or... well, anything but the name of the polish, actually. One would think that Sedona would be vaguely red or orangey? I don't know.

All in all, one of the jewels in my collection, for a myriad of reasons. :3

NOTD: splatter

2010-08-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

Remember the roommate that made that one franken?

Well, she's featuring her nails today with one of my favored nail polish "art" designs, and also modeling American Apparel's Passport Blue, and Milani I'm Online. :)

Lovely, and utterly cool. :)

In the meantime, folks, please try to convince me not to buy the Orly cosmic fx collection...

H&M, Bella's Choice

2010-08-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

I think I'm on a blues kick lately, because the only colors I seem to reach out for right now are colors like these--vibrant, summery, in-your-face blues. And Bella's choice is a particularly good one, because it's an excellent, easy creme with a strong turquoise tint... like a bright, obnoxious sister of ChG For Audrey.

Or, maybe, For Audrey on the beach.

All in all, it only took me two coats to paint this color--to be honest, you probably could use Bella's Choice in one. I really can't wait to put this on my toes. :)

Deborah Lippmann, Across the Universe

2010-07-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow.

I've worn a lot of Lippmanns by now--four of them, actually--and I think this one is by far my favorite. I tried taking tons of pictures, but there is nothing that I've taken that can capture its incredible depth. The effect of looking at Across the Universe is like... looking at jewels underwater. It catches light in a glossy way that first reflects off the blue before the hex glitter catches a gleam. Fascinating.

Anyway, Across the Universe is one of two that Deborah Lippmann has released for her fall collection. It is a deep blue jelly base, filled with blue and green hexagonal glitter as well as blue square glitter. It took three coats--which I think is necessary--to reach this opacity, and it was also somewhat difficult to apply. I can imagine that this polish would get thick easily; I recommend a few drops of thinner. Beyond its gloopiness and the issue about glitter placement, I had little problems on application.

But can we take a few moments and just talk about the sheer awesome of this polish?

No?

I couldn't really stop staring at this while I had it on. If I've done my research right, this polish is supposed to encapsulate entire galaxies in a single bottle, but I don't think of the sky when I look at this. (In some ways, I do with Lady Sings the Blues, but whatever.) I think of the ocean, and in that way I can't find a polish more appropriate in the summer than this one. I love this.

Have a great weekend, guys! I'll be moving out in the time that you're all reading this--I'm finally, finally a college graduate!

Things will get hectic and crazy in the next month, but I'll let you all know later--for now, it's a secret! ;)

notd (fail?): I have a question...

2010-07-29T03:20:00.000-07:00

Look very carefully at that picture. Try to ignore its various imperfections, of which there are many--I painted this by the light of a single candle. Just look at the color.

Does it look like a gradient to you?

Look again:

(lol, sorry; say hello to my balcony/picture-taking place! Hello...)

Again, does that look like a gradient?

Because it is.

I'm afraid that the color distinction from the base of the nail to the tips was difficult to see in real life, because I'm strangely phobic about color gradients that are really obviously done. I wanted this gradient to smoothly transition between the orange and the red jellies that I've chosen, but I suppose there isn't enough area on the nail to do so without fooling the eye. It's most definitely smooth.

If it exists.

So, tell me... is that a gradient, or is that a really good gradient optical illusion?

I think I need to experiment some more...

Deborah Lippmann, Some Enchanted Evening

2010-07-28T03:08:00.000-07:00

This is quite possibly the girliest manicure I've done in a really long time! It made my roommate think of valentine's day cards. It makes me think of the nonpareils on cupcakes. This is almost a little too darling for me every day, but it was cute. :)

Lippmann's Some Enchanted Evening is a clear base filled with pink square and hexagonal glitter, and applies quite sparsely: the above image is two coats of the stuff. It seems impossible,or at least, really time and polish consuming to attempt making this opaque. Related reviews and my own experience with it led me to put it on over a basic white the way I would with a normal layering polish. I didn't take any pictures of it, but I liked it very well when it was just one coat; I think that would be the way I would normally wear this polish color.

It was weird--while I was wearing this polish out, I noticed that some pieces of the small glitter seemed to take on holo properties. I couldn't quite catch it on camera, but on the eye some speckles gleam with a strong rainbow sheen that changes color with different angles. It makes me love this polish color more--by no means is Some Enchanted Evening unique, but details like that make me appreciate this one.

I also have to admit that I love the name.

Overall, I have to admit that I'm impressed with the All That Jazz collection! All three of them are keepers, and despite all being glitters, I think that the things that the colors are appropriate for allows the three to be more versatile than expected. These are keepers for sure; thank goodness!

Deborah Lippmann, Razzle Dazzle

2010-07-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

I dimly recall telling my roommate that I wasn't really into sparkly dark red colors, anyway.

What. I love this. Razzle Dazzle is a lovely raspberry-colored jelly with myriads of pink glitter. There is something so incredibly juicy about this one, and it took me three coats to really get the depth and shimmer that I wanted--look, it's like a deep red version of ChG Emerald Sparkle.

This one also glimmers just so in virtually any light setting I could think of. And it was easy to apply, and actually stayed on my fingernails for a whopping four days.

Oooooooh.

If I could've gotten a really good picture of this in the sun, I'd be happy. As of now, this one picture makes me want to wear these all over again.

So far, I'm really impressed with this Lippmann collection!

Deborah Lippmann, Lady Sings The Blues

2010-07-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

(Pardon the dent on the rightmost finger: a hex glitter fell out while the mani was half dry, which left that little mark.)

This was my first Lippmann polish, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I'd heard that this was going to be Ruby Red Slippers (sooo sexyyy) but blue, and that pretty much sounded like all sorts of awesome. Like RRS, Lady sings the Blues holds hex and small square glitter of the same color, but the similarities seem to end there.

For one, LStB is... not a jelly. The blue base is very, very pigmented, and covers the nail in one coat. The issue with this seems to be that the glitter within the polish sinks underneath the base, rendering all potential silveriness into a sort of murky blue.

I had expected far more glitterbombiness, but... I also like it this way. It feels classy and glamorous, like a woman in a sequined, sexy evening dress. It makes me think of hazy nights in jazz clubs, which is, I think, the inspiration behind this piece. It is sultry, attention-grabbing, but subtle at the same time: not a combination that makes sense unless you experience it yourself. I've had people grab my hands for a closer look at this polish, although I feel certain that it looks pretty much like a navy blue from far off. There's something special about this.

And despite the fact that I have other polishes, and other lippmanns to try, I keep wanting to put this one on again. It's that ineffable mystery, I guess. :)

NOTD: Shylock

2010-07-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Why, thou, loss upon loss; the thief gone with so much,
and so much to find the thief...

and no satisfaction, no
revenge....

nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o' my shoulders,

no sighs but o' my breathing,
no tears but o' my shedding.

(merchant of venice, III.i.78-81)

Kleancolor, Golden Nightmare

2010-07-22T23:09:00.000-07:00

I received this nail polish along with several other beautiful Kleancolors in a swap with Tiffani of Yardsticks 4 Lunatics! Thanks, Tiffani! I hope to show the rest of my readers some more along the way. :)

Golden Nightmare is a black creme interspersed with square golden glitter (actually, I can barely tell whether or not it's gold or whether it's olive. We'll go with some green-tinted gold, yeah?) and shimmer of the same color. This is, quite frankly, what I wanted ChG Wagon Trail to be. Wagon Trail looked somewhat dull most of the time, but Golden Nightmare patently does not--it looks like a plain black under indoor lighting, but flares to life under direct sunlight. Observe:

(Please click on the image for the best view of aforementioned sparklyflash. Thank you.)

