NOTD: Cactus If You Can

Here is KBShimmer Cactus If You Can on my nails:

This is two coats with no top-coat. I wore it to work that way last night, and it was fine (it had a minute amount of tipwear but nothing significant), but I decided this morning that it was not quite opaque, so I added a third coat and Seche Vite on top. I do like it better that way but it was perfectly wearable yesterday too!

(I don't know if you can really see the pale-pink flash in this picture, but it is noticeably there in real life.)

More night-sky polishes

Last week I showed some of the "night-sky" polishes (that is, dark blue or black polishes with glitter). The ones I showed were the showiest of the blue ones, but here are some that didn't make the first cut. This is Zoya Indigo:

Per Zoya: "a dark indigo blue shimmer with a pinch of holographic microglitter. A dramatic polish that resembles the night sky."

Here is Give Me Space, a plain-old blue scattered holo from an OPI holiday collection a couple of years ago (2015, I think):

This is a creme, but it's one that I like to use as a base for glitters. It's actually more teal than blue but it's so dark it's hard to tell.

This is Cynthia. Zoya says it's "a smoky, blackened peacock teal with soft warm undertones. A very uncommon shade of blue for a subtle but funky look."

(Both of these Zoyas are current colors. I'm not sure about the OPI, but I would guess that it ought to be findable even if it's not technically current.)

Matanzas, MIA

Here is KL Polish Matanzas, which is from the Havana Heat collection this summer:

I would call this little fine flakie particles in a very bright blue color. It's very pretty and I'm looking forward to wearing it.

And then here's MIA, from the Summer 2017 collection:

I've worn this one and I really liked it - it's a pearly almost-neon with a blue flash.

Cactus If You Can

Here is KBShimmer Cactus If You Can:

KBS describes it as a "Holo Flake Shimmer" so it's got a little bit of everything going on (well, everything except outright glitter, at least). "This soft green shade is inspired by one of the best water conserving plants, the cactus. A soft pink shimmer and micro holo sparks, soften up this prickly polish." I haven't worn it yet but I think it's really beautiful.

(Added: I ended up wearing this the day I posted this entry. Picture is here.)

NOTD: MIA, Glass On Fire

I wore KL Polish MIA in the early part of the week and I do really like it:

Super-bright, not-quite neon, pearlescent with a slight blue flash. But as neons and near-neons tend to do, it was prone to chipping. (Not horribly so, just a little bit!) So as I  tend to do with such things, I patched it up and put something else on top of it. This week, that was Glass On Fire from Great Lakes Lacquer, a Polish Pickup selection):

It looks much more purple on the nail, but I think it actually has a magenta base and then purple and blue flakies/shimmer. Similar colors, but reads like a wine-color, almost.

Added: Here's Kathleen's video about the current Sephora sale, which I include here because she's wearing MIA in it.

Broccoli & Chocolate (new to me KL Polishes)

I was thinking I had posted at least the bottle pictures of my new KL Polishes that I got, but I looked back and apparently I haven't. (I've been watching planner videos on YouTube - clearly one kind of planning/recordkeeping I need to work on is to do a better job on keeping up with what I've blogged about and what I haven't!!) A couple of weeks ago KL Polish had a "bundle sale" - I know I've seen that promo before, I think they do them a couple of times a year. They had pre-made-up bundles or you could make your own at a discount. Basically I try not to buy KL Polishes at full price since they do have sales quite a lot. (Plus there's that "ambassador" coupon code which you should be able to find in the description box of various people's channels - here's one on Allie's - if there's no other sale going on.)

So this is my "bundle" - there's not a theme to this, it's just random polishes that I wanted and didn't already have.

Matanzas is from the new summer collection (Havana Heat), MIA is from last year's summer collection (which was Miami-themed, I think this is supposed to mean MIA like the airport code), and then Broccoli & Chocolate, which is apparently a very old Mary-Kate & Ashley song? I looked it up so I'll put it at the bottom for other people who are not familiar with this! (I can't be the only one, right?) Anyway, this was from the first KL collection which was in late 2016.

You can't tell from the picture above about Matanzas - it's super-shimmery and doesn't really look a dark as it does here (you can see the swatch for it at the top of the wheel pictured below, actually). But MIA, especially, does look about like it does in the bottle above. It's almost neon (not quite) and pearlescent and has a blue flash.

Broccoli & Chocolate, OTOH, is just a plain brown creme. I bought it because it seemed like a cool brown rather than a warm one, but I haven't really tried it out yet.

As mentioned above, infant Olsen twins - I can't believe I'm posting this but I've seen the name of this polish for ages and now that I've finally bought it I started to feel like I needed to understand the reference. (Luckily I didn't find it catchy enough that it'll give me earworms, or at least I hope not!!)

