Baroness X (obligatory unicorn body fluid)

Welcome! I've gone ahead and hopped back to the beginning of the alphabet, because I've recently acquired some amazing polishes that I want to blog about. First up is this beauty from Baroness X that I'm going to call (oubf). The name is silly, but it actually does make sense considering that the origin of this polish was the unicorn-themed December Monthly Mythical Mystery box. Unexpectedly, it doesn't appear to have unicorn pee in it (unlike so many gorgeous BX polishes). It's jam-packed with other pretty things, though.

(oubf) is a teal jelly that is just loaded with silver flakies and the iridescent firefly glitters that have become very popular lately, with a sparse amount of holo microglitter scattered in. I did three coats here, but the jelly formula is so good, and the polish is so crammed full of stuff, that I feel like you could easily get away with two. Especially if you do thicker coats. While I was adding tags to this post, I realized it's the first one starring a Baroness X polish! This seems really weird to me, since BX is one of my favorite brands and I've been posting a lot of BX manis lately on Facebook and Instagram. Unfortunate that the first one on my blog is one that you can't buy!

If you're not familiar with them, the Monthly Mythical Mystery box is a darling package you can buy from BX every month (or you can subscribe). The boxes have a pre-order window, and then go out around the beginning of each month. Like this polish, the MMMs are always full of wonderful things: there's always a polish and some kind of bath or body item, and a cute little insert listing the contents and explaining the mythical inspiration behind that month's theme. When I swatch the other MMM polishes I have, I'll include a pic of the inserts; the unicorn box was a little different, in that it had so much stuff in it that the insert didn't have room for any info about unicorns.

Besides my blog and my nation, another casualty of November was my old phone. I'd had it for the better part of two years, it had died and had to be refurbished, and it was cheap as hell to begin with. So when the screen got smashed, I wasn't exactly broken-hearted. I've been posting on Instagram a lot more lately, because I now have a phone with a much better camera than my old one...and today, I made a breath-taking discovery:

I can take macros with my phone! I feel like a lot of people are kind of over macros, because when you buy a polish based solely on macros, you are guaranteeing yourself some disappointment. Since this blog is just cataloging random polishes, many unavailable or undesirable, I'm really not worried about accuracy or selling anything. So I'll be taking a lot of macro shots from now on. Check back in on Wednesday to see macro shots and other pictures of a polish that you can actually buy!

Halloweek Spooktacular Day Five - Sinful Colors Nice Guise

Tonight's post is a comparison. When I was picking out colors from the Guys and Ghouls collection, I hemmed and hawed over this one, Nice Guise. I thought, "Doesn't this look kind of a lot like Zoya Remy? No wait, isn't Remy greener? I've never even worn Remy so maybe I should skip this one."

 In the bottle, it does look a lot like Remy. The base color is a really similar deep blue, and it has a similar golden shimmer. Despite the claims of its sticker, Nice Guise doesn't really have any magical color-shifting chameleon properties. Still, I decided it would be worth it to buy it and compare the two. As it turns out, they're the same color but far from dupes.

In these pictures, I'm wearing Nice Guise on my index and ring fingers and Remy on my middle and pinky. Here they are at one coat; you can see the shimmer in Nice Guise is sparser, and while the base is pretty equally pigmented on both, Nice Guise applies a bit patchy.

 At two coats, Remy's shimmer is so built up that it looks like a completely different polish. It's very much a shimmering glass fleck, while Nice Guise is more of a sparkly jelly. Being so packed with shimmer definitely makes Remy look greener, too.

Here they are in their final form: under a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy. Remy gets a glowy, mermaidy quality. Nice Guise, lo and behold, actually does do a little gold-to-green color shifting! Is it worth it to buy both of them? I mean, Nice Guise is only $2, so...sure?
For nail art Saturday, I've got a whole bunch of random nail art, a franken, and one last Halloween Sinful Colors. Come by tomorrow for the last day of the Spooktacular!