I also found that Golden Nightmare is a perfect, fuss-free one-coater; it does, however, dry gritty due to the glitter: two coats of topcoat are necessary.

Ah, there's that visible flash I was talking about. It really makes my day. :)

Kleancolor, Tahiti Sunset

2010-07-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

Um. . .

Staring at Kleancolor's Tahiti Sunset made me wonder whether or not I liked crazy glitters in theory. I had all kinds of misgivings about this polish: the yellow tone would make my stained nails look more stained, but it didn't seem to be dark enough to pull opaque. I was so sure I had plague on my hands, but I put three coats of its sheer, bronzy self to see if I could make it work.

In the pictures, it still induces a sickening reaction, but on the skin it wasn't... really bad as long as you weren't looking close up. The gold was nice. Glittery. A flash of red and holo glitter, occasionally, from its respective sources. but close up...

Ew.

are you kind of able to see what I mean? So glossy! So shiny! Even without sunlight! Still, barely passable on its own.

So I put it on over black:

This is two coats over Kleancolor's Taihti Sunset, and that was much, much better. Akin to watching confetti sprinkle through the night sky. The gold that was so prominent in the previous manicure took backstage here when over black, but the red and the holo string glitter became very prominent, glaring under certain angles.

But see that golden shimmer there? Really, that's the kind of stuff that I live for.

I supposed that meant that I really did like funky glitter in theory.

Then I met the Lippmann collection, which you will be seeing this week.

Borghese, Stellare Notte

2010-07-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

I feel the need to apologize for the upcoming images because they were taken during a cloudy afternoon (it's cold in southern california, which is... strange. I'm still recovering from a nasty cold I've picked up because of it), and although the duochrome effect of this polish was immediately evident, the camera didn't pick it up.

The next few pictures are me trying to get the shift to show up on picture. It wouldn't. But you can kind of see that slight blue tint on the finger second to the left, right? Right?

Urgh. Anyway.

Stellare Notte applies in two coats--like usual, I found Borghese's brush to like giving me cuticle drag on the first coat, but a light hand saved the application process. It is a moody old polish, one that reminds me of black pearls. The purple to green flash on its deep blue-purple shimmery base is fascinating, constant, and subtle. I got more than a few compliments on this polish, and it's warming me to the duochrome thing...

Urgh, I'll have to take these pictures again anyway.

Franken, Pink Pirouette

2010-07-16T01:24:00.000-07:00

First hint that your nail polish obsession (I affectionately call it "My Crazy") is beginning to rub off on the people you live with: they start making frankens. After I came back to the apartment last weekend, a roommate of mine bounded in and said, look at this color! You should try it; I just made it. And then you can post it up on your blog!

Apparently I'm not very good at hiding the Crazy in the closet.

I'm... not actually sure what it is. A pink-purple-grey creme-jelly thing. Sometimes, in indoor lighting, it even looks taupe. I did know that it looked soft and sweet and feminine, and so I named it Pink (?) Pirouette, among other things, and this was the name that she liked. It applied horrifically, and took two to three coats to get it to look the way it does on me; she claims that it took four on her. On the other hand, it wears ridiculously well--I took it off due to ADD, and not because it chipped.

The recipe is as follows:
-1/2 bottle of a sheer pink (roommate used Artistry Happiness, which, I assume, leans slightly purple from the color that it became)
-5 or so drops of black (roommate used WnW Black, a nail board favorite)
-shake well.

(Do you see what I mean about the taupe, now?)

So, roomie, I hope you're happy! For what it's worth, I think this is an excellent color with excellent wear time. And, of course, right up your essie-loving alley. Good stuff.

Piggy Polish, Poet-Tree

2010-07-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

While everybody's out there in search of the perfect mint green, why has nobody talked about Poet-Tree yet? I'll confess: I bought it for the name, but it's just about trumped all the pastels that I own. I love the color--it reminds me of that avocado kitchen color in the 60s. It reminds me of Jadeite. It reminds me of vintage stuff in general.

Jeebus, I love this color. It even made me bust out my long-shelved, favorite glitter-toppings, Chanel Illusion D'or and Pa A125:

Still one of my favorite NOTDs yet.

NOTD: blue skies

2010-07-13T00:37:00.000-07:00

Accomplished with two coats of China Glaze For Audrey as a base, and then sponged with a basic white on a makeup sponge for a realistic, cloudy effect. :P Easy peasy!

Franken, Felix in Amore

2010-07-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

So, I had this theory: frost-ish shimmers + clear would eventually chill the eff out once you threw in enough clear. In fact, I presumed that enough clear in a shimmer would eventually allow the shimmery particles to float in a sheer base. I also figured that enough coats of a sheer would eventually make it opaque, thereby creating a softly shimmery pastel jelly. Yum yum!

I was mostly thinking these things because I had this horrific hate relationship with Sinful Colors' Sharon's Heart. Remind me to show you a picture sometime soon, but it was 1) really bad with my skin tone, 2) a color my mother used to like maybe six years ago, 3) weirdly twee, and 4) flashed a sick green. I liked the hint of green in Sharon's heart, and wondered if it would be preserved if I tested my theory on it.

Not necessarily, but I liked the color anyway: the result was Felix in Amore (latin for Lucky in Love), which I would consider remotely successful. The color is a sheer pink with gold shimmer that took three coats for opacity.

It's not, by any means, an original color: I imagine that Felix comes really, really close to NYX Jillian, and is even a kissing color to the ever-popular ChG, Strawberry Fields (SF is glass-flecked, though). I'm proud of it nonetheless, and it's nice to own a pink for the ever-dreary professional-color future. And this is such a fun color during the summer! This is the color that a friend of mine chose to wear on our Disneyland escapade, where our hands looked like this:

The downward hand is hers, wearing Felix in Amore with a Dazzled by Gold tip (she called it her princess nails since it looked as though she had a tiara on each finger). The upward hand is mine, wearing OPI's Absolutely Alice, of course. :P

pa A45

2010-07-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've been really into sheers with glitter lately, so I figured I'd try putting on one of my favorites to see how crazy I can be. This is paA45--and I forgot how many coats it was. I am tempted to say four... but I'm not sure.

This manicure reminded me of japanese nails, in a weird way--sheer, and sparkly, and so ridiculously feminine.

:) I kind of love it.

Funky Fingers, Moonwalk

2010-07-08T14:53:00.000-07:00

When I took these pictures, it was in the midst of tons of June Gloom unhappiness, but I'd figured that since school was mostly over and it was, therefore, summer vacation, the sun would give out eventually while I was taking these.

Nope.

That said, though, I -have- seen Moonwalk under direct sunlight and it is glorious. Here's a pic in flash, since that's about all I could manage:

Moonwalk is a deep, no-frills black interspersed with tons of holo and silver glitter. The effect is very striking, and very sparkly. I couldn't take my eyes off it, really, when the sun came out. My favorite part, however, has to be the fact that this lovely is actually one coat. The NOTD took two coats, however, cause I freaked out and wanted to be sure I didn't have any bald spots or anything, but the second coat was completely unnecessary. One smooth, quick to dry, easy to apply coat.

Mostly because these pictures are being largely uncooperative, let me show you some bottle love:

Nom.

