Swatch: Indigo Bananas Acid Ocean

The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.

Happy Monday everyone! It's the last day of August, but summer is definitely hanging on here--it's over 90 degrees today. Yuck!

Today I have a swatch from one of my favorite indie brands, Indigo Bananas. Last year she released a bunch of polishes with beautiful color-shifting flakies, and this was my top lemming from the collection. Acid Ocean is a dark teal jelly with green-blue-purple shifting flakies, plus what looks like some Fantasy Fire-type shimmer! So squishy and ethereal!

Indigo Bananas Acid Ocean. Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

The formula was on the runny side for a jelly, so I needed three coats to build up the color. Otherwise I had no problems with it! The flakies are the classic type that lie perfectly flat.

Yet another gorgeous IB polish! It's available here for $12 for 15 ml, or $7.25 for 8 ml!

The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.

Swatch: Three new Femme Fatales

The products in this post were purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Happy Monday everyone!

So after being in the nail polish game for a while now, it takes a lot for a new polish to really wow me, much less an entire collection. But lately I've been absolutely drooling over everything Femme Fatale has released! That's why I had to break my no-buy for Color4Nails' latest restock and grab some of Femme Fatale's newest polishes. I've managed to get three swatched for you, go me!

All of these had a great formula and stayed exactly where you put them. The only negative was that, since they have sheer bases, I got some bald spots on my tips. But honestly I didn't care!

First up is Lantern Waste. This has a dark slate grey base with orange-to-green flakies and red-to-gold shifting shimmer!

Femme Fatale Lantern Waste. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

This has such a creepy vibe! Despite the strong shimmer, it wasn't brush-strokey at all.


Next is Heart's Desires. It has a dusty rose base with green-to-blue flakies and lots of copper holo microglitter.

Femme Fatale Heart's Desires. Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

I love the way this polish takes a "grandma" color and makes it exciting again!


Last but not least, I have Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall... I was so happy to get this one because I missed the first two restocks and was terrified that I'd missed it forever. When I first saw the swatches, I wrote that it looked like a polish a unicorn would wear, and I still think that's true! It has a very pale turquoise base with pink-to-gold shifting shimmer and lots of silver holo glitter.

The shimmer was so strong in my normal lighting that it freaked out my camera, so I got some natural light shots. I love how different it looks at various angles!

Femme Fatale Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall... Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

There's definitely a touch of magic in that bottle, don't you think? The polish was pretty smooth after one coat of topcoat.


Well, are you as in love with these Femme Fatales as I am? If you want to grab one, keep a close eye on the Femme Fatale shop and/or their stockists, because I'm sure they've been selling out really quickly!

The products in this post were purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Swatch: Smitten Polish Figgy Pudding

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Hey gang! My nails finally got long enough that I could reshape them into squares again, which makes me very happy! I tried out one of the new polishes I bought myself as a reward for getting into grad school. I am absolutely in LOVE with this shade...check it out!

Smitten Polish Figgy Pudding is a bold indigo jelly with shifty gold-copper-orange flakies and shimmer. I honestly can't keep my eyes off my nails...they are so sparkly and the base color is gorgeous--dark, vibrant and sexy! (It looks a little brighter here than IRL due to my lighting.)

Smitten Polish Figgy Pudding. Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Amazing, right? Sort of like fireflies or sparks from a bonfire!

The formula was on the thin and runny side for a jelly, and I still had some visible nail line after three coats (it looks worse in the photo than it actually is). It went on very smoothly and evenly.

Seriously, guys, if you're a purple/indigo lover, you have to go buy this one ASAP! It's available here for $11.50! This was definitely a good introduction to Smitten Polish for me!

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

The Neverending Pile Challenge: Prettiest(?) polishes

Hey folks! Today's prompt for the Neverending Pile Challenge is prettiest. Now, I don't know about you, but it's impossible for me to choose one "prettiest" polish in my collection. (Almost) all my polishes are pretty in their own way--a creme is pretty in a different way from a glitterbomb, you know? So instead of trying to come up with some kind of prettiness rubric, I just grabbed a couple untried polishes that jumped out at me from my stash list as being really interesting.

I ended up wearing Orly Fowl Play, a deep red-toned purple jelly with orange-yellow flakies, tiny blue glitter and silver flecks; and Picture Polish Paradise, a blue-green sparkly foil with purple and holographic rose glitter. Now, I have to apologize a bit for my photographs: Paradise is so shiny that it basically gave my camera a panic attack, so I could only manage these side-on shots. But I hope they convey how these polishes look! I got two indoor shots and a sunlight shot. (One day I'll get a real lightbox, I promise.)

Orly Fowl Play and Picture Polish Paradise. Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Did you notice that Paradise has a slight color shift too?


Before I go, I realized I forgot to post this picture yesterday--here's Trudy supervising my stash-photographing process!

Total untrieds tried: 53 + chevron decals + 1 stamping plate


 

FingerFood's Theme Buffet #11: St. Patrick's Day

OK, I realize St. Patrick's Day was two days ago. But I was nonstop busy mixing polish and filling bottles to get my blogger samples shipped out! I didn't even have any polish on my nails for two days! Soooo I did my St. Patrick's Day mani today. I'm only 1/8 Irish and I don't like beer, so the holiday isn't that exciting for me. But I do like green!

For three of my nails I used China Glaze Four Leaf Clover topped with Indigo Bananas Lucky Strike (two very apropos names!), and for my accent nail I used Zoya Ziv with Four Leaf Clover for the shamrock. To do the shamrock, I just made four large dots and dragged a toothpick through each.

Did you celebrate the holiday this week? Green milkshakes maybe?


Check out the rest of this week's St. Paddy's Day manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Swatch: Finger Paints Colorful Dream

The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.

Hey! Today I have swatches of one of the new Finger Paints flakies from the Kaleidoscope collection! Colorful Dream has rainbow flakies in a clear base.

I should note that these are more like shards, not "true" flakies like Essie Shine of the Times, and in comparison they are less colorful and don't have as much of a color shift (barely any actually). The effect is still nice though!

Finger Paints Colorful Dream. Two coats over black. Out the Door topcoat.

The formula on Colorful Dream was fine; I had no problem getting the flakies to spread evenly or lie flat.

I was a little disappointed in the lack of color with these flakies, but I do kind of dig this ethereal look! Colorful Dream is available at your local Sally Beauty (it's not up on the website at the moment).

The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.

Deborah Lippmann Ray of Light, then and now

Rather than just doing a regular swatch post today, I thought I'd do something a little more fun. I wanted to wear Deborah Lippmann Ray of Light because it's so gorgeous, and then I remembered that the last time I wore it was almost exactly a year ago. I got it as a birthday present from my parents (cool parents, huh??) last year, when I was just starting out collecting nail polish. And it just so happens I took a picture of that mani!

Let's start with the pics I took today. Ray of Light is a beautiful indigo jelly with flakies that shift from pink through yellow to green. This is two coats, but I probably could have done with a third. (I'm just too impatient, heh.)

Deborah Lippmann Ray of Light. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

I love that I was able to capture the color shift in one shot! Here's another for good measure:

This polish is so drool-worthy. Can't stop looking at those flakies!

Now let's take a look at my picture from one year ago:

Ignoring the fact that I used horrible indoor lighting, you can see how much my manicure skills have improved in a year! I knew enough to clean up my cuticles, but left a mess around the edges of my fingers. And I didn't bother to shape or grow out my nails. And obviously my ability to pose has improved since I've started blogging!

I really enjoyed looking through my pictures of manicures I did last year. I think it would be a lot of fun to re-create (and improve upon) more of them!

Feel free to share any old, embarrassing mani pics with me in the comments!