Swatch: Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces

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

This is the swatch I've been looking forward to posting! I basically fell in love at first sight with this polish. Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces is a plum-colored jelly with a variety of pink and holo glitter, both hexes and circles. My nails look like gems with this polish!

Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces. Two coats with Out the Door and Gelous topcoats.

(The base is a little more red-toned than it appears in my pics.)

On my middle finger you can see the star of the polish--huge holographic circle glitter! You will have to fish around for these; it took me a few tries to find that one. (Of course I got some on both thumbs without even trying...)

Since a lot of the glitters are holographic, they'll be different colors depending on the direction of the light. Here you can see the big circle piece shifting blue:

I also love this hidden-glitter type of polish because sometimes the glitters seem to vanish, but then you move your hand a little and they flash at you!

The formula of Cosmic Forces was pretty good, other than the density of the glitter. With some of the bigger glitter pieces you might have to work to place them where you want them.

I knew the polish would end up a bit bumpy, so I took the opportunity to use Gelous as a topcoat for the first time. If you're not familiar with it, Gelous is a base/topcoat that's really thick. "Luxurious" might be the best way to describe it. With one coat my nails are still slightly rough in places, but much smoother than before. And it dried faster than I expected for such a thick polish.

Emily de Molly is an Australian indie maker, so if you're down under you can buy Cosmic Forces from their website ($9.50 AUS for 12 ml). The rest of us have to buy it from a third party; I got mine at Llarowe for $13. Emily de Molly polishes are 3-free. (They also have a very similar polish with a blue base called Oceanic Forces, if you're not into purple.)

I bought Gelous at Sally Beauty ($5.99 for 15 ml, $5.39 with a Beauty Club membership).

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

Polish Days: To boldly go...

I'm back from my short hiatus and excited to be participating in my second Polish Days! This month's theme is sci-fi and outer space. I wasn't very creative--I had been meaning to try out galaxy nails for a long time, plus I already did a Star Trek mani! So here's my first attempt at galaxy nails:

(In case you're wondering why you're seeing my right hand today, it's because the mani somehow turned out better on that hand.)

Here are the polishes I used: the base is Zoya Storm, which is a perfect outer space polish! Then I sponged on Maybelline Porcelain Party, Revlon Plum Seduction, and Color Club Age of Aquarius. I used Porcelain Party again with a dotting tool to make the stars. Thanks to my compulsion to make everything look even, I made too many stars, but otherwise I think it looks cool!

And here's a bonus pic with my tribble!

Live long and prosper! And don't forget to check out some of the great nail art linked below!

A quick update

Hey all, sorry for the lack of posts this week--over the weekend we found out that my fiance got a job in Boston, so we ran out there to find an apartment. Yesterday we were successful, woohoo!!

Another discovery I made is that apparently nail polish is the only thing holding my nails together; since I've been wearing my nails bare I've gotten FOUR breaks! I got so frustrated that I trimmed the corners of my nails off and ended up with this shape:

 

What do you think? If they look good with polish I might keep them this way for the wedding, since they're more feminine than squares I think. That is if I can get ahold of some nail glue to fix these breaks!

I'll have an amazing polish to swatch for you when I get back home...

I made food: black bean quesadillas

Today I indulged my craving for Mexican food once again by making black bean quesadillas with homemade pico de gallo and guacamole. I decided to try using an actual Mexican cheese rather than the Kraft "Mexican blend" stuff that comes shredded in bags. I ended up buying queso panela, which I've never had before, but the description sounded promising. It turned out to be very mild, like a salty mozzarella (very similar texture too). It didn't actually melt fully, but got very soft.

There really isn't anything better than fresh guacamole, is there? Mine just has tomato, onion, lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper. (You may notice that I didn't put any jalapenos or anything in. I'm a real wuss when it comes to spicy stuff; it's really just a painful distraction from the food to me!) Alongside my quesadillas I had a salad with oil, lime juice, pepper, and some pomegranate-flavored craisins. I just love that almost everything in my dinner was fresh and easy to make! (Yeah OK, I got the beans from a can, so sue me!)