RBL, Orbis Non Sufficit

2010-07-07T14:28:00.000-07:00

Um, I love this color. For many reasons:
1) The Polish Addict was the first np blog that I read and really, really enjoyed.
2) I studied Latin (am still, actually) as my language requirement in college and enjoyed it. This was the color I wore for my last Latin final. It reminds me very cohesively of good and horrible times there.
3) Uh, it's green.

There is something very special about this murky green color, however. It goes with nearly everything, in an understated and chic sort of way. At the same time, it's green, so it has a tendency to still attract attention. It's RBL and therefore the formula and application process is perfect, almost a hedonistic pleasure. I applied ONS in one coat. It lasts for quite a while. It's lovely.

And, lastly, because I can't help myself:

Heehee. :)

NOTD: Glitter Underlayer

2010-07-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

I was experimenting with layering glitter once and I figured that I wanted to actually wear something that was as understated as it was sparkly. I wasn't entirely sure what it would look like, or how I'd end up doing it, but I followed my instincts and put a coat of Nfu-Oh 119 over two coats of Color Club Sex Symbol.

This is what it looks like.

I like that this look is more cohesive than both jelly glitter and simply glitter itself: I also like that it looks as though the smooth jelly overlay looks like it's faceted, and glints in different ways in the sun. I REALLY liked this mani, and it should be easy to replicate: something sparkly at the bottom, a true jelly covering it. I'll probably be experimenting with other glitters and jellies to see what kinds of looks I can come up with.

Still not dead, and a happy Independence Day!

2010-07-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry, guys. I really, truly am. My place has no internet due to all kinds of odd reasons and I'm not entirely sure when we'll next get it, but until then I'll throw together a bunch of scheduled posts. :D Please forgive me!

Until then, here's my fourth of july manicure. :) I used a bunch of favorites to create this one: two coats of Essie Jelly Apple for my base, a striper to create the, uh, stripes, and dragged my favorite blue, Nfu-Oh 119, to create the blue bit. Then I attempted to splatter with a striper; it didn't work. I still like it, though!

Here it is in shade.

Further off, shade and sun. :)

My manicure is inspired off of the CND Lookbook, which has myriads of different, beautiful designs. I highly recommend looking through it! And have a wonderful, sparkly, bbq-y Fourth of July! :)

Sally Hansen, Green with Envy

2010-06-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

Oh man. It's been a while, hasn't it? :) Sorry about that; I actually lived without internet for about half a week before I left for my parents' home, whereupon I spent most of it doing things away from the computer. This is the first time I've had time for myself, and I've never been so grateful for all of the pictures I've been keeping in the vault for such an occasion. Sorry, everybody. I'll try to let you all know if something like this will ever happen again.

Anyway, on to what you're here for! This is Sally Hansen's Green with Envy, a squishy green creme with jelly-like consistency. Nothing to complain about here--this lovely applied perfectly in two coats and I performed little to no cleanup for it. The brush was a liiittle bit stiff, like most of the Xtreme Wear line, and you had to apply lightly for the sake of perfect application. It may streak, depending on the wearer.

More pictures:

Awesome. Green with Envy is perfect for summer.

Oh, before I forget! I also wanted to thank you all for the suggestions and comments. I haven't ordered anything yet--further research seems to ask me to buy my first Lippmann polishes, as well! (Aaaaaaaah!) It's that limited edition All That Jazz set. Looks awesome. So does Across the Universe. What do you all think?

China Glaze, 5 Golden Rings

2010-06-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Fun fact: the only China Glaze 'I Love You Snow Much' polish that I never bought is...

Ruby Pumps.

(Gasp!)

I gave Tinsel to a suitemate for Christmas, bought Emerald Sparkle at a sale, and swapped for this while I was going through (er, still am going through) a gold glitter phase.

I LOVE Gold glitter, and I think 5 Golden Rings is actually very lovely for this. It is three smooth-drying coats. You can see VNL in these pictures but they're not as prevalent in real life. It is a very soft warm gold, and comes off as classy. It'd be something I would wear to an office holiday party. The first layer also goes on very sparse, so I think it'd also make a good layering color if you so wished. Very versatile polish color. Like it a lot. :)

Speaking of China Glaze glitters...

I don't own any of them from the specialty collection yet. (Gasp!) I'd really like to get three of them, as a graduation gift to meself. :) I've bought Atlantis for my bestie (hiiiii Mika) and we both liked it; I bought Ginger for a christmas polish blogger swap and it was absolutely lovely on the bottle; I'm interested in Stellar a little bit, and Dynasty, and Carnival Lights.

*shrug* it's either the specialty glitters, or BB Couture, or something else... but have any of you tried the specialty glitters? What did you think? Do you have any suggestions? :D

Color Club, Uptown Girl

2010-06-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick swatch for you all today: this is the dusty mauve Uptown Girl from Color Club's Rebel Debutante collection. This is a smooth, two-coater creme that dries with a slightly jelly-like finish. Wouldn't call it a jelly, but there's something wonderfully soft about it. It applied wonderfully, as per usual.

I really like Color Club! Why don't I have more of these, again?

China Glaze, Emerald Sparkle

2010-06-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

Say hello to one of the nail polishes that started it all.

Admittedly, I think it was RBL Recycle that really started the madness (you can tell, since I think I have about three posts of it on this here blog), but Emerald Sparkle is noteworthy for being the one that made me sit there and think, "Hmm, it just might be a good idea for me to own every single green polish that ever existed, probably." This was exacerbated by the fact that dark green is my favorite color and that a lot of prominent nail bloggers like green polish as much as I do.

Still, I wasn't a glitter person and I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to pull the haul for this one, and I dilly-dallied around it for a while. But when I was dragging my brother around Sally's for a tub of Mango Mend on my birthday, I found this little pretty. On sale.

For 99 cents.

Uh, yes, I bought it.

I think I might legitimately say that Emerald Sparkle is my first lemming and for that reason is one of my favorite polishes that I own--not to mention that it's dark and sparkly and deep and wonderful in every possible way. (I didn't think this when I first put it on. It was on a cloudy day and I thought, 'ew'. This is a more recent picture and I love it--this is two coats, and, as you can see, has slight VNL. The nail line is not actually visible in real life, but I recommend three thin coats of Emerald Sparkle anyway.

One last sentimental picture before I go back to studying for finals:

Awww yeah.

A Comprehensive Illusion D'or Swatch Post, Pt. 2

2010-06-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

The madness continues.

Illudo over Essie Ballet Slippers.

Over ChG Emerald Sparkle. My second-favorite combination!

Excuse the frazzle. Over Color Club Uptown Girl.

Aaand my current NOTD: Illudo over Sally Hansen's Green with Envy.

Final notes: Illusion D'or is pretty over cremes, but I like it over particle-d polish: Emerald Sparkle, Groupie, Vampy Varnish. It lends a foil-like texture to the layer under it, which I like. It tends to be somewhat lackluster (as one coat) over cremes. Also, the color has a tendency to lighten and warm up with a coat of Illudo.

I know, I know, I know that I haven't covered well-roundedly a bunch of colors. What about metallics? Duochromes? Blues? straight-up glitter? But do not tempt me. I had to put this polish away so I could stop compulsively layering it over everything I wore. Given time and self-control, more swatches may come up!

A Comprehensive Illusion D'or Swatch Post, Pt. 1

2010-06-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for this giant pile of crazy? Cause here it comes...

I'm not going to spend a lot of space and time writing things. There will be eight swatches in total, some of which have more pictures than others. I'll make a note of the polish I put Illusion D'or over. There is one coat of Illusion D'or over each nail polish.

I decided to stop at eight swatches because I was afraid of how much Illusion D'or I was using. <<. Heh.

