Model City Polish October Sunset with Enchanted Polish To Die For

Model City Polish recently released her autumn collection called Ode to a Southern Holo. There are 8 beautiful soft holo shades including this one, a purple aptly named October Sunset. The holo gives a golden glow, and there is a blue flash in the polish as well. Both of these effects really capture the lucent qualities of the western sky as the sun is setting.

 I paired it with To Die For from Enchanted Polish as an accent on my ring finger. It is a stunning mix of holographic glitters.

Sadly, the sun refused to come out while I was wearing this polish so the holo didn't have much of a chance to show off. However, even in direct sunlight the holo is subdued, like the prism you see in a gentle mist of water. These pictures were taken on the second day so there is some slight tip wear. There is also a bit of nail trying to lift free of my middle nail so I foresee a length chop in my near future.

two coats October Sunset

one coat To Die For (ring only)

HK Girl topcoat

October Sunset, like all the holos in the collection, is also beautiful mattified. 

Doesn't that look as soft as a kitten's whiskers? Swoon!

You can get Model City Polish products at her Etsy store. Follow Nina on Facebook for special offers and sneak peeks at upcoming collections as well!

CrowsToes Indian Summer

I recently received some polishes from the CrowsToes Better Late Than Never Fall 2013 collection. There are many beautiful polishes in it, but Indian Summer is a standout for me because I am a sucker for a nice duochrome and the colors in this one are exquisite. The colors morph from a blurple through purple and burgundy to ruby and orange at the far edge of the range. Shifting your fingertips is like watching twilight fall.

I was hooked at the first coat!

I really don't know that I can say anything that will be more eloquent than the pictures themselves, so I will just let you see the magic:

The polish has a stunning "lit from within" quality to it. The colors dance at the edge of perception at times, especially toward the violet range of the spectrum.

 I am in awe of this polish. It was very slightly on the thick side but posed no challenges in application. It is mercurial and captivating and deserving of a spot in any collection. I can't stop staring at my nails!

Indian Summer is a popular color but Overall Beauty is planning on doing a restock later this month and you can sign up to be notified when it is available for sale. You can find out more about Lauri's other polishes and upcoming collections on her Facebook page.

Model City Polish Dipping Chocolate and Autumn Jubilee

Today is the autumnal equinox and I have some polishes from Model City Polish that are getting me in the mood for fall. The glitter, Autumn Jubilee, is a limited edition polish but is currently still available in Nina's etsy shop along with her non-LE Halloween trio of scented glitters which are definitely worth checking out. But first, let's look at Dipping Chocolate on its own. This is a beautiful brown holographic polish.

Thumbhancement to show the soft glow that the holo particles give.

Check out the shine! This is with no topcoat.

 Autumn Jubilee is a clear base with red, gold, orange, green and brown glitter - a forest's worth of fall foliage contained in a single bottle.

Sadly, my glitter application skills leave a bit to be desired so I have some thin patches on my first two fingers - yet again, I ask that you blame the blogger and not the polish.

The glitters shine very brightly, particularly in low light when the Dipping Chocolate base becomes more subdued. 

Dipping Chocolate is currently sold out but the Model City Polish etsy shop is being restocked on Saturday (September 28th) and it will be available then along with a new line of beautiful holos that she has been previewing on her Facebook page.

Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange

Oh Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange, why must you make it so hard for me to love you? You have so much to recommend you: a beautiful peachy color with loads of golden shimmer and teeny tiny glitters, a rose scent, and an absolutely adorable ball gown bottle design. But alas, I just don't know if it's going to work out between us. First, we have to deal with the feeling I have of being deceived by your flower-bedecked box. It is a big box, bigger then those of most of my other polishes, yet when we look closely, we see that you actually only hold 8mL rather than the 15mL of most full size polishes. And since you sport a $15 price tag, that makes you a pricier polish than my Chanel. Tell me, Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange, are you worth it? 

Well, let's try to move past that. I suppose I shoulder some of the blame for not looking more closely at your box after all. Let's look at your color. You are a delicate orange color and your golden shimmer is easily visible in low light and explodes into luminous glory in sunlight. Unfortunately, you are quite sheer, my dear. Even at 3 coats, there is significant VNL going on. And to be frank, your drying time leaves a bit to be desired as well, and you dinged on me after several hours. 

And Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange - can we talk about your scent? It's not that it's a *bad* scent, not exactly. But neither is it rose. At best, it could be described as "sweet and vaguely rose-like". It is also rather strong. My cats disapproved. I'd be careful, Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange. I wouldn't put it past those little monsters to "accidentally" push you off the counter as they walk by. Stay away from edges, is all I'm saying.

I think we can make this relationship work if we try hard enough. Undies would take care of the VNL issue and also help minimize the rate at which you get used up. I can't deny your beauty, both with respect to color and that ball gown bottle of yours (although just between you and me, I can't quite get the image of dish soap out of my mind when I look at your top). But there are so many other polishes out there that aren't quite as high maintainence as you, and I don't know that we wouldn't both be better off with someone else. I'm sorry, Anna Sui Nail Color in 602 Coral Orange. It's not me, it's you.

Swatch Spam

I apologize for the lack of activity here. I had a respiratory bug that knocked me for a loop and between a week of barely being able to move and a week of trying to catch up on all of the work that had piled up, blogging lost out. I am still digging myself out but I hope to have some new polish to share with your soon. Until then, here are some miscellaneous swatches I have done in the not too distant past.

This photo is of the manicure that I did for my birthday last week. It is Enchanted Polish's Ballerina Sprinkles with an accent nail of Pretty & Polished's Wherever You Go, I Virgo. I was looking high and low for a bottle of the latter polish to be able to wear for my birthday and finally lucked into one.

Next up is another Enchanted Polish, this time Stay Classy, San Diego. I used Enchanted's Flamingo Freckles as an accent but I think it is a little too understated even for me.

Finally I have a manicure for which I went back to an ancient but beloved polish. This is the one that started my polish obsession many, many moons ago. It bears the unwieldy name of Sally Hansen Magical Nail Makeup in Fairy Dust Pink but oh, is it lovely! 

I realize the picture is rather dark but I just love how the holo glows here. 

an End It Movement manicure featuring emerald & ash Road Trip polish

I follow the Indigo Bananas Facebook page and recently Andrea posted about a giveaway being hosted by the blog Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom for which she had donated a beautiful polish. The giveaway is to help raise awareness about the End It Movement which seeks to end slavery worldwide, including the human trafficking and slavery that is happening right here, right now, in the US. As soon as I read about the giveaway, I knew that I wanted to participate. The colors of the polishes in the giveaway are red and black (the colors of the End It campaign) and emerald & ash nail lacquer recently came out with a polish collection that included two colors I thought would be perfect. The Road Trip collection is a set of unique textured polishes that incorporate silica particles similar to those used in actual road signs to make them glow. The texture is smoother than most other textured polishes but still has a lot of visual interest, and the polishes have the added bonus of glowing under black light. Bike Lane is an asphalt black color and California Stop is stop sign red.

Unfortunately for me, when I went to grab the polishes to do my manicure, I had difficulty finding Bike Lane. After a fruitless search lasting several minutes, I realized why. I had not actually *purchased* Bike Lane. Derp! I had picked up the white color, Five Over, instead. Since I am not the kind of gal to let cold hard reality interfere with my plans, I decided to work around that little problem by using Five Over as a base for the texture and topped it with a mixture of Five Over and Wet'n'Wild Black Creme to give the black background color I wanted for the mani. I then used a nail art brush to add the red X using California Stop. This yielded (snerk) a dark grey base rather than the literal pitch black that Bike Lane would have been. I also lost some of the texture and shine I would have had from using just the e&a color but I think enough was retained that it was an acceptable compromise. 

So there you have it. Please go read Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom's blog post to learn more and to enter her giveaway. It is far too easy to turn a blind eye to the fact that human beings are suffering and being treated as commodities in this supposedly enlightened day and age.

The emerald & ash Road Trip collection can be purchased on their website.

Indigo Bananas Hallucinate

Let's take a look at another of the Endless Summer Collection from Indigo Bananas. This polish is Hallucinate and it is simply amazing. Andrea describes it as a bronze metallic with green shimmer that shifts from bronze through pink and copper. It shows a great range of color change for me and was another polish that had me flinging my hands wildly all over the place to admire it.

But first, some unfortunate business must be attended to. I am issuing a Cuticle Alert for the remainder of this post. Conditions are favorable for cuticle viewing discomfort and the ick factor may be high. Take all appropriate precautions. Also, VNL doesn't bother me much so I am only wearing two thin coats here. Andrea recommends three thin coats on her shop listing and that would certainly eliminate the VNL if it offends your sensibilities. Blame the blogger not the polish.

