Seasonal

When last heard from, I had on Bat My Eyes, which I loved, but it was looking very ratty along about Thursday, so I took it off and in the middle of the night Thursday night - or rather Friday morning, because we're talking about 3 or 4am here, I decided to finally try some of the nail strips I've been hanging onto. I had a couple that came from Karen and a couple that Oh Three Oh Four sent me as a bonus when I ordered all that stuff from her blog sale. So I can't swear about where these particular ones came from but I suspect it was Karen. In any case, the one I used was Sally Hansen Running Wild, which I don't have a picture of to my knowledge but which you can see here, on Amazon. (I liked them enough that I am tempted to order some more, but I'm trying to resist that temptation!) So they are black and purple zebra stripes, and they seemed perfect for Halloween. I think I had avoided wearing any nail strips/wraps so long partly because I figured there was a learning curve and I was intimidated. But actually they went on fine. The main problem I had was using the wrong size and leaving gaps at the sides, but I fixed that, more or less, by painting black polish in the gap. That fix didn't look gorgeous if you really looked really close but who's going to look that close except me? It was fine, and I really liked the manicure and I won't be so hesitant to try nail strips a second time.

I was thinking that my next manicure would be something bright for Day of the Dead, but it's already the 3rd now so it's a bit late for that. I got Pretty Serious Elliott, which is bright blue, and I was going to put Daphne's Disco Party on the tips. (I bought Elliott basically in order to do this manicure, which is an idea I saw on Lab Muffin - the 2nd picture down.) My nails are still bare so it's possible that will still happen, or it may not. (If not today, I'll definitely do it later, for sure.) I'm still at the base-coat stage, and my bottle of Instant Artificials is getting very low and I'm mourning, a bit. I need to go to the 24-hour pharmacy down the road tonight to pick up a prescription and I'm thinking about detouring by Sally Beauty to see if I can find a new bottle. (I did look when I was in Galveston a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't have any out at that store and they were busy so I didn't ask about it.) I think I can eke one more mani out of this bottle, though - maybe even two.

So you may or may not remember that I was trying out a system where I sorted out my polishes seasonally instead of in a more conventional way by color or brand. And so far it's working out fine. As long as I'm willing to put some time into keeping things sorted properly, I think it will work. I have some basic and nonseasonal polishes separated out from this system - this includes a lot of cremes and a lot of topcoats, mostly. Here's how I break down the seasons as far as nail polish goes:

• Halloween - specifically-Halloween polishes, which I have rather a lot of, plus bright oranges and blacks (although black really falls under basics), some greens and purples
• fall - browns, coppers, darker purples and other dark/vampy polishes (although some of these will carry over into winter, I think). I also like murky greens in the fall.
• Christmas/holiday - bright reds, bright & forest greens, dark/bright blues, silver & gold, and I have some holiday-specific polishes like mixed red/green glitters
• winter generally - glitters other than the holiday-specific ones, especially blues and silvers. Dark and vampy of course also can be used here but I find that I gravitate to glitters in January. (Our Januarys aren't generally that cold but they tend to be very dreary; I think I use glitter as an antidote.)
• Mardi Gras** - I have one polish that's mixed Mardi Gras colors (although apparently it was released at Christmas) - also various greens, purples, and golds may get pressed into service for this. My Mardi Gras manis tend to be very glitter-heavy. 
• Valentine's Day - get out the reds from Christmas, add lots of pink
• St Patrick's Day - greens of all kinds, but especially the very bright Kelly-green ones
• spring - I'm not much on pastels, but I usually pull out the few I have for Easter, particularly. I tend to wear a good bit of pink in the spring.
• summer - neons, blues, brights. For the summer holidays I sometimes do red/white/blue manicures.

(This is an old picture, but this bunch would definitely pretty much be in the "fall" category.)

** How many Mardi Gras manicures I get in tends to be influenced by where MG falls in relation to Valentine's Day. Some years they overlap, but I've already checked the 2016 calendar and this year Mardi Gras is very early, on February 9th. In Galveston the main Mardi Gras celebrations are the two weekends before that, meaning they're the last weekend of January and the first weekend in February. What they do overlap with somewhat is Lunar (Chinese) New Year, which is February 8th, but I don't usually do manicures especially for that. (Has anybody put out a polish for that? I can't recall seeing one. I guess if I was inclined to I would probably just do lacquer-red, anyway.)