OPI Quarter of a Century (Cent-Cherry) and A Franken

I have an old bottle of E.L.F. nail polish that I've worn many times, blogged a few times and now have finalized (is any franken ever final) a combo that I love.

E.L.F red, medium red I think, has been thinned - dark red now that I think about it - and now has some green shimmer added:

The delicate green shimmer was harvested from China Glaze On The Rocks and a Max Factor from the Dollar Tree.

Not bad, needs to be enlarged to really see. 

I have about three coats on, they're over a buff pink, and ridge lines show through.

Bummer.

Next I pulled out a polish I think I got in a blog sale. It's pretty great.

Quarter of a Cent-Cherry...so painful I can barely type it! ;D

Stunning deep red. It's a true deep black cherry red. Not sure what collection - I'm guessing some 25th anniversary one on OPI's part.

There's no getting around it: it's a great basic that really should be in everyone's collection. 

Plus it always a perfect autumn red without feeling like a massively warm autumn shade. 

So, here it is together!

Indeed! A great combo!

My topper warms it up a little more, but the franken needs a great base!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Three Morgan Taylor Polishes

Morgan Taylor polishes are pretty new to me.

I found out about them on the Makeup Alley nail board. Immediately I googled and found NailTechSupply.com (not affiliated) and ordered four bottles.

I picked a foil and three glitters. Thought I'd save the foil and dive into the glitters.

First off, pretty nice bottle design and a fresh color scheme of charcoal gray. 

Quick note: No top coats, just letting the finish and glitter do the talking. 

Also: all are three coats.

Enough kibbitzing, let's do the glitters!

J'Adore My Mani

J'adore! J'ADORE!

Dense micro and small glitter bomb in shades of silver and raspberry pink glitter. The base is a deep magenta pink and it is very nearly a two coater. 

Enlarge and enjoy!

Let Them Eat Cake

Here in it's more blue than it really is. But this photo shows the tiny green, amber and cyan blue glitters that make this a really complex polish. It also has a pink and purple as it's main shades, but doesn't feel monochromatic at all.

Here's another photo that shows a better shot of the color, though it is washed out:

This is with one light on it. 

Make a Statement (color shifting glitter)

So much a win I can't even begin to describe it. This one shifts from a blurple into a warmer true purple. Stunning.

It's a dense fairly complex glitter, too. In some light it looks like this fairy tale blue, then it shifts into a gray and magenta glitter mix. At the very edges of the shift you can even see amber. Werk!

More:

Tiny bit of a color shift, not as pronounced as I wished I could get. My camera sees a lot of purple as blue, but you can see it a lot more here than the previous photo.

The online etailer I purchased them at had them at $4.25 a bottle with $8 (!!!) shipping. I loved the service and wish they had even more polishes because I'd dump Transdesign like an arrogant boyfriend!

I think this is a brand that is worthy of some good word of mouth. If you like glitter, you will enjoy these three. 

Peruse the MorganTaylorLacquer.com website, it's got a fun trade show promo video and some "spilled polish" color wheels that are a lot of fun, if not the most totally color accurate. Normally I don't really suggest that, most websites are cumbersome with flash or some bad "try a color" thing that helps me about 0% compared to blog photos, so this is an nice change of pace.

Again to reiterate: not affiliated with the brand. I bought these online.

At $4.25 a bottle these are a decent price. A true notch above any of my drugstore polishes, and a very nice notch above several some salon brands, I have to say one thing: I'll be adding more to my collection. 

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal.

Unlabeled!

Kind of an interactive post:

This has no bottom label.

It came in a hodge podge Color Club set that had some good colors adn this baby was in it.
It's a metallic shimmer, with some hint of a chrome feel, but also some brushstrokes, too.

What color is it?

I've poked around the CC site, I've looked on the beauty etailer sites and really can't tell at all.


Lovely two coater, though I am partial to the Color Club formula as a whole - not always perfect, but in this case, very nice!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Raining on a Snow Storm

Tonight a "pacific northwest prairie" storm rolls through. Lightening and thunder are dancing all around my neighborhood.

The rain scent lingers for hours in the air, long before the wind rushes the thunder storm into place like actors before a curtain rise.
Then the release of heavy rain into the soft dry fields of harvested wheat, lentils, garbanzos and other things that love the high and the dry that is summer in this part of the country.

Reminds me that summer is beginning to pick up its things and get ready to leave.

I tried on Smitten Polish Winter is Coming because I love white polishes with glitter mixed into them.