Carpe Denim & other "night sky" polishes

This is KBS Carpe Denim:

My husband loves puns - he thinks KBShimmer's polish names are great. Anyway, you can see the glitter in the bottle better than on the wheel - it's packed with holo glitter. (I may have to try all the new KBS pictures again - there's far more glitter than you can see even in the bottle, I'd say.)

Added: I talk about Starry Starry Night below, but I just found this post with a comparison with the old version of SSN (waaay at the bottom of the post) and they're close. Carpe Denim looks, well, holo-ier, but otherwise awfully similar.

I have a number of these kinds of polishes - the one I thought seemed immediately most like this was Zoya Dream:

Dream is noticeably more indigo-blue and somewhat lighter than Carpe Denim, but I feel like CD has a bit of that indigo-blue to it too. And it's got a heavy dose of holo but it's not as showy.

Then there's Starry Starry Night (the 2.0 version, the re-release):

(The polish on the left is YSL Bleu Cobalt, which is essentially the same color but lacks the glitter.) I really liked Starry Starry Night a couple of years ago when it first came out - I know everybody says it doesn't hold a candle to the original one, but I never had that. But since then I've gotten Dream and maybe SSN doesn't seem so great in comparision. At least, I didn't particularly think about that, until now, but I haven't worn SSN much.

New purchases, non-nail-polish division

I have several assorted products to talk about here - one skincare, one makeup, and one haircare - this one I know I mentioned before so I'll start with it: Korres Golden Krocus Ageless Saffron Elixir:

I got this from a Groupon, because it was way cheaper than it is at Sephora, but it's still quite expensive - it was about $70 or a bit more. I had a sample of this and I really liked it - otherwise I would never have considered it. The full size is only an ounce, but you only have to use a couple of drops, so hopefully it will go a long way. (The sample I had was in one of those perfume-sample-size tiny bottles, and even that lasted a while.) It feels really good on my skin - I use many different skin products each day so it's difficult to make a objective judgment about how much difference any individual product makes. I feel like it does, that's really all I know. In the end, I may not buy this again, just because of the price, but I do really like it and if it does last a long time that will make a difference in how I feel about repurchasing.

Tarte was having a sale and so I used that as an excuse to buy Shape Tape concealer, because everybody talks about it so much.

I don't buy concealer in extremely light colors like I used to - this is a slightly darker color than I would buy if I was buying foundation ("light-medium honey"):

I've used it a couple of times but honestly, I don't feel like I understand what everybody thinks is so great about it. I'll report back after I've used it for a while.

(Added: it's very opaque, I think that's what it is. I do like it and it seems like it will last for ages. So far I'm thinking it's worth the price. I definitely like it better than the NARS stuff.)

This is L'Oreal Air Dry It Wave Swept Spray:

I mentioned lately that I liked the Bumble and Bumble Don't Blow It, but that is pretty expensive and this is quite cheap. (I got it from Amazon for about $3 and change, I think.) They're not exactly the same thing, because this is a spray and Don't Blow it is more like a gel, but they're meant for a similar purpose. Unlike with the skincare products, if I put this one on my babyfine-and-curly hair after a wash and let it dry, I'm going to be able to tell if there's a difference in how it behaves. So we'll see.

KBShimmer's bag of polishes

I have some new polishes from KBShimmer. As I'm writing this, the special that I got is still available, but it may end at any time. (added: As of Friday a.m., it seems to be gone.)

I got the impression that the quantity on this offer is limited by how many bags they have. The bag in question is a nice-sized, seemingly well-made multichrome cosmetic bag that looks like this:

(It doesn't look terribly multichrome in this picture, but it definitely is.) It's just big enough to hold six bottles of polish in their boxes, and that's what you get here. It's $49.95 including the bag. Most of their polishes are $10, I think, so compared to that you're getting a polish and the bag free, basically. I didn't have that many KBShimmer polishes so I grabbed the opportunity to expand my collection!

 I chose these six polishes - except for the two magnetics they're all from different collections, I believe:

1. #squadghouls, from the collaboration collection last fall
2. Band Geek, which is from a reissue collection called Throwback
3. Cactus If You Can, from what I believe was last spring's collection, Wanderlust
4. Carpe Denim, which I think is a core polish - it originally came out in fall 2015
5. and then two from the Launch Party collection which are magnetic multichromes, Just a Phase and...
6. Spaced Out

Here's my new wheel that I started for these - but I didn't have a magnet when I did these so you can't tell much about the two magnetics. I'll get better swatches of those later on.

Actually hopefully I'll get better swatches of a lot of these, because you can't see the glitter on several of them, either.