Anyway.

(As always, click the image for a larger (read: more detailed) pic.)

Over LA Girls Rockstar: Groupie; quite possibly my favorite.

Over ChG For Audrey. Not my fave.

Over OPI Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It.

Over BB Couture Vampy Varnish.I really enjoyed this one as well. It reminded me of $OPI 212. Take a look at the green glints that come out from the black base.

Okay! Phew, that was part 1. Part 2 tomorrow, folks. :)

Milani, Tropical Fiesta and Glittur!

2010-05-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Maan, this picture quality isn't even close. Tropical Fiesta is a hot, hot, hot pink that borders on neon--this just looks like it might be a deep salmon color. Picture-fail. Sorry about that, you guys.

Anyway, yes: Tropical Fiesta is a hot pink, bright enough to sear your eyelids (if you can believe it). Perfect application, and applied in two smooth coats. No complaints here.

(Ugh; still demure.)

One of the things I like the most about this polish is the fact that it's so in-your-face. It would make a great classic pedicure color during the summer, and a sour counterpoint to all the darks worn in winter. And seriously, the longer I look at these pictures the more they bug me. Why is the bright not coming out? Why?

After a while, though, I got bored and threw on pa a45, a sheer pink with gold square glitter (small and large) and tiny pink square pieces of glitter. I used three coats in order to get the slight gradient effect that I have on my nails there. The effect was more apparent in real life. :)The extra coats dried quickly and didn't really get in the way at all; glitter has a funny tendency to do that. It dries smooth to the touch. pa a45 can actually do a glitter gradient notd on its own, with a little patience and a lot of coats, but I'd done that during that weird dark time when I couldn't find my camera. I should try it again, just to prove it to ya. :P

All in all, a fun notd! And, again, it's sparkly-pink. I need an imagination. D:

LA Girls Rockstar, Addict and a comparison

2010-05-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is the last of my LA Girls Rockstar collection, and she is absolutely, absolutely lovely. Addict is a warm, deep red that leans a little towards a brick color, a jelly, and it is interspersed with tiny little gold flakies. This is three coats.

Let me give you a side picture--click on it to see that awesome depth:

So autumnal.

But the polish sounds familiar, right? I figured it'd be some sort of dupe to ChG Stroll, so I dug it out for comparison. And here it is:

From left to right: Stroll, Addict, Stroll, Addict.

Uuum, not even close, actually. Definitely related, and I don't think anybody who isn't a nail polish addict needs more than one, but there's a huge difference in color and flake. Stroll is far deeper at three coats and the flakes are heavier, sinking into the polish and giving it a pink, rather than gold, feel. Addict remains a lighter red and the flakes are both larger and lighter, thereby allowing the gold to peek through. I love both of them, and I'm not sure which I love more, so I will be keeping both. :)

And yes, I will be swatching Stroll sometime in the future! Keep your eyes open.

Maybelline Opti-Mist-Ic

2010-05-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks for all of the lovely suggestions and comments in the previous post! I'll be sure to pick up something while out... err, grocery shopping. ;)

Secondly, whooo! 150 followers! Thanks so much for even reading this little thing; it means so much to me. :) I did promise to do a giveaway at 250 followers, and I've also been planning to do one for the one year anniversary that'll show up during the summer, so whatever comes up fastest... *whistles*

Anyway.

This is Maybelline Optimistic (on the bottle, it says Opt-Mist-Ic; on the sites where I'm currently stalking its history, it says Optimistic. Which is right? Does it matter? I don't like weird hyphens) was released in the Maybelline Poptimistic collection for the holidays in 2009. It is misty indeed. There's something complex and elusive about this polish that I absolutely love: to me, it looks like a light taupe with silver shimmer and copper microglitter, but one of my roommates popped in to watch me do my nails with this one and said, "That's a really pretty gold".

Gold?

Sure.

Then someone else said, "I really like that grey on you."

Grey??

This is what I mean, though: depending on the lighting, it looks very different to different people. I wore it longer, and I have an obsessive compulsive Nail Polish Eye (as I'm sure most of you relate to), so I think I can say with finality that it's a color similar to AA Mouse: a very light brown-grey (I dislike saying greige) with a very interesting finish.

That said, it applied in two smooth, thin coats, without fuss. It is slightly brushstroky, but I expect that from a fine, silver shimmer. It dried quickly and wore very well. I have nothing like it in my collection, nor have I seen anything like it when obsessively looking for online similarities. Optimistic is truly unique. :)

pa A86 and a question. . .

2010-05-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Eeeek, this color is hard to capture, but I think I got it down right! This is a minty, seafoam green FROST (aaaaaagh) that applied pretty well, actually. I took a look at the bottle and figured it would just about never 1) be opaque and 2) look good, so I slathered it all over my hands and hoped for the best.

pa applied in four coats (I'd been right about the sheerness), but it dried quickly and left very few brushstroke marks. I also, surprisingly, found the tiny brush easy to manipulate! No cleanup, no nothin'. It is just as it is.

And a picture in shade--ignore the bubbling in that corner; it breaks my heart.

Oh, I have a question for you readers out there--I have, so far, gone through three bottles of Poshe and one of SV, as well as one bottle of CND Speedey. I've recently finished the SV bottle and am now duking it out with an old-school, slow-drying topcoat. It's great (no shrinkage!) and glossy, but I'm really tired of sitting really still and moving really slowly for a very long time. I'm looking for a quick-dry topcoat that I haven't tried before: Poshe and SV are nice and I like them, but part of the fun is continuing to look around, right?

If you guys have any quick-dry topcoat suggestions, please leave them! There's an ORLY In a Snap and that one brand's Out the Door around here, somewhere, that I'd like to try...

NOTD: Magic Wishes

2010-05-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

... What can I say? I wanted an exuberant, eight-year-old manicure. It worked.

This is two coats of You're Such a Kabuki Queen by OPI, from the 2005 OPI Japanese Collection. It applied in two absolutely perfect, fuss-free coats, dried glossy, and was generally just awesome. It's not a color that I'd call unique--a very cool-toned warm pink, just a few shades from being obnoxious--but it's lovely. I then put on two coats of pa A44, which contains holographic stars and round holo glitter in a sheer blue shimmery base--and it turned me into a maniac. Stars are HARD to fish for! And then putting them on top of the nail in a regular sort of pattern is impossible. I should've taken an orange stick and pressed them onto the nail, but I'm insane and decided to fish for them anyway. Then they wouldn't stick properly and kept either scratchimg on random surfaces, or simply tear off--see the two indents on the pinky? Goodbye, stars.

That said, the way these stars shimmer is incredible:

The light they reflect is ridiculous. I wore this to a dance event and even under dark lighting I could see them glisten. Woot. :)

Aaand one more pic, because I feel bad about the sudden disappearance (although for good reason. I have a GIANT post coming up soon.)

Another look, in shade. :)

How do the rest of you deal with shaped glitter? Suggestions would be... awesome.

OPI, Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It

2010-05-14T02:59:00.000-07:00

Two coats of OPI goodness. A color I'd classify as straddling the line between orange and red, and vibrant to boot. Perfect application, awesome, awesome, awesome--chippy.

Admittedly, this is the wear of day two, if that explains all the scratches and the tiny chip on the side. Am I having bad manicure week, or something? Because there's something horrifically wrong with everything I've been wearing lately.

It must be the lack of quick-dry topcoat. Yes.