I made food: pease porridge

Before I made this recipe (again from A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook), I wasn't sure what pease porridge actually was, having only heard of it in the nursery rhyme. I figured it was like pea soup, which is nearly true. According to wisegeek.org, it originated in Britain when people would make a huge batch of pea soup, let it congeal overnight, then eat it again the next day (and the next, and the next...). So pease porridge, also called pease pudding, is essentially thickened pea soup. And that's what it looks like:

(I thought it would look a little funky by itself, so I put it next to the nice piece of salmon I ate with it.)

Wikipedia says pease porridge should be "somewhat similar in texture to hummus", and I think I came close! It was really simple to make: you cook some split peas until they're soft, along with the two halves of an onion and a tied-up bundle of herbs (thyme, basil and parsley). Then you beat in an egg to thicken it up, and add salt and pepper. There are two ways to finish it: either boil it in a pudding cloth, or bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for half an hour. I chose the second way, hence the crispy bits on the edges. (Note: I removed the onion and herbs before baking, but you could also blend them along with the peas in a food processor, or chop them by hand and put them back in. I guess I'm just lazy.)

If you like pea soup (or, heck, mushy canned peas) you'll probably like this. It had a subtle flavor from the onion and herbs, but if you wanted to make it bolder you could add pretty much any seasoning you like.

And finally, here's a little linguistic tidbit for you: the word pea comes from the Latin pisum. It was originally borrowed into English as pease, hence the term "pease porridge". Eventually people thought pease must be a plural, so they created the new singular form pea. Wow!

Swatch: Orly Sparkling Garbage

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

Before we get started, I wanted to tell my loyal readers that since I'm getting married in one month from today(!!!!!), I'm going to be giving my nails a bit of a break. I'll still paint them from time to time (for the next Polish Days for example), but I'll be trying to leave them bare more often than not.

That doesn't mean I won't be posting! I'd especially love to answer some language questions from you all, so send 'em in! You should also follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter, as I post lots of things there that aren't quite blog-worthy.

Moving along! I don't know why I keep insisting on swatching holographics when I know my camera can't really handle it...but they're so pretty! Today I have Orly Sparkling Garbage from their new Mash Up collection. It's a pale teal jelly with a metric crapload of tiny holographic glitter in it. This stuff nearly seared my retinas in the sun!

First off, here's a shot in the shade, where the glitter looks silver. You can see how tightly packed it is!

Orly Sparkling Garbage. Three coats with one coat Out the Door topcoat.

And here's the obligatory out-of-focus rainbow shot. Even though this is a scattered holo, there is just so much glitter that at times it almost looks like a linear holo!

Finally, this lightbox shot shows off the color of the base a bit better.

 

The formula on this was very nice, better than other Orlys I've tried actually. I didn't get any bubbles or pulling. Even though Sparkling Garbage is a jelly, the glitter does a pretty good job at hiding my nail line.

I wish I could show you the full glory of this polish, but trust me, if you like holos you'll love this!

I bought Sparkling Garbage at Sally Beauty Supply ($7.19 for 18 ml, only $6.49 if you're a member of the Beauty Club). Orly polishes are 3-free.

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

I made food: Roman-style buttered carrots

This week I decided to make two vegetable dishes from A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook. I've made a couple recipes from this cookbook already and they turned out great. I like how for each dish, the authors give both a modern take and one inspired by a medieval or Roman recipe. It's interesting to see how people in the past cooked differently, especially with respect to seasoning.

Anyway, my first recipe was Roman buttered carrots (from the King's Landing section, if you're interested).

For this recipe, you boil the carrots very briefly, then add raisins, honey, white wine vinegar, melted butter, cumin, and pepper. You roast them in the oven at 400 for about 20 minutes, then add a little white wine to deglaze the dish, and you're done!

You can tell by the ingredients that this dish is primarily sweet, but the cumin and pepper prevent it from being too one-note. I think I would use a bit fewer raisins next time, but other than that I liked it!

Looking at the original recipe (from the 4th century cookbook by Apicius, a big source of our knowledge of Roman cooking), it called for parsley, dried mint and lovage (a kind of herb), olive oil instead of butter (of course), and fish sauce, which the Romans put on basically everything. (You can still buy it!) As far as I can tell, it's pretty similar to Asian fish sauce, so I might try adding that next time for a more salty and savory twist on the recipe.