Fantasy Makers Bloody Marie

Gosh, I feel like every week I work on this blog, I learn something. Like just now, I learned that, while it's great to take pictures and schedule posts ahead of time, sometimes you need to be wearing the polish while you edit the pictures because you can't remember what color it really is

It could be any of these! Just kidding, it's definitely not as dark the upper left box, but I think it's not as bright as on the right. Lower left is probably the most color-accurate. Not that you're likely to find this polish around, anyway...

It's a Fantasy Makers by Wet N Wild, and as far as I can tell, they don't appear to be a thing this year! They weren't even that impressive last year; I saw all four for $2 each at Rite-Aid and bought them all, mostly because I thought the bottles were cute, and Bloody Marie here turned out to be the best one. The others are a crappy black that I frankened with clear polish to try to turn into a jelly, a crappy white, a glow-in-the-dark that only glows in the bottle, and this red jelly that is basically a dupe for China Glaze Masai Red. 

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 Since I didn't have that many pictures of Bloody Marie, and the ones I have are ridiculous, I thought I'd better flesh out this collage with some pics I took of Wet N Wild Black Creme. Since it's the only polish I see at the Wet N Wild Halloween makeup displays this year, I guess it's officially a Halloween polish now, huh? In the upper left is the black Fantasy Makers polish, Black as Knight; that is not what I'm wearing on my nails. Black Creme is a great polish, Black as Knight sucks and was a streaky, watery mess before I even messed with it.

 I took these when I wore Black Creme under Bali Mist, so they are summer sun pictures and my nails were still pointy. This was the indoor pic under my horrible old bulb. I decided to go for it and just make the picture black and white...I mean, holding black polish with black nails in a black and white photo is a great idea, right? Friday will continue our spooky nail polish times with another black polish.

Bonita Big Dipper

I realized several things when I was editing the pictures for today's post. First, I realized that I bought this polish last winter, when Bonita had several sparkly things on offer at the Rite-Aid by my job.

Big Dipper, Golden Girl, Flirty Shirley, Flamingo, and Tinman's Brew are some of the gaudy, glittery, and even holographic Bonita polishes that I have, and I picked up almost all of them at the downtown Portland Rite-Aid on my way to work. This year, that same Rite-Aid has the summer neons still out, and no other Bonitas in sight. Bonita! Where did you go? I need cheap holo glitter that sparkles under fluorescent lights to get me through the miserable rainy winter!

 Another thing I realized is that I like making overcomplicated collages. Since I got my new lighting set up, I have been taking enormous amounts of pictures and deleting most of them, and I'm also starting to really enjoy taking bottle shots. I realized that I stole the idea of the collage with close-up bottle shot from Nicole at Bedlam Beauty, but while she makes consistently clear and well-balanced collages, mine are kind of a mess. I'm not worried about it, since I'm blogging for myself and not to provide any kind of service to others. I'm gonna call it art.

The third thing I realized: The brand name is "bonita by Royal Essence." I have never, ever heard of Royal Essence. Who or what is Royal Essence? I googled them and found a jewelry/candle company, an essential oils company, and a perfume company all by that name, as well as at least one salon.  

 Bonita has their own website, and on the about page they call themselves "Nono Cosmetics." The website says nothing, anywhere, about Royal Essence. I'm sorry this blog post raises questions it can't answer, but Royal Essence will just have to remain a mystery for the time being.

Oh, I guess I should talk about the polish itself, huh? Big Dipper is a mix of medium and small silver metallic and silver holographic glitter. I've got one coat on my index and pinky, two coats on my middle, and I sponged it on my ring finger. It's jam-packed with glitter, but the base isn't goopy or hard to spread. If you ever happen across a bottle of it for $1.75, as I did, it's a nice little holiday-feeling glitter topper. I'm wearing it over Wet N Wild Black Creme, which I was going to include solo shots of in this post before it turned out to be inexplicably long. Join me Wednesday for a more seasonally-appropriate polish.

Saturday Nail Art - Watermarble

I don't watermarble very often because it's very messy, and I never feel right pouring the water down the sink at the end. I don't know what else to do with it, and there's no polish in it, but it feels wrong. Anyway, I recently got a bottle of Girly Bits Border Patrol, so I decided to use it to keep my fingers clean and do a watermarble.

I started with a base of Monday's polish, Cupcake Berry Good Looking, which I wore for an entire week. I tried a couple of different combinations on my right hand; Color Club Beyond and ILNP BFF's both spread easily in the water, but Berry Good Looking didn't, and I also tried a coat of BFF's over BGL topped with a watermarble of Beyond and a clear polish...but I didn't like it. I like this way the best, which is rings of Beyond and BFF's over a base of BGL.

