Contrary Polish Feel The Spark (May 2017 PPU)

Hello everyone! A quick post for you guys today. 

The best thing about the Polish Pickup each month is that you get to try out new indie brands without having to worry about crazy fast restocks and shipping costs. I have a number of new brands that I've been able to get to know this way and today's is one of them. This is Contrary Polish Feel The Spark from the May 2017 PPU. The theme was science. I've mentioned I love fuschia shades once or twice before. This definitely falls into that category and I love the touch of holo and shimmer this polish has. 

I stamped with China Glaze Emotion and an image from my PUEEN Encore set of plates a couple of days later.

I am loving each month's Polish Pickup so much! This current month is themed the 90's and it's going on right now. So many great polishes available! To be informed of the polishes available each month and to be made aware of when the preorder window is each month, join the Polish Pickup facebook group. 

Polished for Days Grey Opal

Hi everyone! Apparently I've been wearing a lot of Polished for Days polishes lately because here is another one that I wore a few weeks back. This is another one of the polishes I purchased from the January 2018 Polish Pickup. The theme that month had been Crystals & Gemstones.

This polish is described as a light grey base with orange to green flakes, orange to green micro shimmer flakes, scattered bright aqua flakes and holographic flakes. Jenna had obviously used a grey opal as her inspiration. 

This is one of those polishes that is really amazing in pictures, in the bottle and on a lot of other people. Just looking at these pictures I'm marveling at the complexity and beauty of the polish. I just didn't like it on me. It was the added coolness of the silver holographic flakes maybe but it seemed to fall a little flat to my eyes. Thankfully, I was able to destash it pretty quickly to someone who is sure to love it much more than I! I certainly do love the PFD formula though. This polish lasted several days on my nails with minimal tip wear and the only reason I changed it because I felt like a color change. I have many more Polished for Days colors to try out that I can already tell I'm going to love!

Again, thanks for looking and see you next time!

Polished For Days Rudolph

Hi folks! How is everyone doing? Having moved to the Pacific Northwest, for the first time since I moved to the US, I get to experience much milder winters than I used to in the Midwest. I am seeing pictures of my friends and family battling ice and snow storms right now and I feel so bad for them, and so happy for me! A couple of months ago, I also got a chance to go to New Mexico for a couple of days and did some hiking there. I knew I had to bring something flashy like Polished For Days Rudolph with me to capitalize on aallll that sunshine!

Rudolph was one of the holiday polishes from 2017, one of the Reindeer Games collection. I think I ended up getting most of the polishes from that collection and they are all so beautiful. Rudolph is a multichrome polish loaded with holo flakes that you can see in the shade picture down a couple of pictures below. It's officially described as having a glowing bright red base with a copper-green-red shifting shimmer and holographic flakes. In the rest of pictures below, I am trying to show you the shift in the colors of the shimmer as I angles my nails in the sun. 

Although the hike itself was amazing as we went through the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, there were plenty of moments where you would have found me marveling at my nails and taking pictures of them instead of looking around like everyone else was!

Thanks for visiting and reading my little blog. See you next time!

Tonic Polish Promise Of Spring

Hi folks! How is everyone!! I had a blast this past weekend. I was away at a bachelorette weekend for a cousin. It was a solo trip for me and although I missed my family quite a bit, it was really nice to have a couple of days to just relax and have fun with a bunch of cool women.

The polish I want to show you today was part of a limited edition collaboration with Femme Fatale last year. Each maker did two polishes and this is one of Tonic's contributions. It's called Promise of Spring. It's a beautiful bright pale green multichrome that shifts to a metallic greenish yellow on one end and a cool blue color on the other with a holographic finish. It looks amazing in pictures guys but I didn't like it much on my nails on its own. Maybe it's that it just didn't suit my skin tone very well but it looked kind of harsh to me. Needless to say, it's one of the polishes I made an effort to destash because someone out there wanted it more and would wear it better. 

In the pictures above, you can see the blue at the edges of the nail. In an effort to make it more pleasing to me, I took that color and stamped with an open swirly pattern. I did like this quite a bit more. I love brocaded patterns like these. 

I really do love the way this looks. I will have to remember that stamping does help improve my outlook on polishes that I don't like by themselves. Hope you guys enjoyed the post. Until next time!!

Polished For Days Glacier

Hi guys!!
I don't know how many of you are aware of a box called For The Love Of Polish but I have been getting it for a few months now and it is awesome!! There are two regular makers and the third is always a guest. Polished for Days has been a regular maker for a while and the other one used to be Illyrian Polish but she just handed over the reins to Pahlish. I have always been seriously impressed with the polishes and I am super excited every month to see what they come up with.

The polish I am going to show you today is by Polished For Days called Glacier and it's from the FTLOP box from January 2018.

I've realized I'm not a huge fan of pale holographic polishes as previously seen in this post. I was apprehensive getting this polish in the box but I ended up loving it!

Glacier is described as an icy blue linear holographic polish with micro holographic flakes and copper to red to green shifting shimmer. Perhaps it's the blue base color or perhaps it's the shifting shimmer but I thought this really worked for me. I loved wearing this in all lights but especially in sunlight.

I could post so many more pictures of this but I'm going to stop here. That's it for now! Check out For the Love of Polish on Facebook. They sell the beginning of each month and it's a preorder for a few days. I have many more beautiful polishes coming up in the future so thanks for looking and see you again, I hope!

