Guide to my nail wheels

I've been posting nail wheels off and on for months, and it's gotten so I can't even remember what I have and haven't posted, and when. I started this last September, so it's taken me nearly six months to get pictures of the original set of nail wheels online. (In fact, you can tell now that I've got dates on it that I started with a flurry in September, and then have gradually slowed down with getting the rest of them up, after that.)

Note: I have posted more since this was originally done; I have updated the list and links to reflect that and will continue to do so. Further updates will be on the nail wheels and stash page. Also I did not take close-up "detail" pictures until I got further down the wheel, and I like those for comparison purposes so I'll probably go back and take more of those when I get a chance. The second half is mostly missing bottle shots like the early ones have, but I probably will not re-do those specifically in connection with the wheels. (You will be seeing my stash color by color again at some point, I'm pretty confident of that.)

1. green (Sept 8) (detail pics needed)
2. blue-green (Sept 12) (detail needed)
3. metallics and multicolor glitters (Sept 16) (detail needed)
4. cyan/blue/blue-violet (Sept 17) (detail needed)
5. neutral(ish) purples (Sept 19) (detail needed)
6. purple to red-violet (Sept 29) (detail needed)
7. red-violet to pink (Oct 5) (detail needed)
8. bright pinks (Oct 13) (detail needed) 
9. reds (Nov 3) (full wheel - Feb 21) (but detail still needed)
10. purchases since Sept (2 parts: Jan 13 and Feb 24)
11. fall colors - orange/copper/brown (Nov 18) (detail needed) 
12. lighter pinks, brownish pinks (2 parts: Dec 29 and Jan 11)
13. fuchsia to burgundy + Take 10 (Jan 12) (detail needed) 
14. white, gray, black (Feb 10) (updated Feb 21)
15. glitter/shimmer over black (Feb 3)
16. China Glaze Happy HoliGlaze collection (Jan 22)
17. Take Ten + new purchases (Mar 4)
18. Jan 2014 purchases (Mar 6)
19. colors for Valentine's Day (mostly pinks) (Jan 31)
20. Jan-Feb 2014 adds and manicures (coming soon)

There are still some that have never been posted at all, or never posted in their entirety. (And I'm still doing new ones as I buy new stuff!)

Hopefully this post will give me a guide for what I have and haven't posted. Also, some are still waiting for the next sunny day so I can take more pictures. And not all of them are entirely full, still.

Hmm, so actually the one scheduled for Monday (black, white, gray) is the last of the original round of swatches - everything left after that is what I've bought since then. So on the whole, not as bad as I feared.

Not in the winter mood

I went to Big Lots to see what they had in the way of Sephora by OPIs, since everybody keeps going on about what they're finding there. I gotta say that $1.80 is a fabulous price for a polish that used to be $9 - what is that, 80% off? However, I pawed through the bins and they didn't have anything that I really had to have, so instead I bought two Colorstay colors that were marked down a mere 70% or so (they were $1.50). The two Colorstays were Rich Raspberry and Fall Mood - like I really need another berry-color or another tarnished gold (which appears to be what Fall Mood is), but oh well. Maybe I will keep making periodic runs though Big Lots' makeup aisle now that it's on my radar. (I tend to avoid Big Lots because the first couple of times I went in there I spent, like, two hours in there each time and spent lots of money. But I think I'm over that now.) It's conveniently on my way home from work, so there's that. But next I actually want to go to Sally Beauty and look at the Finger Paint BOGO sale.

Oh, I almost forgot to say that I wasn't done when I got out of Big Lots, either - I had to go in the grocery store to pick up a prescription, and when I cruised down the nail polish aisle, I noticed they had Rimmel Lasting Finish marked down. Their Rimmel is stuck down on the very bottom in a corner of the aisle ("corner" as in backing up to the endcap) and so I've never bothered to get down there and look at all the colors. If they're being discontinued, I may have to go on a quest, because I have it in my head that I want Lava Red, and I never have found it up to now. I did get down in the corner and look, and I did not find Lava Red, but I did come home with Rags to Riches, which is a nice shimmery sort of dollar-bill green. I'm guessing that's what they were going for, anyway, from the name.

Also - Purple Poodle over Domestic Goddess? Gorgeous. I did three coats of Purple Poodle, finally, and you still can't see much of the purple shimmer that I know is down there, but it has a lot of shine and a lot of depth, and it's just really pretty. You might can see the purple in full sun, but I still don't know about that because we are in full Texas-winter mode, what my mama would've called a "blue norther" - and the sun has not been seen today. (And there was a cold damp wind, and it was a pretty miserable day, generally.)

Bottle size, stash pics, & NOTD

I've got a spreadsheet going with polish brands and prices and how big the bottles are, because as I think I've said previously, I've gotten sort of interested in the question of bottle size and how easy it is to buy something without realizing how much is actually in that bottle. My spreadsheet is not anything resembling complete to my satisfaction yet, but I will tell you the current winner on the price per ounce front: Terrybly aka La Laque by Terry, which is $30 for a 10ml bottle. If my math is correct that comes out to $88 and change per ounce. (Google tells me that there are 29.57 ml per ounce, so 10 ml is slightly less than .3 ounce.) Somebody who owns some Chanel nail polish can tell me if I'm wrong, because I haven't found a definite answer on any website selling Chanel so far (including Chanel's own) about how big their bottles are - but I believe they are in the 0.5 oz/15ml range, right? Making them a considerably better buy (on a per-ounce basis) at $27 a bottle. But I noticed that other Terrybly makeup is equally expensive so I guess they are just the very high end of high-end. (So far.)

Today's mani started out to be Orly Purple Poodle by itself, but it's so sheer it was bothering me, even after a couple of coats, so I started over and used SOPI Domestic Goddess as a base. I think it made it slightly pinker than it would've been by itself, but it's not a huge difference. The "purple" part of Purple Poodle seems to be the purple specks in it, not the base itself. But I haven't gotten a good look at it in the sunlight yet, so I'll report back. I do have to say that all this talk about bottle size makes me appreciate Orly's generous .6 oz bottles! (I've never managed to use up a bottle of anything Orly, so far.)

Just because I realized I've never put these up, this is what my stash looked like before I started the big reorganization project a month or so ago:

(Non-nail-polish-related story: the comforter on the bed is about 5 years old; it came in quite a few colors, and I let my husband pick out a color, since I had already picked the pattern. Predictably, he said brown. I've always sort of wished I'd gotten green, but actually I would probably be just as tired of looking at it if it was green. Really, it's not bad. You get tired of looking at anything after seeing it every day for 5 years.)

Another scented polish, and recent manis

Here's a new-to-me brand, seen in a Walgreen's that I don't normally go in - Tea Beauty? Another scented polish - apparently made by a fragrance company, so that part makes sense.

None of these colors grabbed me enough that I was willing to pay $4.99 to try them out. Hopefully they will be around again with a better color selection! I was iffy on the scented-polish idea, in general - originally I thought it sounded like a horrible idea, but I have gradually tried a few and found that the scent is actually pretty subtle on the ones I've tried, so I've now grown more accustomed to the concept. It's not really a draw, to me, though, I admit - I doubt that I'm ever going to buy a polish just because it's scented.

Let's see, in recent manis... when last heard from on this subject, I think I was wearing Blood of the Mountain. (I remain not entirely in love with that polish. I've loved every other Pahlish I've had, so it's certainly nothing against them!) Over the weekend, I decided I would go red-violet and I did Sinful Colors Fig with a topping of Sugar Plum Fairies Gone Wild, which turned out to work really well. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it, because it was cloudy all weekend and I never got decent light to take anything. (I have decided I'm going to start swatching my layering experiments onto a nail wheel at the same time as I do my nails, since I'm always having some problem or other taking mani pictures. If I have the manicure duplicated on a wheel, I can take a picture at my leisure. Also I just bought another 10 nail wheels so I have plenty of wheel space to spare!)

I do have a picture of the current one, although it's not a great picture even by my standards, blurry and totally deceptive:

This is It's Genius, a raisin-y Essie color that I like enough that I was almost tempted to leave alone, but instead I put Travel in Colour over it. Travel in Colour makes everything look pink (or at least pinker), I've said it before and I haven't changed my mind about that. This looks very red-violet in this picture, but trust me, that's the fluorescents. It's much more fuchsia than it appears here. And it's actually very pretty and shimmery, and I like it. However, the picture itself pisses me off because it's so useless. It looks like some red-violet like Domestic Goddess, maybe, and it's not - and I'm tempted to take it out of the post because of that, but I probably won't. Just bear in mind that this is NOT what this manicure actually looks like!!

Stash - Orly, Ulta, Julie G, & more

Here's my little stash of Orlys. Let's see, the four minis came as a set: Razzmatazz, Hot Stuff, Tiara, and Groupie. The other bottle on the top is the same as one of the ones below: Pearl Wisdom. I have two of those - it was my go-to favorite topper back a couple of years ago. Bottom row is Bonder upside down, and then Sweet Peacock, Diamond Love, Pearl Wisdom, Glitz, R.I.P. (from the 2012 Halloween collection), Rage, Flagstone Rush, and Retro Red. Notice that these are all in the old bottles; the two new ones that I bought this past month aren't in the picture.

Then we have some assorted stuff (bad picture but it seems to be the only one I have):

Top left: Sation Holiday Spirit, and below that, Finger Paint Hypnotic, a magnetic (I only own the one from each of those brands); then going across from there are my Julie G's, all from the Gumdrops (texture) collection: Rock Candy, Blueberry Fizz, Crushed Candy, Hot Cinnamon, and Sugar Rush. The mini at the top left is an old Sephora store brand polish, predating S-OPIs, I believe. It's just called No.08. And then I think the Studio M and the two Color Clubs below it were also in a different picture, so they've already been discussed. The Ultas along the bottom are Chic Peek, Celebutante, and then 5 minis that came out of a "Wicked Wonderland" holiday collection from a number of years ago: Twisted Tinsel, N-evergreen, Empty Stocking, Bad Santa, and Tilted Halo. I tend to forget to wear these, but they're all very nice colors - nice enough that every time I remember their existence I say, "Why don't I ever wear these?" Tilted Halo in particular is unlike anything else I own - it looks gold but it's got a champagne tint to it that nothing else has. (And Bad Santa is just a great name.)

I'm hoping for a sunny day soon so I can photograph the brands I have left and get on to the next phase of this, but this time of year we don't have that many sunny days, even on the Gulf Coast. I'm trying to be zen about it: it'll happen eventually, right?

Black-based nail wheel

This whole wheel is over 3 coats of Hard As Nails Jet Black:

1. Diamond Love (Orly) (2 coats)
2. Groupie (Orly) (2 coats)
3. Disco Ball (Xtreme Wear) (1 coat)
4. Fairy Dust (e.l.f.) (1 coat)
5. Fairy Dust (Khroma) (1 coat)
6. Tilted Halo (Ulta)  (1 coat)
7. Pearl Wisdom (Orly) (1 coat)
8. Let Me Go (Sinful) (2 coats)
9. Mist You (SH Salon)
10. Jailbait (old Hard Candy) (1 coat)
11. Gray's Anatomy (WnW)
12. unnamed very pale pink shimmer
13. unnamed slightly less pale pink glitter
14. Slick Black (Color Show)
15. Big City Dazzle (NYC)
16. Strobe Light (Xtreme Wear)
17. Two-Timer Stars (Maybelline)
18. Amethyst Couture (Color Show Brocades)
19. Jewel Tone (L.A. Colors)
20. Jet Black alone (Hard As Nails) (3 coats)

(detail shots under the jump)

I'm taking a day off.

January is over, and I posted EVERY SINGLE DAY for the whole month. I didn't actually set out to do this - actually I wouldn't have imagined that I would ever do such a thing. But I took a ton of pictures way back at the beginning of the month, when I started the stash reorganizing, and after the whole month, I still haven't run out of pictures. I am going to slow down some in February - at least, I am definitely taking tomorrow off - but I still have stash pictures and nail wheels to catch up on, and so I will probably keep posting more often than I did in 2013, for a while. We'll see how that goes.

I'm totally behind on reading other people's blogs, but I've been working on it and here's some linkage:
I didn't see this until today, but Zoya has already done a Valentine's nail wheel of their own
More pink - in fact, the pinkest of the pink!
Pretty Dior pinks for spring
Here's a V-Day collection that's only 1/3 pink
and lips!!
(ok, I'll stop with the pink...)

Here's some people having giveaways, instead:
Gnarly Gnails (also, look at her stash!)
YukieLoves
Things I Love at the Moment

Non-pink, non-giveaway links:
LynB's QI collection - part 1 and part 2
cute chevron mani done with textures
I've never heard of a brand called Jacava, but wow, this is pretty

Here's one of the nail wheels I haven't shown before - everything in this one is over a black base.

More on that sometime this month!

OK, that's all I got. Happy weekend!!