More January manis

If you follow my Instagram you've seen these already - and sorry I'm so late, I know it's March, but I don't seem to be able to post consistently lately. (I started to put January and February in one post, but I felt like that got too long.)

I stumbled on this doorbuster at Cupcake Polish, and couldn't resist:

It's just called Blurple. I like. (It's my first Cupcake Polish, y'all.)

On Instagram, Jo of @polish_talk always does challenges, and one for 2020 is, pick a few polishes you want to use up. I picked a couple of Zoya cremes because I figured I could use them as bases since I never seem to wear cremes alone. So this is CG Where's The Party Canon At? (a My Little Pony polish) over Zoya Kieko.

This one was a KL Polish that I hadn't worn before, To The Stars:

And last, Zoya Dannii:

Garnet Nectar

This is Terrybly Garnet Nectar:

It's a creme in oxblood red - or, I suppose, actually the color of a garnet. You may remember that I was not very impressed with the other one of these polishes that I bought. This one didn't seem as balky when I was doing the swatches - I started to say "I'll have to wear this and see" but I'm always saying that, and we're going to have to get closer to fall before I'll be able to talk myself into wearing any more dark colors, I'm not going to kid myself about that. Anyway, whenever I do finally wear it, I'll definitely report back.

You may can still find these polishes around but I'm pretty sure they're discontinued. Don't pay full price for them, for sure.

(I say "closer to fall" rather than "in the fall" because fall is mostly just an abstract concept where I live. By the time Halloween rolls around we might be seeing less fiendishly hot weather, or at least we start to get the occasional cool front that gives us a little relief for a day or two now and then. Usually if we get any fall color at all, it turns up around Thanksgiving, or even later.)

Trying the Untried: It Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin

I was wearing It Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin earlier this week - I had also posted a bottle shot of  it recently (2nd picture down, at that link). I know I took an iPhone picture of it the other night so unless it didn't get saved somehow it should be around here somewhere. It's really pretty - and really similar to those other two that were in the same picture, which is wonderful since those are both discontinued. So is this one, I'm pretty sure, but at least I have a full bottle of it. (Note to polish companies for next fall: there need to be more polishes with a brown base and copper glitter. I at least will buy it like a shot.)

OK, I unearthed the phone picture and it's not great but at least you can get the idea.

This was after I'd had it on for a couple of days, so there's some wear, but not too bad. It's prettier than it looks there, but I don't think it quite has the full Pumpkin Spice level of goodness. (Bear in mind that that's just saying it doesn't measure up to my all-time favorite polish. This is by no means a slam! Also, I did actually grit my teeth and throw P-Spice into the trash, finally. I guess I am a hoarder at heart, because it pained me to do it.)

(Note: I've fixed the link on my indie polish page now, but Different Dimension has switched to using Big Cartel, apparently - when I bought mine they were on Etsy. In any case I looked and I didn't see this polish listed any more.)

In unrelated news, I was poking around old entries and I clicked on a link which took me somewhere I wasn't expecting: apparently Beyond Polish is now Sleek Nail. I had not bought anything from them under either name, before now, but they had some older OPIs for half-price, so I bought a few - I think it was two from the Texas collection plus Here Today Aragon Tomorrow, which I've wanted for ages. With shipping it was about $16, so that's less than the price of two at full retail even counting shipping (which I do when deciding whether something is a bargain).

I took this picture the other day because I happened to notice that there was a similarity between these which I wouldn't have expected:

That's Honey You Should See Me With A Crown (Dollish), Teigen, and This Is Halloween (LynB). The first two definitely have gold glitter in them, and it's harder to pin This Is Halloween down because it has so many different colors in it, but I suspect there's some gold in there, too. There's kind of a progression from right to left from peachy to more fuchsia. I think it was the winter sunlight (well, autumn, but we've had some pretty wintry weather already) that made me notice this.

