ILNP Black Orchid

Today's polish is a classic from one of my favorite brands, ILNP. Black Orchid is a stunning vampy holo that apparently looks quite different in various lighting. 

 In real life, it's a rich deep burgundy with a metallic, linear holo finish and a bright magenta sheen. The indoor lighting brought out this sheen so intensely, the whole polish looks magenta in this photo.

 In the muted autumn sunlight, Black Orchid is the color of blood. This isn't one of ILNP's Ultra Holos, but it's still full of gorgeous prismatic sparkle. In a couple of these pics, you can see there's a little patchiness close to my cuticles; the formula on this one is a touch finicky, and like most ILNPs, it's at its best at three coats. The patchiness isn't visible in person, just in photographs, but I still recommend letting it dry thoroughly between coats.

This is such a classic color and a must-have ILNP. I've got another excellent burgundy holo that'll make an appearance on Friday; join me tomorrow for a less well-loved, but still quite lovely, holiday red holo!

Halloweek Spooktacular Day Four - Sinful Colors Cloak and Swagger

Here's probably my favorite of Sinful's Halloween offerings, Cloak and Swagger. Haha! I love the name! And I love the polish, which is a gorgeous, vampy, plummy burgundy with the same fine grained texture and silvery sparkle as a Zoya Pixie Dust. I mean seriously...

 I adore Pixie Dusts, but I don't have one this color. Rather than using cute imagery involving sparkly fairies, Cloak and Swagger boasts a "tombstone matte" finish, which is just so spooky. It's so great!

 And it's maybe even greater with top coat. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top eventually got sucked up by the texture, so that the finish was glossy but pebbly. Wet, like a tongue. Two coats makes it perfectly smooth; the silver glitter spangles the dried-blood base, and the result is a polish that is good all year round. Play Dead impressed me with its formula, but it was obviously a novelty polish.

Tomorrow I'll show another Sinful from this collection that also reminds me of Zoya, although it'll actually be another first for the blog: a comparison post! Come back tomorrow night to check it out!

Saturday Nail Art - Golden Ghosts on a Gradient

This week went wrong in more ways than one. I schedule my posts ahead of time, and it looks like I accidentally scheduled Black Holo Witch for today, when it should have gone up Friday (it was also the last of my backlog; I'm writing this on the day it goes up, and it's going up late). I also messed up when I picked the colors for this nail art...I used CbL Black Gold, Texas Tea (which was featured this week) and ILNP Black Orchid (which has black in the name, and is a holo, but wasn't part of black holo week).

I did a simple gradient with a makeup sponge. These pics look to me like I used three polishes, but the purple in the middle is just the two mixed together.

I stamped it with Powder Perfect's Golden Stamping Polish and Halloween plate, then put a border of Revlon Black Magic around the edge.

Even though I used NYC Grand Central Station, my ghosts smeared a little bit. I really do love this stamping polish; I bought all five of them, and the stamper, and the three plates, and I've been stamping my heart out lately. I'm definitely not the most skilled stamper, but I've certainly been getting a lot of practice!

Because Halloween is on Monday, and I just took a trip to Walgreen's and picked up a few new seasonal lovelies, I'm going to be posting Halloween polishes and nail art all next week! I'm calling it "Halloweek" because I am a genius. Join me Monday for my first spooky polish!