Anyway, I love this color. Vibrant, bright, easily applied, and screams high-energy summer days. :)

L'oreal, Tribal Treasure

2010-05-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

WARNING: bad 'cure and frazzle comin' your way. Not safe for infants and young children.

Have we got that out of the way? Good. Feast your eyes on this beaut:

It's not... a bad color, right? It's flattering. Good for my skin tone. Really good application, actually: I discovered that I quite like the L'oreal brush (bodes well for Essie's new... er, alliance). It's--okay; it applies like a true metallic in that it's super brushstrokey and you have to be a raging anal-retentive perfectionist in order to get the strokes right, but it's okay!

And then it bubbled.

It bubbled badly. I don't even know why. I waited for each layer to dry (which was grueling and I sat there smelling fumes for a longer time than I wanted), I didn't shake the bottle, etc. etc. I think it just didn't like me.

Tribal Treasure (for those of you who want to know) is from last year's L'oreal summer collection. It's a very pretty, soft, yellow-gold metallic that was opaque in 3 coats. It's quite flattering on a tan, which I find myself sporting, lately. That and some horrible cuticle frazzle that I can't explain. D:

But I don't like it, for obvious reasons. Raging anal-retentive perfectionist, me. Can't stand the bubbles. Each time I remember the squishy blue perfection of RBL Bikini Bottom I remember the bubbles that the polish gave me, and the god-knows-how-many coats I'd have to put on in order to achieve it, and then I feel better about not buying it again. That is how I feel about this polish, except that it isn't squishy jelly perfection but a brushstrokey metallic and, therefore, has no excuse.

Then it peeled off of my nails in less than 24 hours. Augh.

OPI, Absolutely Alice

2010-05-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

I own a lot of blue sparkly stuff. I can't seem to keep my hands off of them. I'm not a huge fan of the sparkly, but sparkly blue things are another matter entirely. So it's not a huge surprise that I picked up Absolutely Alice. I'm a huuge Alice in Wonderland geek to begin with and it's... a sparkly blue thing. It just seemed right.

And, as I'm sure as this image shows you--Absolutely Alice is REALLY sparkly, really dense blue glitter in a clear base interspersed with little flecks of gold. How dense? Two coats. The flecks of gold really bring it to a completely new level--I keep thinking that it's really peeking out and glinting against the blue. It's charming and surprising and whimsical in ways I hadn't really thought that a sparkly blue ever could be.

And here it is in shade. Shade always captures glitter particle really well, but I'm sorry about the corpse hand thing.

See the glinty-gold?

And an unintentional blurry shot. Absolutely Alice is so sparkly it broke my camera. :)

I did discover, however, that perfect app and gorgeous color, etc, aside... Absolutely Alice chipped in far less a time than I had expected. Glitters wear like iron on me. Absolutely Alice came off in sheets in three days. Boooo.

LA Girls Rockstar, Groupie

2010-05-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

Y'know something? I thought I didn't like purple. I wasn't sure why. When I flipped through swatches on the nail board or on a couple other blogs I've always sort of glossed through the purples. They never interested me until I put one on, just for fun--that polish, I still remember, is Milani Totally Cool.

Well, I love purple. I have a theory that it's my warm-color equivalent of the green madness: it's a color that I can't quite find as often as I can, say, reds and pinks, but it's vibrant and interesting and looks great on my skin. :)

That said! Groupie is a beautiful violet (urgh; purple never captures right on the camera. It's a true purple, guys, and a couple shades cooler than Purple Pizzazz) base with violet microglitter. It takes three coats to reach bottle color.

I'll just stop talking and give you more pictures.

I really like the LA Rockstar line. That is all.

Milani I'm Online

2010-04-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

I think (with the exception of the fact that Hidden Treasure is still, alas, hidden) that the local CVS from where I picked up this Milani is a particularly well-stocked one. I found my first few dusties there, the Milani holos for swaps, the Neons, and now the foils. I saw the rose gold one and decided that I needed to have it. Thank goodness that I did, because this shade is absolutely gorgeous and so wonderfully shiny. The pink helps it become less stark on my skin too, I think.

See how shiny that is in the sun?

Oh yeah--this is one coat. Yes. One.

And here, again, in shade. I found also that it dried quite quickly with a dollop of SV, but I'm Online chipped in less than a day.

And a picture far off, of course, because who would I be if I didn't do these things? XP I

Anyway. Gorgeous polish, but I don't know how I feel about its wear at all.

Sally Girl, Pink Glitter

2010-04-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

:D

Say hello to Sally Girl's Pink Glitter (which, by the way, was unnamed in my local Sally's. I had to go around ID-checking it in order to find out what it's called, which kind of makes me feel like a creeper. I know it's a polish. The fact remains creepy nonetheless. Also, this isn't glitter--well, okay, it's a glitter, but it's HOLO glitter. Surely that makes a difference?), which is absolutely glorious and absolutely put on at the wrong time. One would think that living in Mediterranean weather would allow for regular sunlight, but apparently I have to take that into consideration without assuming that, uh, it'd be sunny every day. I don't know how the girls living under grey skies do it. Kudos to you all for your wonderful pictures!

Anyway, that's just the long way for me to say that the holo in this Pink Glitter just ain't holo enough.

I think it does the polish credit that I can say you see flashes of its holo even under the gloomy weather, and I wish that I could say that the next day (sunny) it was just blinding with holo goodness, but to be honest, I don't know. I put on something else. At the state that it was in, however, it reminded me of Chainmail Charm, which only bodes well. Holo can only get holo-ier, right?

The technicalities: the polish is opaque in two coats, although I think the third coat increased its depth by a little bit and also got rid of the booboos I make due to subpar application skillz. It is smooth to the touch, easy to remove, but quick to chip. I don't know how I feel about that, but Sally Girl lets out minis and they're cheap thrills, so I guess it's fine. :) I really like it, for what it's worth! I--dare I say it?--think this is a work appropriate color under the office, so it'd be nice to have something really surprising in the work-appropriate repertoire. A, um, day to night polish, if you will. :)

Sparkley!

2010-04-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

NOTD feat. two coats of RBL Recycle and two of pa a125, my favorite glitter topcoat to date. It's lovely! And I like how on a dark base the various shades of the glitters really come out. This particular mani is reminiscent of Christmas trees. :)

I've been feeling a little off lately, and I'm afraid it shows in the weird pictures and the most recent postings. I'm really sorry for that. Also, this last pic makes my hands super red, but I think I've fixed all camera issues for now. I hope that things will get better on from here!

BB Couture, Erotic Night

2010-04-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is a horrible picture, but it's the only plain one I have of Erotic Night, so bear with me here! I'm so sorry.

Anywoo, this is a discontinued BB Couture polish and the most perfect blood-clot red jelly that I own. It takes three coats to look the way it does, although one should put on regular topcoat and then proceed to knock their hands gently against virtually anything in the way in order to get that particular texture. There is no VNL, although I did note that adding coats seemed a little bit more difficult in application than the first. This is a polish that will most definitely need thinner after the first few uses!

Anyway, because of all those boo-boos, I decided to cover it up with these:

I used a That's It? rubons in gold stars and topcoat.

Hello!

2010-04-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day! :D

(notd is RBL Recycle, my second favorite polish of ALL TIME. also, sorry about the... really weird color that's happening with my camera lately. I'm trying to fix it!)

OPI Hollywood Blonde

2010-04-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, first things first--this polish is almost impossible to capture on camera.