I've got another Ipsy bag that I will take a picture of when we have some sunlight again (and I remember before this early early sunset we have this time of year!). That's the one with Guys & Galaxies in it, which I believe I already mentioned. I went rooting through my stash yesterday looking for seasonal stuff - I'm starting to think about Christmas, although I'll probably wait at least until Dec. 1st to really start trotting out the Christmas stuff. (And much later than that on things like red-and-green glitters!) In the meantime I'm wearing Elle's Spell over Zoya Jem (man, my fingers want to hit that G and write "Gem" instead every time) and playing with whether to mattify it - it's gorgeous either way, really. But actually it's hair-washing day so I'll probably have to start over after I do that, anyway. I don't know what I'll do next! (Added: oh, yes, I do, too, I have I Volunteer As Tribute still unworn, and there won't be any better timing for that one!)

Trying the untried: Azure

I knew I had tried some polish from my "untried" list, and I finally remembered what it was: Azure.

Pictures are so merciless - they show you not only the spot on my index finger where I messed the polish up somewhere along the way, but this also clearly shows the bald spots on other fingers, and this is after THREE coats. So apparently it really needed four. This is a Sally Hansen Lustre Shine color, and I'm pretty sure it's discontinued (although it still shows up on SH's website, so maybe not) but I can't say I recommend it in either case, even though it's really a glorious color. That part doesn't show up so well in the picture. It's sort of a dark cornflower blue - it has a touch of purple in it. Really a beautiful color, but streaky and didn't wear well, either. I hate it when that happens.

Trying the untrieds: Vice

Considering this was taken in the car, this picture is amazingly well-lighted:

I had actually painted my nails in the car, so I'm not going to apologize for the lack of clean-up. This is the kind of thing that happens when you live in one town and work in another - you end up grabbing the nail polish on the way out the door and doing your nails in a convenient parking lot. Totally unglamourous, but it works.

So this is Urban Decay Vice, which I've had since Christmas and never got around until trying until now. And it's lovely, but did I really need another violet-ish dark purple? No, not so much, obviously, or I wouldn't have taken six months to get around to wearing it.

Stash: Pale-to-medium pinks

To recap in case you weren't following along last week, I posted several stash pictures. I was rearranging my pinks, reds, and oranges all into one big box, and in the process I took pictures. Last week, I showed off reds, near-reds, and violet-leaning pinks, now we have the lighter ones here. It will undoubtedly be immediately obvious that I am not a big fan of very-pale pinks, because most of these are not in fact very pale at all. Only the bottom two rows are really what I would categorize as "very pale" and even a couple of those are iffy.

Top row: essence colour & go Ultimate Pink, Polished by KPT Naughty and Nice, piCture pOlish flirt, Zoya Lara, Essie Status Symbol (upside down), Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro English Rose
Middle row: Dollish Redrum, L'Oreal Departure, OPI Japanese Tea Garden, Nostalgic Girls On Film, Zoya Shelby
Bottom row: OPI Aphrodite's Pink Nightie, unlabeled pink glitter 1, unlabeled OPI (I think Bubble Bath?), unlabeled pink glitter 2, Revlon Parfumerie Pink Pineapple

The very-pale ones are mostly either really old (the two full-size OPIs, the L'Oreal) or came in a set (all of the minis, & the Parfumerie also). The exceptions are the Nostalgic - I think I just liked the name, because I don't normally do those creamy confetti polishes - and Shelby. Mostly I think they just don't look good on me, and I'm not sure why. I do know that I used to wear these two OPIs layered - I thought I liked that better than either alone. The only untrieds here are the 3 minis on the bottom row, plus the Parfumerie and I think Girls On Film.

I talked about Naughty and Nice not long ago - it's a thermal, and its "warm" color is paler than the bottle color. Of these medium pinks my favorites are probably Status Symbol and Redrum (which as I have speculated before, is probably meant to be a blood-color, but comes out more like a slightly-rusty rose color instead.) Flirt is almost a one-coater, which is great, but I've had chipping issues, so not so great overall.