Saturday Nail Art - Are You Plaid to See Me?

So first off, you might notice in this nail art something I alluded to earlier in the week: a change in my nail shape. Yep, I filed 'em square. I did this for a few reasons; I had a peelie on my left hand that looked like it was going to get worse, I had a hard time filing my points evenly and wanted something neater-looking, and even though I never hear anyone talk about this, it's been my experience that pointy tips get tip wear faster. Your mileage may vary.

 As you probably guessed from this post's hilarious title, this week I was inspired to do some plaid nail art. Remember last week, when I inadvertently switched Zoya Bay and Cupcake Bat-chelor Pad? It actually worked out for the best this week, too. I started out by hand-painting striped of Bat-Chelor Pad and Wet N Wild Be More Pacific over a base of China Glaze Bend Over Backwards, which would not have gone as smoothly if I'd been trying to use a texture.

 I love this color scheme, makes me think of old wool blankets. I stamped with Konad White, as usual, and the plate was from Born Pretty.

To me, this is probably the most successful nail art I've had on the blog yet. I only did it on four fingers, but I would definitely recreate it maybe as an accent nail. Next week might get a little awkward, as I have three holos to swatch and the weather is starting to turn gloomy. I'm about to get daylight bulbs and invest in a second lamp so I can take better indoor pictures, since that's what I'm going to be stuck with starting in a month or so. Fortunately, next week's polishes are super sparkly, super holographic, and gorgeous in any light!

Wet N Wild Be More Pacific

OK, so my nails look wrecked in this post. Because I don't wear a base coat when I swatch, cremes show every flaw in my nails. Later in the week, you'll see a change in my nail shape, and these pics are part of the reason why.

As for the polish itself, I actually really like this one. It's a nice thick two-coat creme, and the color is right between green and blue. Also it was like seventy-five cents or whatever. Cupcake Polish also has a polish called Be More Pacific, but this one came first. I think this is a beautiful color and perfect for summer. I don't have a lot to say about this one, come back Friday for something shinier.

Saturday Nail Art - Jelly Sandwich of Sorts

This week's nail art is a little bit of a hard sell. I had two polishes with holo in them, and two polishes that were a jelly finish. I did a little experimenting (outtakes at the bottom of the post) and realized that Zoya Aurora and LA Colors Atomic actually combined to make a pretty awesome deep plum.

I decided to go with a dry brush mani. I did a base coat of Aurora, then swipes of Atomic and Liquid Sky Lacquer Babi's Bur-Bindi, the polish I was afraid would clash hard with the other two. In fact, it got kind of lost in the Aurora sandwich. I knew the formula was pretty opaque in one coat, so I thought I would see if it stamped...

...and so it does! The red-brown still doesn't stand out super well against the warm purple, but maybe you can tell that these are roses. I am pretty sure this pattern was from a Born Pretty plate, although I am terrible at making a note of what plate I used or remembering what they are called.

Not sure if I would call this mani a success, or just a surprisingly pleasing failure. 

Here's the test run, when I discovered how cool the two colors look together and that Babi's could be used to stamp a lovely little fern. This was a pretty good week overall; come back next week for some stranger things.

LA Colors Atomic

So I know a complained a lot last week, because the polishes I was swatching were ugly and annoying. I hesitate to criticize polishes too harshly, though, because I have been wrong in the past. For example, here's a polish I hated when I bought it: LA Colors Atomic.

I hated it because it was sheer, and at the time (sometime in the summer of 2015), I didn't know what crellies were. Yep! So I wrote off the polish and the brand, which is for the best because otherwise I would have a million of them, since they are $1 or less. Swatching Atomic for the blog, though, for the first time since I bought it, I realize it's actually a winner. Yes, it takes three coats, but the formula is smooth and easy to apply and the finished result is beautiful. These pics are with no top coat, Atomic is just that shiny. Join me Wednesday for another winner, and the blog's first polish from my favorite mainstream brand.