Secondly, it's gorgeous in a way that I can't get to translate into pixels. I was quite fortunate to run into Hollywood Blonde in my local CVS--they have a rack of OPI polishes, some of which are discontinued and/or black label--and snatched it up because I'd heard that it was essentially a beige Princesses Rule! I LOVE Princesses Rule!, but the warm pink translates to a pale color on the nail and is sparkly-stark on my skintone, so I figured that the warm, champagne version would be way better.

Do you see what I mean about the similarities between this polish and the formerly-swatched Princesses Rule!? (that looks funny.) They have the exact same finish, and it shows; it has a sugar-sprinkled effect in sunlight and a stark textured effect in shade. Both polishes take three coats and still have VNL, although because the polishes are so shiny I don't particularly mind. It is--actually--almost a mannequin hand color, but it probably seems that way because it's sheer and it's difficult to judge because it's sparkly.

Lol my hand looks creepy and dead in here, but please try to ignore that for the quality of shimmer I FINALLY managed to capture. :)

Anyway, I think I need to try this polish a few more times before I decide whether or not it's awesome--but I like it! Definitely a work appropriate color that I could wear to the office, if I ever go to the office.

Pretty Ugly NOTD! :D

2010-04-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Do you guys remember that Blush mini set that I'd reviewed? Remember that yellow one, that I said looked like plague?

I looked at it and decided that the main problem with it was its ridiculous, unbuildable sheerness. I figured that once it became more opaque, it'd look okay! So I threw in some white and mixed it in and hoped for the best, and it turned into... this.

The pictures are slightly inaccurate; the color is a mid-way between a mustard and a green. It is... interesting, to say the least.

Then I said, 'To hell with it,' and threw glitter on top. This is what it looks like.

A close-up of the glitter, which, btw, is pa A125.

The yellow took three coats in order to make opaque, and that's two coats of pa's iridescent, hexagon-shaped glitter interspersed with iridescent microglitter. It's truly something marvelous to behold. I can only imagine that it'd come alive against darks, which I hope to try soon. As it is, this polish glittered like nothing else. It's lovely, and even better in real life. I think I'll be playing a little more with plague--er, yellow--a little more. I've decided to make it a little browner, a little more 'Pea Soup' and a little less 'Pea Soup Horf'.

So, what do you think? Pretty? Fug? Both?

Sally Hansen, Purple Pizazz

2010-04-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

An old NOTD that I'd taken pictures of before the camera fiasco, then never uploaded onto my computer. Man, I've forgotten how gorgeous/cheap/well-applied this is!

Anyway, this is Purple Pizazz, the deep violet jelly that I'd said I had decidedly not bought although I found it. A couple days later, I did, because I have no sense of self-control. On the plus side, it seems to be cooler rather than warmer against Milani Totally Cool (I will do a comparison once they are in the same place: also, Pizazz has pink shimmer while TC has a pink shimmer that turns bronze) and, um, absolutely gorgeous.

Here it is in direct sunlight. This is second-day wear, so please ignore the tipwear!

Aaand from the side, because I can't help myself.

This is four coats, which is generally a little too high-maintenance for me but the color was so pretty and the application so easy that it didn't bother me at all. It's lovely. I really like it. :)

I found my camera! NOTD: LA Girls Rockstar, Punk

2010-04-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

I found my camera! Found the camera! Yaaaay! My swatches are not gone! My blog isn't dead! Everything is Okay!

*ahem* Anyway. Sorry about that.

This is Punk from the LA Girls Rockstar collection, and she is absolutely gorgeous. The images that I have taken seem to indicate that it's a black jelly base with blue microglitter, but I think it's actually a dark blue jelly base with.. yes, electric blue microglitter that is also a duochrome. (I know. What?)

These pictures are, unfortunately, a little bit unsatisfactory. Punk is vibrantly blue. It glints and glistens and sparkles in the sun and in darkness. Moreover, although the oilslick duochrome present in the bottle isn't exactly rainbowrific on the fingernail, it does shift from blue to violet in angles.

This is just about the best picture of the purple flash I could get. I wonder why my camera's colors aren't vivid today... oh well! I have a camera!

Here's some bottle love:

Still a faded picture, hm.

I call this a glitter polish because I've yet to see how this is different from the Emerald Sparkle that I own, which has the same finish. Y'know, other than the color, or the brand, or the duochrome, or the application.

Oh jeebus the application of Punk was ridiculous. This is three coats--two is probably enough, but I wanted to know if three would deepen the color. It does, but after a coat of perfectly good Seche Vite it gave me horrible shrinkage and some of my fingernails are still not dry. It was runnier than I like my polishes to be, although not entirely uncontrollable, and there was also major, major, major cuticle drag.

Note to self: apply either extremely thinly or a little thicker than normal, and use regular topcoat under the SV. I can only imagine that it'd be much easier to maneuver this time around.

Anyway. It's good to be back. :)

I'm not dead.

2010-04-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

Lent is over, and I have a ridiculous amount of polishes (still) to swatch and review for you all, but my camera is missing! It is not in my apartment, nor does it seem to be at my parents' home... which could indicate tragedy: I lost it and some chump is going through a bunch of pictures of fingernails, wondering who the crazy owner of the camera was.

If I find it, I'll start posting asap--I tried taking pictures over the camera phone and it is just NOT okay--and if not, I'll be buying a new camera. Either way, posting will start soon! I hope.

Franken, Static

2010-03-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

Back from Acapulco! Had lots of fun; it is very beautiful there. :)

I'm sure that's not the reason why you're all here, so: I finished a bottle of Barielle Hydrating Ridge-Filler (Goodbye, Ridge-filler; I will miss you D: ), cleaned it out, and decided to franken with it (as per usual). I'd seen a ridiculously beautiful spilled-from-the-bottle image from Polish or Perish's banner contest and thought "hmm." It was a mixture of OPI's Absolutely Alice and Mad as a Hatter.

Sounded like a good idea, so I put in half of each into half of the bottle and ended up with this beauty. Here's how it looks on the nail:

Indoors. A tad green, but there's so much little detail!

Outdoors, direct sunlight.

Side view

Slanted.

This is as SPARKLY as all get-out, and so incredibly, incredibly lovely. It took three coats for full coverage and I did not experience any difficulties in application. I decided to call it static because it reminded me of the multicolored, pixellated mishmash that a screen looks like when it isn't working properly... just incredibly sparkly. I put it on today, since it's the first day since that I've gotten proper sleep after my long trip back (btw, Almondine wore impressively well on my six-day vacation out in Mexico. Also, it was fun to watch it look increasingly paler and paler as I got tanner and tanner), so I can't tell you anything about its wear. I am wearing two thick (and goopy, ugh) coats of Poshe and it is no longer gritty. No shrinkage, either! :D

Did I mention that it looks like multifaceted jewels glistening in the light? Yep. :) I'm not looking forward to removing this thing, though. Maybe it'll just wear like iron and I won't have to for a while? I hope...

Borghese Almondine

2010-03-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Whoo! A new polish! Whoo! End of finals! Whoo! Spring break!

This is quite possibly as un-spring break a polish could possibly get, but y'know what? I love it. Say hello to Borghese Almondine, which is without doubt the strangest polish that I own. It looks like a very elegant cool-toned nude from far off, but its coolness is made wearable by this incredibly secret pink shimmer (yes, it is there--on the nail AND in the bottle) and little tiny black flecks. Grunge had secret shimmer, but no, not black flecks. Almondine is Grunge's undead zombie sister, back from the crypt.