Stash: Red and near-red

I had some vague idea I had already posted the reds in my stash this year, but apparently not, so here you are:

Top row: Zoya Delilah (which is a glitter although you can't tell it), Stop (mini, also a glitter), unlabeled OPI mini which I'm pretty sure is Big Apple Red, Razzmatazz mini, old Sephora mini which is only labeled No.08 (and is a bit darker than it looks there, and shimmery)
2nd row: Xtreme Wear Red Carpet (glitter), Just Be-Claws, An Affair in Red Square, Bet On Red (all of those last three are very shimmery), Jolly Lolly (a jelly and redder than it looks - the light seems to be hitting especially oddly on the right side of this picture)
3rd row: Challenge Red-y, Knees Up, Chyna (texture), Sparkling Fire, Poppy Field
Bottom row: the first two are a set, Rococo EmpoweRED and its toner (which is the darker one, meant to darken the red), RBL Chinoise, Sooki, Revlon Parfumerie China Flower

I haven't worn: Big Apple Red, Just Be-Claws, Challenge Red-y, Sparkling Fire, and honestly I'm not sure about a couple more, because it's hard to keep reds straight in my head. Let's say there are a couple more that I've maybe swatched and worn once.

I'm not changing the title, but actually what I was calling near-reds were in another picture which I decided to put in a separate entry. That should be along later this week.

Stash: copper, brown, tan

I had to do some scrambling to fit everything in here, which is why so many of them are upside down.
top row: Two Cent, Germanicure by OPI (mini), Flagstone Rush, Fall Mood
second row: Rich in Heart, Cinna-man of My Dreams, Cougar Attack, It Rubs the Lotion On Its Skin, Pumpkin Spice
third row: Forbidden Fudge, Hard Candy Crush on Lava, I Knead Sour-Dough, Decades of Shades, Rockin' Renaissance (texture)
bottom row: Tickle-My Franc-y and You Don't Jacques minis, Stone Cold Karma Luxe, Dusty Spring Fields, Grey Area, Rage

Grey Area looks fairly gray in this company, but believe me, it's much more tan than gray - if you put it in with grays you would see that. Which is why I put it here instead.

There are a lot of my very favorite polishes ever in this picture - I adore copper-shot browns. They have a tendency to be seasonal and then get discontinued, though, so grab 'em if you see 'em. Pumpkin Spice, Cougar Attack, and Two Cent are all discontinued, I believe.

Untrieds in this picture: Fall Mood, It Rubs the Lotion On Its Skin, Tickle-My Franc-y & You Don't Jacques minis, Stone Cold Karma Luxe (I am not much of a wearer of nudes. I intend to make myself try these, though. Eventually.)

Stash: gold. bronze, orange

I've got another post for tomorrow with the browns and the coppers, but I have enough golds, bronze-ish things, and oranges to fill my bin up again - in fact I really had to squeeze to get them all in!

(You can't see brand-names on all these bottles so I added them to the names for a few where I thought it was hard to tell)
Top row: Gold Rush, Fairy Dust, Milani Gold Glitz, I Only Shop Vintage (upside down!), Pahlish Pyrite
2nd row (two of which are sideways): Intergalactic Space, Aldo Gold Digger, Falloween
3rd row: R.I.P., Traffic Stopper Copper, Glitz, Chop Chop Copper, Seared Bronze
4th row (the two minis): unlabeled orange, Cajun Shrimp
Bottom row: Retro Red, Hot Cinnamon, Sangria, Crushed, Times Square Tangerine

(There's some stuff missing here - at the very least, I know I have one more orange-ish Gumdrop somewhere. I'll have to check about that.)

I can't believe I've acquired this many golds, in particular - I would have said that they were too yellowy for me. But the Boundless Color one, the old Cover Girl, is the only one that's very yellow, so for the most part, they look fine on me. Copper and bronze tones are generally quite flattering on me, and there are more of those in the next post. Even Orly Glitz, surprisingly, looks pretty good on me - better than Rage, and that's just the opposite of what I would have thought. I also tend to think I can't wear oranges, but what I've found is that they look alright as long as I stay with very reddish ones.

I noticed this week at CVS that Khroma is starting to become Kardassian Beauty, finally; the displays and some of the bottles were so labeled, but a few still say Khroma. (Just as a name, I like Khroma better, but I believe I read that they had had legal trouble with the name.)