I love the bright sky blue glitter, feels like you are on a mountain top! The micro sized blue glitter sprinkled throughout also adds to the depth.

This is four coats. I could have probably done a two coater over a white, but I felt like four was the perfect number. I also think three would do you, too.

Dried pretty well, for a white, and wore extremely nicely as well.

The following day I popped on China Glaze Rain Storm

Two coats of Rain Storm.

It is, alone, a much maligned sheer polish with a tiny blue glitter. It really is quite a nice layering polish!
I wore it alone and it looked like a hard candy shell, which wasn't bad but it took a solid five coats to do much of anything of any interest.
New life as a layering polish, though!

Here are the bottles:

The flash brings out the blue glitter in ChG Rain Storm.

Now, as I finish writing this, the rain is gone, moving north as it does it will eventually run up against the Bitterroots and, not an equal match to those hearty mountains, become a toothless little rain shower.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Squeezing The Last Juice Out of Summer

Milani Just Juicy, yet another Dollar Tree find in the realm of discontinued nail polishes.

This is a chameleon of a polish.

In some light it looks really orange, in other light it looks like Campbell's Tomato Soup.

Sunshine shot!

This is a bit of a transparent polish, but it was a pretty easy one to work with. It has a gorgeous gold shimmer that really pops.

When the shimmer is more demure, it really looks almost reddish coral, indoors it's almost pink tinged. 

Not entirely sure this is a great polish, but it's pretty. 

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Orly Not So Ugly!

Orly Pretty-Ugly from Orly's summer 2013 Mash Up collection.

Delicious minty pale blue shimmer in a watery translucent base.

Three coats.

The formula was tight, it also dried pretty well for as many coats. I kind of adore it.

Here's a matchy matchy moment:

(iPhone photo)

There is an airy luminous quality about this polish, it makes it very fresh to my eye.

It's not so earthbound as a creme and not at all frosty. Maybe the word that comes to mind is "frothy"

Pretty great color!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

p.s. I don't mind the new Orly logo, but I have to admit, I did like the stylized "O" instead of this rather blah san serif font. Ah well! 

Shine on You Little Lacquer Shine, You!

A few years ago Ross had 5 packs of mini Sally Hansen Lacquer Shines (as well as some other lines), I picked up a few. It's a mixed bag there were about 4-5 of these little mini sets, I enjoyed trying the colors, but the formula is always a bit of work.

Many are glass fleck and very much in the top coat category. I have moved some along, ignored others, blogged one or two. I may have even blogged this one, but I can't find it in the some 500 odd posts, so I'll throw this one down again.

Over white this bright blue shows it's pretty shimmer. It's not a heavy shimmer, but not secret shimmer.
Like a friendly summer day.
Three coats, unremarkable formula, however. A quick dry top coat helped. I feel the old SH white base only added to the misery of slow dry time.


Here it trying to see the shimmer shift. Above is a pair of bright lights, below is a single Verilux light.

Pretty shift into a pink shimmer, but it took a lot of work to get it to emerge.

Here is is over black:

Milky and no fun, but you can see the color shift.

This isn't a very strong change, but it's there, vaguely. I think this polish is better served by not putting it over black and just wearing it plain, let it shine on its own merit.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Old New York Color and Old Sally Hansen Have a Party

I have to admit I've given short shrift to old New York Colors that were had from the Dollar Tree.

Many were sheer. Some I've unloaded.

It is a blast to find a really great use for those sheer ones!

Here's a layering that basically was a 5 layer sandwich of NYC 221 and Sally Hansen Razzle.

Please excuse the staining causing the dark band that shows up below the whites of my nails. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I adore this combo. I've got to say this was a blast to wear. Even though it was a lot of coats, it was worth it. Payoff was nice.

Sally Hansen was particularly fussy, but patience and some heat from my Verilux lamp and it was ready for the next layer.

Razzle isn't on eBay, but it's also in the throws of old age: some of the glitter is beginning to disintegrate. There is a bit of a milkiness in the glitter. Nothing big, but the beginning of the end. Time to start wearing The Hell out of it.

NYC 221 isn't on eBay either. It's a sheer shimmer. Shimmer jelly =  Shelly? Seriously, there are gorgeous color that isn't completely uncommon, there is probably a jelly out there.

NYC has been a solid beauty of a polish, just sheer. I can't really find it in my heart to dump it, it's a great hot magenta pink. It's also in that cute square bottle!

Meanwhile this combo shows up! Thanks to the last couple of years discovery of layering glitter under sheers as a nail polish phenomenon. Nice!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!