Okay, with that behind us, let's get ready to take this polish through its paces! We start off with a relatively sedate look at the more neutral side of this polish: some gold peeks through, a bit of pink.

Let's bump that gold up a little and see what we get, shall we?

Now, ramp up the holo and watch those rainbows dance:

my knees are getting a little weak here...

Shall we push it a little further and check out the bronze action this bad boy can provide?

oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

Can I maybe see that copper in action?

Now watch what happens when we turn down the lights: 

hello dreamy, gleamy, and mysterious!

Remember that green shimmer I mentioned earlier? 

BAM!

Does this polish rock or what? The color play is all over the place. It is complex and beautiful and utterly amazeballs. It is also on-trend with the olive/bronze tones that are supposedly going to be big this autumn. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had purchased the entire Endless Summer collection. I believe this may be my favorite color of the bunch! If you like it as much as I do, head on over to the Indigo Bananas Etsy shop and grab a bottle of your own.

Indigo Bananas Dream A Little Dream

Today I have polish for you from the new Endless Summer Collection from Indigo Bananas. As a huge fan of both the Sandman comic series and holographic multichromatic polishes, I had to pick up the entire set and I am thrilled with all of them. As usual, I purchased these myself and my opinions are my own unbiased thoughts. I am starting off with Dream A Little Dream, a pink polish with blue shimmer that shifts from a reddish orange through red violet.

In indirect light the polish is a soft medium pink

The sparkles come out to play in sunlight (forgive the errant cat hair)

 Here you can see the shift toward the salmon side of things

 

and here it leans violet

Since my job requires "modest" polish colors, it is always nice to find a work appropriate color that has enough color play to be interesting and fun for me to wear. Indigo Bananas is one of my favorite Indie brands and this polish was as easy to apply and wear as all her others. You can find Andrea's polish creations including all of the Endless Summer Collection at her Etsy stop.

Zoya Mason and CrowsToes Storms Never Last

I have two beautiful polishes today that are exquisite on their own but combine to make a truly swoonworthy manicure. The first is Zoya Mason from the Fall 2013 Satins collection. Zoya describes this color as Red Violet “Fandango Pink” Metallic and that seems as good a description as any, although I am not completely certain what a Fandango Pink is - it sounds fun, though doesn't it? It has visible color shift and great shine - there is no top coat in this picture. 

Storms Never Last is part of the CrowsToes One Mad, Crazy Summer collection. Does Lauri have the best collection names or what? This particular color is dedicated to her mother, and is poetically described as a darkened blurple/dark magenta/gold multichrome with sparks of shifting teal glitter shining like little stars. The bottle shot confirms the stellar nature of the color:

One coat of Storms Never Last applied over two coats of Mason yields a deep dreamy polish that shifts and gleams and sparkles. There is a blue cast that stands out over the violet base and makes this manicure memorable and eye-catching.

There you go! This was a winner in my book and I was very sad to finally take it off after 3 days. It did wear very well with only minimal tip wear despite being subjected to a good deal of housework.

You can find Zoya Mason on the Zoya website and CrowsToes Storms Never Last is available from Overall Beauty and Llarowe, although it is popular enough that it is not always in stock. 

Castle on a Cloud and Leotard Optional

Today I have yet another Enchanted Polish for you. I promise the next post will have a different indie! I am a huge Enchanted fan so I have just been wearing a lot of Chelsea's polishes lately.

This manicure uses a base of Leotard Optional by Sephora by OPI. It is a subdued pink-beige creme that is an attractive nude-looking polish for my skintone. Sephora has recently changed the formula over to the gelshine Gel Colours line but this was the original Nail Color lacquer. On top I used a coat of Castle on a Cloud by Enchanted. Castle on a Cloud is part of the Icing on Top collection and is a lovely glass fleck holographic duochrome topper. Wow - that is a lot going on for just one polish, huh? The color shift in this one goes pink to purple and is quite pronounced.

This shot shows the holo sparkle

while this one shows the color shifting glass flecks 

Now let's take a look at how it appears on the nail:

It shifts toward lavender

and then to pink

and the holo comes out to play in the sunshine.

I found this manicure to be nearly flawless. It has a lot going on in but still falls squarely in the realm of work appropriate. I found myself constantly waving my hands around to see all of the color play and rainbows it could produce - utterly delightful!