Untried in this picture: Falloween, Chop Chop Copper, Cajun Shrimp

Stashing the blues away

Yeah, the title is corny, so sue me. In any case, here's my blue stash:

Top row: Black and Blue, Liberty (textured), Sweet Peacock (metallic), Cabo Cruise, also underneath is an unnamed royal blue mini; then back up to Ice Hotel In Hell, Rid of Me, Montana Sky, Playmaker
Middle row: Mesmerize, Blue It, Indigo, Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Midnight Cami, Blackout, Intrigue, Shy
3rd row: Feifei, Charge It Up (magnetic),  Blueberry Fizz (texture), Alcatraz... Rocks (texture), Azure, Quick Jeanius, They're Heeeere!

(Note that I was attempting to go from slightly greenish at the top left to slightly violet-toned at the bottom right - that was my rationale in the way I arranged these. I'm not sure I got them all in the right place, and definitely it's hard to see that here. Definitely Black & Blue has greenish tones and Quick Jeanius I remember in particular as reading "blurple" on the nail. In between it gets a little more difficult.)

I'm not going to necessarily talk about every one of these, but I know I have things to say about some of them, at least - starting with Black & Blue up at the top left, which seemed like a weird color to me until I started thinking of the name as "Blackened Blue," then it made much more sense. The next three are all super-bright blues. I've heard people say they had staining problems with Liberty, but I did not - I'd just say make darn sure you have a good thick coat of base-coat on for any blue, and especially these bright ones. I haven't worn Sweet Peacock in so long that I'm not even sure about whether it stained or not. (Maybe it's time to wear that one again, because I do remember that it was really pretty.) But Cabo Cruise, the Fergie one - that one stained like a mother---er. Worst staining issues I've ever had, and it's possible I might never wear it again, I'm afraid to try it. But it's a really pretty color! so just be aware of that one.

Let's see, then after that we have just a whole lot of medium-to-dark blue glitters and cremes, and they're all really pretty, and I don't really have anything particular to say til we get down to Revlon Intrigue, the lighter one that's second-to-last on the 2nd row - I notice that it looks in this picture, at least, like it and Pacific Blue, down on the row below, are dupes in the bottle. So I guess I need to try that one out. (I went looking to see, and here's comparisons of Pac Blue with Mesmerize, which doesn't look anything alike in the bottle, and Pac Blue with several more blues that I don't have. I couldn't find any comparisons for Intrigue - my guess is that in actuality Intrigue is a duller blue.)

You may notice that Shy, next to Intrigue on the end of the middle row, stands out like a sore thumb because it's the only pastel. I just do not look good in pastels, medium blues are as pastel as I go any more. (Of course, what people call "pastels" half the time are what I call medium tones anyway. If I was going to go off on an Easter-season rant, it would be about how people's idea of the word "pastel" is way off - but I don't really think it's worth the energy.) The next-closest thing I have to a pastel is probably Blueberry Fizz, the Gumdrop texture down on the bottom row - as I recall it's actually a very pale silvery-blue and looks more silver than blue in a lot of lights.

Things in this picture I have never worn: the unnamed mini, Playmaker, Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Charge It Up, Azure. I need to get on the stick and wear these!


As those of you who follow me on Twitter may already know, I'm having computer issues - I'm writing this on my "backup" computer, my old one. I'm not sure if that means I'll post less or actually post more, because until it's fixed I'm cut off from most of my games. (This is the computer I retired because its graphics card was sucky and it wouldn't even render Rift properly, and that was two years of games ago, so I'm not even going to try it with the newer ones.) I think I'm going to go ahead and haul the XPS into the shop, though. I am too addicted to ESO now to go without it for long. (Plus we're already into the free month that came with the software, so it's going to waste as it stands!)

