Piggy Polish, Poet-Tree

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.

pa A45

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.

Milani, Tropical Fiesta and Glittur!

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:

pa A86 and a question. . .

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

... 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.

Pretty Ugly NOTD! :D

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?