I don't feel like this turned out super impressive, both because the colors don't contrast and because I'm not skilled at watermarbling. It's not as hard for me as it seems to be for some people, but again, I don't do it that much, so actually drawing the patterns in the water isn't something I'm good at yet.

This week had kind of a spooky palette! A nice coincidence! Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be getting into some spooky black polishes and some Halloween specials!

ILNP BFF's

When I went to add tags for this entry, I was shocked to see that this is the first ILNP to be on the blog. I actually got After Midnight recently, but after I had already gotten through the A's on here. Someday I'll have to do a catch-up week where I go back to previous letters. In the meantime, here's ILNP BFF's.

I have this polish listed in my spreadsheet as "BFFs," no apostrophe, but it is actually BFF's. It came out in Spring 2016 with several other deliberately sheer holo jellies. These pictures are three coats, which is my standard for most polishes and especially ILNP.

ILNP was my first indie brand, and if I had to pick one brand to wear for the rest of my life, it'd be my choice. The formula always applies and last so well on me, and there's such a wide selection of colors and finishes, and I just love all of them. I also love the way the collections are split into two sets, one seasonal and one based around a finish or theme (Spring jellies, Summer shimmers, and now the Fall neutrals).

 The jellies are great for nail art, although I don't feel like I used it very wisely this week. They're really great for reverse stamping, dry marbling, and syrup gradients.

I don't talk much about availability, but you can get this polish on ILNP's website. Join me tomorrow for some nail art using this week's fabulous sparkly polishes!

Color Club Beyond

Today's polish is one of the wonderful Halo Hues, excellent metallic holos that stamp like a champ. Beyond is what passes for a black holo, although the enormous amount of silver holographic pigment lightens it up so it reads as charcoal grey.

 I just hate the way this color looks on my skin, but this is still an amazing polish. Amazing formula, killer holo flame (even in low light), and I'm also really in love with the super-reflective holo cap.

 I bought this as part of a set from the Color Club website back in February. They have great sales from time to time. The Halo Hues are an absolute classic; even though I have lots of gorgeous linear holos and these are so silvery that none of them has a very saturated base color, these are so fool-proof and versatile that I use them a lot.

 I've stamped with Beyond quite a few times, but somehow there's no visible fill line in the bottle. Speaking of the bottle...

I got my exposure and white balance settings fixed up today, so I'm going to be including more bottle shots and close-ups. Join me tomorrow to see more overly dramatic photographs of nail polish!

Cupcake Polish Berry Good Looking

Hello! It's October, and today's polish is from last summer, but somehow this warm purple feels right for fall. I actually wore this polish for a whole week last week, which is an eternity for me. When you've got perfection on your nails, though, it's easy to leave it alone.

In my last post, I mentioned that I was planning on getting some daylight bulbs and a second light source. Well, I did! It's autumn in Oregon, which means lots of rain and very little sunlight, so I knew I had to make a change. I also realized that the indoor shots I was taking under a regular light bulb were not the best. I'm really enjoying taking pictures in my new lighting setup, and it seemed like Berry Good Looking was a perfect polish to start this new phase with.

It's perfect partly because it's such a crazy-looking polish that I immediately got a lot of practice by taking a million pictures of it. It's also perfect on a more symbolic level. When Berry Good Looking came out last year, everyone went nuts over how amazing the color and the holo flame were. It got a ridiculous amount of hype, but I held off buying it because I thought it was pink.

It's hard to take accurate pictured of BGL, and it's also completely different in the bottle than on the nail. I was justified in thinking it was pink, because in the bottle, it is! On the nail, though, the polish pops such a supernaturally strong blue flame that it darkens up and becomes the most mind-blowing, saturated hot purple.

Just like I put off buying BGL because of my uncertainty, I put off stepping up my lighting game for the same reason. If all this pontificating and metaphor-making seems like stalling, well...it totally is. I stuck to the same format for all my previous blog posts: indoor light photo with some kind of cheesy editing, collage of outdoor shots, repeat. I still want to do collages, but I feel like in a way, I was using them to distract from my posing and photography. So I am planning on including more full-sized pictures, more bottle shots, working on my poses, and just generally having more variety. I realize this was more of a meta post about my blog than it was a post about Berry Good Looking, but honestly, doesn't everyone have this already? 

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!