Trying the untried: Santa Red My List

This is messy because I was literally painting my nails in the car when I stopped to get gas:

Needs some serious cleaning up, and suffers from the usual lobster-hands lighting issues as well, but this is China Glaze Santa Red My List (which - DISCLAIMER - I did receive for free from China Glaze, although they might not want to claim it in any case!) with some flakiness from Chloe as a top coat. It's pretty. It really reads redder than I expected in practice, although it's definitely on the pinkish end of red. Just waving my hands around as one does when talking, at least in the light I'm in right now, I believe most people would say I had red nail polish on, not pink.

Trying the untried: China Flower

This is China Flower, one of the new(-ish) Revlon Parfumerie polishes:

(under fluorescent light again, so as usual my hands look all lobsterish)
It's a nice bright slightly tomato-leaning red. I believe this is three coats - I was afraid at first that this was going to come out looking really orange-red, but it didn't. It has the very very faintest floral smell, but I put on topcoat and it mostly disappeared after that.

Note that my index finger is already chipped here - I don't blame Revlon for that one, though, it was the peelies. They struck before I had even gotten out of the car.

My husband gave me a pair of these for Christmas - the other one was a very pale pink, which is not really my thing, so I've more or less avoided that one deliberately, but this one I just tended to forget about. I have so many reds! I'm going to call this a new series - "trying the untried" - and see if I can knock out some of my untried polishes.

I Don't Bite

This is Sephora by OPI I Don't Bite (under fluorescent light):

This looks slightly bluer than it really is, and my pinky finger does not look at all red like the light makes it look, and I guess that's a shadow across my first two fingers because it's not a bruise - but if it's a shadow I have no idea what it's of! But ah well, you can get an idea of what this looks like, at least.

This is a discontinued polish, anyway, as are all Sephora by OPIs, of course, so it doesn't really matter that it has issues. Mostly, it just needs a base, because it's sheer and streaky and you can still see slightly-bald spots here after 4 coats. I like the grayed-out purple shimmer of it, but next time I'm layering it over something else just to avoid the issues. (Hmm, I wonder how it'd do as a syrup mani?)

Raisins?

I can't think of a better name for these than raisin-colors. Even the Illamasqua has a certain red-raisin tone to it. This is a preview of the next nail wheel, and L-R it's Glitterati, Chic Peek, Jem, and It's Genius (5-8 on the wheel). These are nicely seasonally appropriate for winter, but all of these have at least some shimmer if not some glitter to them. Chic Peek, in particular, is a color I ignored for a long time but have come to quite like. It's nominally a purple but like Jem it's sort of a very in-between color. (But you can see that it's also quite different from Jem!)

(I would go ahead and post the whole wheel, but I still need to fish the rest of these colors out of my ongoing resorting project, so I'm going to wait until I have the rest of that done instead!)

A bit of a warning, or at least a notice, that the blog posting here may increase for a while. Or it may not, because I'm inconsistent that way, and I'm not going to pretend I'm suddenly going to change! But I have a ton of pictures built up, and I don't like to load up one entry with a zillion pictures, because it annoys me to read those sometimes. (NOTE before I get myself into trouble, that this is not intended as a criticism of anybody else's pictures. Posting a bunch of pictures of one nail polish line or a bunch of display pictures together makes sense, and you expect those to be fairly long. The ones that irritate me sometimes - and ones I'm thinking of are not nail bloggers, as it happens - are people whose every single entry seems to be a really long string of pictures with no particular theme. I am in fact thinking of a couple of people in particular, but they're not anybody I'm online-buddies with so it's extremely doubtful that they even read here. So if you're worried I'm talking about you, probably not.) Anyway, I am going to break it up, for my own sanity, as I did for the Zoya one that posted this morning. And I will probably just put them on a schedule, if I manage to get ahead, to post once a day in the morning until I run out of steam with this.

I was thinking that I might start gradually doing that Untried Polish Challenge that was going around last year. I could stand to work through some untrieds. (Here is one of Gnarly's Gnails entries about it. I am also poking around in her blog sale right now, so I may have some "new" untrieds on the way to add to the list by the time this gets posted.)

Here's a very so-so picture of Alcatraz Rocks - it gets the texture but none of the sparkly: