Olive Ave summer polishes

I've been spending all my money on planners, lately, and I have more polish than I know what to do with, anyway, so it's been a month - maybe more - since I've bought any polish. But I haven't posted the last stuff I did buy, so I'm trying to get up the swatches I have that never got posted. The first installment is from Olive Ave Polish.

 This is Olive Ave Herbology (2 coats), from the Summer Reading collection:

This is turquoise with gold shimmer - super-pretty, but sheer. I liked it best when I layered it over other things - here's a swatch over Aster:

Aster is a paler green creme, but I was surprised at how much I liked this. There's a picture of it on my hands in this post, and it's also on my Instagram page!

For the record, here's my earlier post about Aster and the other colors from the spring (Flora) collection.

Then here's the other one I bought from Summer Reading, which is Fey - not quite as showy as Herbology but really pretty, still:

Fey on my nails:

Last favorites installment

I've dragged out the favorites re-swatch long enough, so here are all the ones I hadn't already posted. Here is ILNP Black Orchid:

You can see from the bottle that it's full of holo stuff. It's very pretty in this darker base.

Essence Space Glam:

I've mostly worn this with something underneath. It looks pretty on the wheel but it's bound to have visible nail-line issues no matter how many coats you do, I'm guessing.

Smith & Cult Bitter Buddhist is the rare cream that makes my favorites:

I like it cause it's different. It's green, which I reliably love, but it's a different green. Much more subdued than what I usually wear. (Also S&C comes up with great names.)

I've talked about Cigars On Ice pretty recently - I think it was from the November Polish Pickup.

It's really beautiful. I thought about putting it in the top three, actually.

And I think I've covered everything now except the two Grinch polishes, which I've also talked about pretty recently, but I bothered to do new swatches so I feel like I have to show them. this is You're A Mean One:

It's kind of in that shifty unicorn-pee-like territory along with those OPIs like Turn On The Northern Lights, which is something I always like.

And then Grinchworthy, which is another one that I liked a whole lot:

It's various green microglitters in a clear base. It's awesome. (Wonder what it would be like layered with Always Be A Dragon??)

More Ciate minis

More days on the advent calendar. The descriptions in quotes come from the maker.

Day 17 - Pepperminty

Ciate just says "light green creme" but I think they put the better descriptor in the name - wouldn't most people call this mint green?

Day 18 - Tempest

"Blue-green shimmer" - guess you can't quibble with that. You can see from the picture that it's also extremely sheer.

Day 19 - Fly Away

"Purple creme" - I'd be inclined to say violet, instead, because of it being on the blue side, but I guess now we are just quibbling.

Day 20 - Cookies & Cream

"Cream nude creme" - even I won't quibble with that one. (I would note, though, that I gave this one to my sister, because I knew I was extremely unlikely to wear it.)

Day 21 - Paradise Lost

Before we had a rose-gold pearl, now we have a "rose gold shimmer." I'll have to do comparison pictures. They are noticeably different, for sure.

Day 22 - Red Hot Chili

Well, ok, it is indisputably a "red creme" - again, they left you another clue in the name, though. This is even more indisputably a chili pepper red, or to put it another way, an orange-leaning red.

Day 23 - Up In The Clouds

"Light pink pearl" - I think this is really pretty, although I haven't worn it yet.

And that only leaves day 24, which was the big day on which we got a full-size polish. I will tell you now, though, that it was a shaped glitter, and I was underwhelmed. But oh well, you can't have everything. (I will of course post that picture when I remember to take one!)

NOTD: Dust A Dream

I washed my hair with a little too much vigor (I forget that my hair is not oily like it's been all my life, and I tend to scrub more than actually I need to these days) and the Pie Hole mani didn't really survive that real well - it had already been on for several days, anyway. But I guess I still had green on the brain.

This is two coats of Colourpop Dust A Dream:

You can see that it's a nice pale minty green. Up close there are some tiny dark spots where the polish didn't quite go on perfectly but they're not noticeable even in this picture. (What is noticeable are my ridgy nails, but I put the iridescent top-coat from this same collection, I Wand It That Way, on top of this and the ridges don't show up as much now.)

Dust A Dream

This is Colourpop Dust A Dream:

This has the same nice formula as the other Colourpop pastels - this one is pale mint green, maybe slightly dusty. As I'm writing this, this polish is still on Colourpop's sale page for $3 - which I assume means they're discontinued. Don't know how long they'll be there, but it's a bargain!

(It looks more blue in this picture than it really is.)

NOTD: Orly Vintage

This is just after I put on the 3rd coat of this and before I'd cleaned it up at all (because I had all the lights set up and I wanted to take the picture while I was thinking about it!):

Like so many pale cremes like this, Orly Vintage (which is from the Melrose collection, from this past spring) is kind of balky to apply. Even with the 3rd coat you can see where it was wanting to pull down at the bottom of the nail. The first coat was very streaky but it evened out for the most part after the second coat. If it hadn't been for the pulling, two coats would have been enough. I was hoping for a true jade green but this is something more like a mint green. Still, for a lighter color it looks pretty good on me.

(I think I mentioned the other day that I'm kind of on the hunt for what I've started calling "semi-pastels." True pastels, the really pale ones, are not flattering on me, but I've come to realize that there are polishes like this one that are slightly darker than those, that I can wear.)