Tonic Polish Coco on Canal Street

Hello everyone!

Another Tonic Polish for you today. This one was a limited edition and it was I think offered exclusively through Color4Nails as part of an NYC duo. It's not your average red. It's has a touch of holo and a touch of duochrome taking it from a almost fushia to hints of orange at the edges. Hopefully the pictures below can show you all the variations!

Alright, I don't feel very talky today so that's pretty much it! I entertained the thought of stamping over it while I wore it but I didn't have time/was too lazy. Next time!

Anchor & Heart You Are My Home

Hi everyone!
Back to the indies we go! This one is a new to me brand and I just bought the collection of polishes a few weeks ago so this is really really current! Today, I am going to show you guys Anchor & Heart You Are My Home. It's from the Through The Stones Collection. I think it's based on The Outlander series. All the polishes are really beautiful multichrome polishes.

The above pictures were taken above during a cloudy afternoon. This polish has a green base and shifts from turquoise to blue to purple. The purple was not seen as much unless I viewed my nails at an extreme angle. The polish also had holographic microglitter that gave it a bit of a bumpy appearance but with topcoat, it was very smooth to the touch. The pictures below were taken with strong indoor lighting.

I really enjoyed wearing this. I'll be keeping my eye out for more collections from Anchor & Heart in the future.

Color Club Date With Destiny

Hello hello! I'm back with another polish for you and this time it's a mainstream! I'm sure it's still available in various places online. This is Color Club Date With Destiny. It's a holographic polish but the holographic-ness of it is not as strong as a lot of the indie holos I've seen lately. It's still a delicately pretty polish with a light lavender base. I thought it would be a perfect canvas for a little stamping, which I had the time for and hadn't done in a long time. The image is from the Bundle Monster plate BM 310. The polish used to stamp was China Glaze Harmony, which is from the Romantique collection. All of them make good stamping polishes.

The picture below is in the shade and the one below that was back in sunlight. 

Thanks for looking! See you next time. 

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Purple is one of my two favorite colors. That and teal. A vibrant purple or a mysterious teal really make me happy. When I first started collecting nail polish, I really had a disproportionate amount of purple until I started making a conscious effort to branch out. I like other colors and I didn't want to get in a rut. That being said, I think my collection is still disproportionately variations of purple and teal.

Today's polish is a beautiful purple holo by Emily de Molly called Crestfallen. This is an opaque polish that is a very vibrant shade of purple and a prominent holographic finish. It also has small red microglitter/shimmer that give it a very warm flash, which I loved.

Again, with the weather being the way it is, I was unable to take good pictures of this outside in the sun so I have some indoor desk lamp pictures and one from my family room with has some bright ceiling lights. 

There it is, my best photos of a polish that looked even better in real life. Until next time!

MDJ Creations Da Vinci

Hi guys! Today's post is going to be a short one. I didn't get the best pictures of this one so I only have one picture to show you. This is MDJ Creations Da Vinci. I bought this several months ago along with a few others but this is the one that drove me to make the purchase at all. Also, I can't believe I'm saying this, but, this is currently available!! I feel like I'm always posting about nail polish that is super old or limited edition but this is in the Etsy shop now, people. So, if you want it, you can get it!

It's described as a teal base with flakies and holo glitter. I'm not sure if you can see the holo glitter well but the flakies were mesmerizing. They are chrome flakies with a multitude of colors in their shift. I think I have two coats here, which may be why it looks a little lighter than the website swatch photo. It has a partner polish called Michelangelo which is flakies in a creamy lighter colored base. I did get that one as well and I'm looking forward to wearing it. I'm happy I ventured to buy from this maker. If I had the budget, I would be buying more. She looks like she has some very interesting polishes in her Etsy store. 

Short post today. See you next time!!

Polished For Days Anemone

Hello everyone!

I’m back with another indie polish that I’m loving. I have not posted about their brand before. I first noticed them when I started buying the For The Love Of Polish box from their website. Then I started browsing the other polishes offered and really loved a bunch of them. The brand is Polished For Days and the polish is Anemone.

This is from the June 2017 FTLOP box. According to the description on the original swatch post by DeLicious Nails, this polish is made up of a purple holographic base with bronze and rose gold flakes, sterling silver flakes, holo flakes, and green/gold/blue chrome flakes. Now that I know all of that is in there, I can pick them out. Otherwise, it looks like a lovely sparkly holographic chrome flake polish in a pale lavender color. As with all these polishes, it comes alive in directed light, especially sunlight. In the shade, it’s still lovely but sedate.

I’ll post a few more pictures in different lighting. What I also discovered with this polish is that the formula for this was amazing. I applied two coats with no difficulty at all. It dries smooth and even. Soon after I applied the polish but before the topcoat, I had to suddenly take care of removing and washing my son’s sheets due to a vomiting incident and I was convinced I would have to redo my nails. I only ended up having to fix the tips of a couple of them. It dried so fast and held on really well.

I really hope indie polish never goes away. I don't think it will. I can't believe the breadth of creativity of all these makers with their polish creations. Now with these curated and themed boxes, special Facebook group offerings, special limited editions like the Polish Pickup monthly polishses, I keep finding new brands and finishes and it's nuts! I wish I could own them all!