L-R: Cactus If You Can, Carpe Denim, #squadghouls, Band Geek

(I keep wanting to call that last one "Band Camp" instead of Band Geek. I guess I'm thinking about the movie American Pie there.)

Magnetics:

Spaced Out is the one that reads basically purple, and Just A Phase reads more or less as teal.

Here is Jess' review of the magnetics:

Tag Tuesday - indie polish quiz

This isn't a "topic Tuesday" but it seems to fit in with that!

1. What was the very first indie polish that you purchased?

Chirality. I talked about this not long ago. 

2. What's an indie polish lemming that you want but have never been able to get your hands on?

I try not to get fixated on lemmings. I just don't have the budget to pay for rare stuff. I'd rather spend my money on things that are reasonably easy to get hold of.

3. Name an indie polish you bought because of a YouTuber.

Probably the first one like that was Dollish Halloween polishes because of MissHollyBerries.

4. What is your favorite and least favorite type of indie polish (holo, multichrome, flakie, etc.)?

Well, I have to go with thermal for "least favorite" not because I have anything against them - I think they're beautiful - but because I keep my nails pretty short and I just don't get good results. It's a waste of money for me. Favorite: probably flakies. Love, love, love them, and I am so happy everybody's started doing them again.

5. Name an indie polish that fits your personality to a "T”.

Elderberry from Nail Pattern Boldness - cool colors and microglitter.

6. What indie polish company do you wish you owned every bottle/collection from?

Like with the lemmings, I just don't have the budget to buy whole collections. Luckily on this one I don't have to fight myself because I am absolutely not a completeist. I generally have no interest in owning whole collections - I just pick and choose the ones I really like. (Very occasionally "the ones I really like" in a collection will be all of them - but I've only found two like that in the years I've been collecting polish.)

7. Name an indie polish that physically made your jaw drop when you saw it.

The multichromes, when they first came out. I'm not sure exactly what would have been the first one I saw.

8. What do you look for the most when you purchase an indie (perfect formula, amazing color, affordability)?

Affordability is always nice but I would say what I really look for is a combination of amazing color and amazing formula.

9. What direction would you like to see indie polish go in?

I get bored when everybody is going the same direction - like, I know everybody loves holos and they sell really well, but I got so sick of the endless scattered holos the last couple of years, and eventually they all start looking alike. Do your own thing! whatever that may be.

(In case somebody is wondering, I picked this picture more or less completely randomly - I just was looking for something in my old pictures with an indie polish logo on it, and this was the first one I found!)

As best I can figure out, these are the indies I bought in 2013. The Chirality ones were first but the rest of these followed pretty shortly thereafter.

• Chirality - Kale, The Symbiote, Convergence
• Colors by Llarowe - Montana Sky
• Nostalgic Lacquer - As If!, F*ck & Run, Girls On Film
• Dollish Polish - Deadly Nightshade, Redrum
• Pahlish - a holiday duo
• Pipe Dream Polish - In Through The Out Door
• Nail Pattern Boldness - Elderberry

And I found this "tag" from Bonita Juanita on YouTube:

Glass On Fire

This is from the July Polish Pickup "favorites" edition, hosted on each individual polish's website last month. I had not bought anything from Great Lakes Lacquer before, but now I have Glass On Fire:

their description:

Dragon's Breath Fire Opal - Description: Magenta flowing with blue to purple shifting shimmer, packed with flake shifting from orange to gold to green. 2-3 coats for an opaque look

I'll be trying this one out very soon!

Empties

Things I've used up:

Biossance Squalane + Peptide Eye Gel

I liked this, but it's too expensive ($54, exclusive to Sephora). I'm not buying it again. It didn't work any miracles that I could tell.

This was a sample but I really, really like this - Perricone MD Face Finishing Moisturizer

I don't see that exact product, or perhaps they've just changed the name - here is the similar one at Sephora. (But huh, here it is on Amazon, for way cheaper, too. Wonder if this actually is the older product, and that's why it's cheaper. I may try it for that big of a discount.)

Then we get to the stuff you can buy at the grocery store:

I think I bought this Centrum from Amazon, too - the Women 50+ version. (I hate thinking of myself as a senior citizen, but hey, I should be accustomed to the fact by now that I am over 50.) And the 3-Minute Miracle I could have bought anywhere - I've had this for a while. I am this way with both shampoos and conditioners - I like to have more than one brand and alternate. So it takes me a while to use things up. (3-Minute Miracle is a great deal for the price, for sure. I don't think there's a good deep conditioner that's cheaper than this one.)