Terrible horrible brushstrokes, right? I'm beginning to wonder whether it's the brush or it's my sleep-deprivation or the caffeine or the stress or the formula or seche (gah, it thickened on me), but this polish was very difficult to apply. I did better on the left hand (total anomaly for me, since I'm left-handed) because I'd decided to apply the polish very, very lightly. It helps. Do that.

You can kind of see the secret shimmer hanging out at the left over there.

Hmm. Is it just me, or is that last picture kinda wonky? These last three pictures, btw, are taken indoors next to the kitchen door, which is why it seems a little stark. The color is true to life when one is indoors, however.

Anyway, I'm going to be off to Acapulco with a couple friends until Thursday. Out of the four polishes that I was allowed to wear (and I figured I'd never actually have the time to paint my nails anyway when I'll probably be doing whatever tourists do in Acapulco), I figured this is the one that wasn't going to clash with everything I wore (I REALLY wanted to wear a coral or a turquoise or a hot tamale red, but they're not in my four.

Speaking of my four, they are currently: 1) Butter London Billy No Mates 2) ChG Emerald Sparkle 3) Borghese Almondine and 4) Sephora Blue Sapphire. I finished both of the OPI minis, using a little of both of them to create two different frankens.

Oh yeah! I have three frankens I want to show you guys! Soon, I hope--two weeks till easter, and then I can swatch again. :)
And oh boy, are there many, many untrieds...

Gradient NOTD

2010-03-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

Haha, I totally did this last week when I had the time and the energy to do it, but here is my first ten-finger gradient manicure!

Want another looksee?

Of course you did.
I used OPI's India Mood for Love as well as Butter London's Billy No Mates. The leftmost pinky is pure India, then I kept adding a drop of grey into a little dish (fine, the lid of a plastic water bottle) and mixed it with an orange stick gradually until I ended up with the dusty grey-pink color on the opposite pinky. The effect is very, very cool when you're holding your hands precisely as shown in the images above. However, once separated:

(This pale hand is like five times more damaged and goopy, I know, but it got really thick really fast. Work quickly, or keep thinner around).

On separate hands, the effect is very subtle. A little too subtle, perhaps? It makes me laugh how the eye perceived a huge distance in color difference between the two thumbs, so I looked like I was wearing hot pink on one hand and dusty pink on another. Nobody could tell what I'd done until I put my fingers together.

Note to self: next time, do separate gradients on both hands.

I've been surprisingly busy lately--want proof? I'm wearing two colors of nail polish right now, and four fingers are massively chipped. I do not yet have time to change it until I finish the final tomorrow morning, and I have a little breathing space while I work on the final essay I'm writing--which is just about half-cooked, but I'd like it to be further developed. I'm a mess. I pat myself on the back when I eat food. I just want this to be over. D:

On the other hand, I've used up both Princesses Rule! And India Mood for Love! And half of Billy No Mates. I've replaced the two (I did say I have to keep using four, hah) with Borghese Almondine and ChG Emerald Sparkle, and I'd love to show swatches soon.

Wish me luck.

Milani Totally Cool

2010-03-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

This is a swatch I'd recorded but never actually captured before my 'I only use four nail polish colors' Lenten insanity. How's that going? Well... other than my one discrepancy (birthday), I haven't deviated from it. Which is nice. :)

My no-buy is shot to hell, though; I think it's safe to say it's not actually happening anymore. For example. Today I went to Ulta to check out whether or not they got the Essence stuff yet. They had. It was nearly empty, which was somewhat frustrating for me because I had put off visiting Ulta for a week--who could say what would have happened if I had gone earlier?

Anyway.

I'm under the impression that there's -quite a few- polish collectors in my area. Anything that the nail board or the bloggers have fixated on for some time is near gone. Example: essence stamping kit. Empty, as were all of the purples and rainbow of colors--the only ones left were a couple of the brights and black and white. The space for Nicole by OPI's 'Imagine If...'. Empty. Any Mad as a Hatter space on any OPI display? Empty. The first thing to go when Opulent Cloud was floating around? Opulent Cloud. Jade is the New Black? Empty.

I couldn't find Purple Pizazz for MONTHS before I found the one sole bottle in Ulta. I also considered myself lucky to have found a full display of Borghese, from which I picked up Stellare Notte and Almondine. I also picked up one of the last two bottles of Essence Pool Party--

And then I dropped everything but the Borghese polishes.

(God I love this bottle pic.)

I dropped Purple Pizzazz cause it reminded me of Totally Cool, which, clearly, I already own. Not entirely, since it was warmer, but I've been trying not to buy polishes that are, at least, kissing cousins. That way lies a dark road from whence none return. Besides, TC is gorgeous--opaque in three coats, admittedly, but beautiful nonetheless. See that depth. The glaring pink shimmer which turns bronze in direct sunlight and at angles.

I'd love to layer this over various other colors to see what they turn into. I would, that is, if I could. I can't. Not yet. Gah.

I miss variety, you guys. :<

And the Winner Is...

2010-03-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, Bellaluna221!

I will be e-mailing you very shortly. : ) Thanks, everyone, for participating! I hope to hold another one of these at 250 followers.

An Apology, Some Nail Art, And Some Giveaway Updates

2010-03-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

I've been working a lot more than I'd intended to this week, including training a new girl. Mostly because she's the new girl and I suffer from Older Sibling Syndrome (i.e., anybody who I am responsible for, I treat as though they don't know how to do anything by themselves), I ended up doing a bunch of the grunt work mostly reserved for the Clean Guy who just happened to take the day off.

While hauling around boxes, grinding coffee, and tossing out trash, I broke three nails.

They weren't badly broken. I figured, hey, I'll just go home, repaint my nails, call it a day, etc. So I did. I didn't re-file them down, or at least smooth out the rough edges so they wouldn't catch on anything, or some sort of logical endeavor that'd help you from exacerbating the condition.

So now I have one badly broken nail, and a couple of other raggedy little fingernails due to bleach. And tears.

Please, please, PLEASE be nice to my current NOTD:

Please ignore the finger frazzle, and that break on that finger...

(Sunlight)

Just don't let it distract you, yeah? D:

that said, this is two coats of billy no mates, with little drops of Indi-a Mood for Love over the nail, swirled by a T-pin. If you like I can make a tutorial over the weekend; it's really not very difficult!

I imagine that using this technique would also be cool after screwing up a French, or a diagonal, or a moon mani, actually. Just blur the edges in a tendril-like manner! Awesome.

Okay, the giveaway updates: I realized that I hadn't really specified the bits and baubles that I'm giving out! Here they are:

Two Pa glitter polishes, and one lilac holographic Sally Girl. Am I awesome? I'm totally awesome.

International readers welcome, just want all the information I ask for two posts below (or here, if you like), etc. etc. etc.

Oh. The China Glaze Outta Bounds and Essie Outrageous Orange do not have pictures yet, sadly, because I left them at my parents' house. I hadn't realized I'd hit 100 followers so soon, so I thought they'd take up less space and would best be left there. I was wrong, clearly, but I'll have them sent to me asap. For what it's worth, Outta Bounds is an emerald green frost/shimmer that has a whole lot of pictures over the internets, and Essie Outrageous Orange looks like a neon but is in truth a very bright and sexy coral jelly.

So, yes! Carry on. : )

First Water Marbling Attempt

2010-03-01T04:09:00.001-08:00

Note to self:

Shade.

I think I need two coats of Princesses Rule! before I cover it up with marbling attempts.

I marbled with Princesses Rule! and Indi-a Mood for Love, in case anybody's curious. I quite like the pattern--there's something weirdly cherry-blossom and kimono-patterned about it, but it needs to be more opaque to be impressive.

It's my second day wearing this mani, and I still have good wear, by the way.

Giveaway post below! :)

WHOO! 100 followers!

2010-02-28T14:13:00.000-08:00

Yaaaaaaaay~ *confetti*

Okay, to celebrate Lemming Monster's first 100 follower giveaway! I'm so surprised by this, really. I started this blog because I'd pretty much done everything but put up a blog, and I'd never intended to make it anything other than just a record for myself. I'm glad you guys come around--it means that in some way, I'm helpful. Or that I give you lemmings. Whatever the case, I'm touched. <3

So! Down to business:

One lucky winner of my giveaway will receive
1) The blush jelly set that I spent ages talking about
2) Essie Outrageous Orange
3) China Glaze Outta Bounds
4) Nubar NuNails Nail Strengthener
And a couple of minis and bits and pieces that I find appropriate.

Yes, they are all colors! (Except the NuNails.) Colors are all I feel like wearing lately; I'm sick of winter humdrums. Also, my four nail polish colors I'm allowed for Lent. Gah. You get to wear them for me.

(Sorry, guys, pictures will come up later. Okay, okay, I have one:)

You have until March 9th, 2010 at 12 PM to enter the giveaway.

In order to enter, you:
1. Must be a follower.
2. Must leave a comment below with your e-mail address. I need to contact y'all somehow.

That's it! Easy, right?

Good luck. :)

Psssst! Hey, you!

2010-02-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

I am six followers away from hosting my first giveaway. Six. It will be epic. I promise. It's taking up quite a bit of space on my bookshelf, so please let me get rid of these before I swatch them or decide to keep backups, or something!

OPI Mad as a Hatter

2010-02-25T10:41:00.000-08:00

It's my birthday!

So I get to wear whatever polish I want. Because it is, after all, a birthday and because I'll be watching Kooza today (and so I'm not completely behind on the times), I decided to wear OPI Mad as a Hatter over my previous manicure, Butter London's Billy No Mates.

And then this happened:

It just looked really good alternating like that. :)

MAAH (if you didn't know) is a limited edition OPI from the Alice in Wonderland promotion series. It's a clear polish diffused with multicolored glitter--primarily silver and purple, with green, orange, and gold mixed in, I think. It's not ridiculously shiny. I own more glitters that are far more sparkly than this one, but I enjoy it. I think part of the reason why it looks that way is because the glint given off by the polish is entirely silver... not multi-colored.

One blurry, one side-clear: that was about as non-insane as my camera went when it was MAAH.

It's opaque in three thin coats, two if the way you coat is slightly thicker. I also got better glitter distribution the flatter I laid the brush against the nail. Application is... okay, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not too wild about the OPI pro-wide brush, but my nails are insanely tiny.

I like how from far off, it looks like I've used some kind of silver-purple against Billy No Mates (a polish I like the more I use it... funny, cause I hated its guts before but I quite like it now). : )

Admittedly, it also reminds me of the paper topic that I'm writing about right now, which is due tomorrow...

Oh, one last thing: two coats of topcoat for good gloss. Otherwise, your polish remains gritty.

Sephora, Blue Sapphire

2010-02-24T02:48:00.000-08:00

I wasn't originally going to post today, but it occurred to me that posting a picture of an NOTD I wore maybe five days ago would be a nice break from all the stuff I'm doing lately. Luckily I've managed to finish some kind of coherent outline of a paper due Friday, but I still have a bunch of other things to do. I don't want to think about them yet.

You've seen an accent-finger image of this, but not a full swatch. I bought it on a whim because I'm crazy-obsessed with night sky polishes (please please please please please OH PLEASE may I have Jessica Twilight? Or Essie SSN. Or Chanel Ciel de Nuit. or Maybelline twinkle twinkle. Or. Or. Or. etc.) so I settled with this one. Five dollars is a lot for a mini, by the way--good for the polish, because I quite like it anyway. This picture was two coats, in the sun.

Shade.

In truth it looks like a sparser version of my franken, which was chock-full of assorted silver glitter (and, by the way, for some reason all the glitter disintegrated. This scares me.) but had a similar layering effect, where the glitter that's resting on top of a coat looks silver and all the rest become progressively bluer. It adds depth, which I like. I also liked the brush, which is flat and slightly stiffer than most nail polish brushes, and thus very very easy to control. I'm not fond of the squareness of its shape, but it bends to curve easily and I had no application problems.

Here's a thumb shot. It shows my interest in this color best, I think. :)

Blue Sapphire is one of the four polishes I'm allowing myself to use until Easter, but I imagine that it'll disappear quite soon--two coats was somewhat streaky (you can see the color disparity in the first picture). It needs three... once I put it on again (which will be soon) I'll take pictures of the three-coater and make comparisons.

: )

Ciao.

LA Girls Rockstar, Party Animal, and some... obstacles.

2010-02-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, happy Ash Wednesday!

So I had like two other manicures planned for the Venus Creatures thingie I was doing, but never did them. And I had a Mardi Gras manicure, and never actually took pictures of that, either. I'm sorry, guys. Truly I am.

(Shade.)

Today's NOTD is ridiculously difficult to capture: Party Animal is a deep dark merlot-colored jelly with what I want to say is pink microglitter, but is actually probably silver encased in the polish. Whatever, it's pretty. XD It's what I wanted my franken to be, and I love how understated and elegant it is. It takes two coats.

(closer up.)

Please click for a better idea of what the polish looks like, etc.

(with slow-synchro flash, outdoors, in sunlight)

Far off. You can't really see the glitz in this picture, but it's there--it flashes in sunlight, but looks like a straight-up vampy jelly indoors.

I like it, it applies perfectly, it's pretty, etc., but I do have one complaint.

I wore this right before I went to bed, woke up, took a shower, and my thumbnail chipped. I am also already getting tipwear--NOT shrinkage--from wearing this polish. It's been less than a day. Luckily I spend quite a bit of time on nail maintenance and I polish frequently, but I imagine that this would be the primary reason why most people wouldn't find Party Animal too awesome. D:

That said, I have basically two swatches up for you before I do something um, interesting. For Lent I gave up my varieties of nail polish. During the forty days up till Easter, birthday excepted, I am to use four colors only. No exceptions. Except my birthday.

Since I do have a blog to maintain, I'm expecting to throw in a LOT of nail art. A LOT. (If I don't, you have every right to yell at me.) Also, what do you think? Should frankening with the four bottles be allowed, or no?

<3 till next time!

Venus Creatures NOTD: Roxana

2010-02-11T15:23:00.000-08:00

"I think I may say now that I lived like a queen, or if you will have me confess that my condition still had the reproach of a whore, I may say, I was sure, the queen of whores....

... for no woman was ever more valued or more caressed by a person of such quality, only in the station of a mistress.

I had, indeed, one deficiency which women in such circumstances seldom are chargeable with, namely, I craved nothing of him."

(A more traditional Valentine's Day NOTD this time around: two coats each of OPI Indi-a Mood for Love, index and ring garnished with ChG Five Golden Rings, and ring with a gold lace rubon. All of them are lovely polishes <3)

Venus Creatures NOTD: Helena

2010-02-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

And therefore is love said to be a child

Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.

(I.i.234-241)

This is two coats of Blind Love. I heart it so bad; it's a wonderfully shiny not-silver-nor-gold. Great application. Good wear: this is photographed on two and a half days, really. :) I did ding the manicure in various places, though. Sorry about that.

And I promise this is the only boring manicure out of the ones I've planned!