A restaurant near me gives out chocolate mints; I really love them and apparently they are not something you can buy just anywhere:

I finally bought this giant bag from candy.com, another one of those obvious websites that I never thought to look for. They are yummy. I bought these before the holidays last year and we put some in with gifts and stuff and it's still taken me all this time to use up what was left. (In fact, there's probably some still left around somewhere.)

Does anybody else shop at Aldi? They have all these weird brands, but most stuff seems to be really good quality and relatively cheap. They don't always keep exactly the same items in stock from one trip to the next, which makes it interesting to go there, kind of like a treasure hunt, some of the time! Anyway, these are the tortilla chips that I liked enough that I wanted to remember them:

They're thick, like the ones that restaurants use for nachos.

(I've been reminded lately how people who live in the Southwest tend to be really obsessive about Mexican food - all the way across from Texas to California. I got in a rather heated debate with somebody on Twitter the other day about whether burritos should come wrapped in foil. Where I live you can't really find them any other way!)

NOTD: Razzle Dazzle Rose + lots of flakies

This is (to be more specific than I got in the title above) Insta-Dri Razzle Dazzle Rose (2 coats, I think? - this was 10 days or so ago now) plus Essie Shine Of The Times (2 coats). So it's total flakie goodness.

Evercalm

This is what first got me interested in Ren, this little tube of day cream.

I seem to have very sensitive skin these days. (It never occurred to me that sensitive skin was something that you developed with time, but that seems to have been the case for me.) I find Ren Evercalm products to be very soothing on my skin.

So when it was clear that was about to run out, I started trying to figure out if I could afford to repurchase it. The regular size is $48 at Sephora. But I found some deals on Ren's website. Here's the picture of the set I bought from the website:

It was $25, including a full-size of the day cream. That's really a deal. (It looks like it's not quite that cheap now, though.)

I also bought the Evercalm Serum, which was also marked down but which I don't seem to have a picture of. (I haven't tried the two minis - one is a glycolic-type mask and the other one is a "firming beauty shot." I'm definitely interested in trying both of those.)

Added: here's the serum:

This sample of primer (called Perfect Canvas) came with my order. I tried it today, finally, and I liked it - at least the feel of it. I'll try to remember to report back on how well it lasted.

Road Trip (NOTD+swatch)

My schedule's been out of whack this past couple of weeks, which is why I haven't posted much lately. And then right when I was starting to snap out of it, Rob went out of town, and during the time he was gone I mostly just sat around and played Portal Knights for three days straight. But he's back and things seem to be getting back to normal, finally! (August is a good time to take a blog vacation, anyway, right?)

I don't have a picture of what I wore last week, but I really liked it. It was basically a throwback to, like, 2012, when I spent a whole summer wearing (anything fuchsia) + Zoya Chloe. This time it was Razzle Dazzle Rose, plus 2 coats of Shine of the Times. Since SotT is a really thick flakie, two coats made it really stand out.

I wandered into Walgreen's and noticed they still had some of the Vanessa Hudgens Sinful Colors polishes left, so I bought Road Trip:

This is only two coats (and no top-coat), but it's pretty sheer and it really needs three coats. It's super pretty, though - I like it more the longer I wear it. I'd call it a medium-green base with blue shimmer.

Here's the swatch, also:

(I made a mess of this wheel. Those swatches at the top were some off-brand minis that I've had for ages and never wear. I didn't want to toss them out without swatching them, but doing the swatching really late at night had predictably bad results.)

Zoya Kisses

I've had the Zoya Kisses polishes for months but I don't think I ever posted the swatches, so here those are. I did the swatches with two coats, regardless of whether I thought that might really be enough on the nail. I'm pretty sure if you're wearing them on their own you're probably going to want three. These are all jellies, and the formula seems pretty much identical - all that changes is the color.

Libby is milky lavender:

Princess is milky medium pink.:

Vickie is milky gray:

I've experimented around with these but I haven't actually worn them yet, to speak of. I kept having trouble getting them to set - which probably says something about Houston's high humidity rather than any real problem with the polishes themselves.

Alegra, Kimber, Lilith

Zoya Alegra:

Alegra is the one that Zoya describes as "expensive-looking" which I usually laugh at; however I can't deny that there's something luxurious-looking about it. A beautiful color, in any case.

NOTE: I somehow screwed up the pictures below, originally - the picture of Lilith said it was Kimber. This is the corrected version.

Kimber:

Zoya's description:  "Kimber by Zoya can be best described as a rich, bright and saturated medium magenta pink with strong gold metallic shimmer and a foil-like finish."

Lilith:

Lilith is apparently discontinued, which I had forgotten. It's one of those that I don't wear a lot, but I like - it has blue flash, which is fun. I think there are dupes or near-dupes still available.