New Year's Eve Nail Party; Business Appropriate Colors

I don't really "go out" on New Year's Eve although I have no objection to "going all out." So for the last couple years my boyfriend and I have stayed in and made grandly caloric dinners (roasted bone marrow...not for the faint of heart, quite literally). But staying in doesn't mean I have to have unpainted fingernails, oh no! So I will be wearing this:

Oh, it's lovely. A bright blue jelly with tons of silver microglitter, this polish dries to a smooth shine. Next time I might consider wearing it over a dark blue or black creme, but this is three coats and it's fine. It's only in front of bright light that you can see the nail line a bit. And for a polish that cost $1.39, the application was thrillingly good.

Okay, so I mentioned I'm starting a new full-time job on Monday and I'm nervous for all the usual reasons. Ultimately I'm sure it will be great but you always have that awkward phase where you're not sure of all the rules. During this time I'll be wearing some of my more subtle nail colors so as to gauge the office's tolerance of more daring colors.

Do you think...

I have enough?

Haha, that's a joke.

During the interview process for this job, I wore three separate sheer/neutral colors and I like to think they brought me luck. So I'm going to stick with that tactic for the time being and then maybe, when everything's going really well, I can wear Suede Shoes to work and no one will bat an eye.

More Happy Holiday Colors

I promised to share a few more holiday colors with you, so here you go.

On Christmas Day I wore Zoya Ginessa, a subtly shimmery silver white that looks like snow.

My mom let me do her nails with this one. I offered to do them, thinking she'd prefer clear (I've never actually known my mom to wear colored nail polish...even when we went for pedicures together, she chose sheer pink). But she surprised me by unearthing FOUR bottles of nail polish, though I vetoed them all on the grounds of being too frosty and a bit dated. So she asked for this one, which I was wearing at the time. The finish of this one is weird, it looks almost pitted though it's very smooth with a top coat.

Currently I'm wearing this:

This is part of an effort to get some of my more obnoxious colors out of the way for a while because I'm starting a new job and want to test the waters with neutrals, pinks and reds before beginning the parade of greens, blues and glitters that I will inevitably want to wear. I don't see it being a problem but I don't want my first impression to be Blue Glitter Fingernail Girl, so I'll take it easy at first and share those colors with you as well. Anyway, this color is called "Purple-Xing," which I don't mind telling you drives me nuts. Is it purple ex-ing? Purple Crossing? Purple Zing? And why is that hyphen there, it doesn't even make any sense. Ultimately it doesn't matter I suppose because the polish is amazeballs -- purple jelly loaded with large and small silver holo glitter. This would be great for New Year's, I think.

Or really any time of year...as long as you're not starting a new job.

Minty Fresh

I love this.

It's Claire's Dream Catcher, supposedly a dupe or at least a very close relative of the sought-after Chanel Jade. But $4, instead of whatever godawful amount of money somebody wants on eBay.

Here are some other tasty minty greens, too.

L-R: Essie Greenport; Essie Mint Candy Apple; Dream Catcher; Sally Hansen Mint Sprint.

Mint Sprint! I love it!

Another Seasonally Appropriate Color

So here's a funny story.

My family got together today for my cousin's birthday and as we were waiting for dinner my mom noticed my nails. "Oh!" she said. "Now the other day when you were down here, your nails were red, and now they're green!"

God MOTHERRRRRR that was TUESDAY. AS IF I would leave a color on that long!

Anyway, here's the green. Ta-daaaa:

The name of this polish troubles me a little, not so much because I do or don't like it very much either way, but because it confuses people:

Other person: That's a nice color, what's it called?

Me: Thanks! It's 'Absinthe Makes the Heart."

Other person: Grow fonder?

Me: No, it's 'absinthe.' The drink. Just 'Absinthe Makes the Heart.'

Other person: Yeah, 'grow fonder' is the rest of that saying.

Me: But it's not the saying, it's 'absinthe,' not 'absence,' so it's just...never mind.

Anyway, naming troubles aside, it's a beautiful polish. This is one of those that causes some controversy on the MUA nail board (inasmuch as there can be said to be "controversy" there) because some people REALLY love it and some really hate it. And if you spend $9 on a polish you really want to love it, you know? So it's disappointing when it doesn't happen for you.

In my opinion, what's not to love about a dusty evergreen jelly loaded with green, gold and coppery-red glitter?

And here's a bonus: My Dita von Teese nails with a matte top coat.

Movie Star Nails

I have been obsessed with doing this for a while and I finally bit the bullet:

For this look, I used Illamasqua Jan as the base coat. I had this on as a regular manicure for a day or so before I attempted the chevrons, which I think is the best tactic. You will want the base coat to be very, very dry.

Incidentally, I love Jan on its own:

For the black part, I used Chanel Black Satin. Normally I would have reached for my go-to black, Milani Black Magic, but when I tried this out on one nail my boyfriend was still asleep, and I didn't want to wake him by rummaging through boxes of nail polish. But I knew Black Satin was within reach, and actually I really like this result because the polish has an ever-so-slight platinum shimmer.

A lovely MUAer suggested I used tape to create the chevrons, which worked like a dream. I used the wide, satin-finish Scotch brand tape. I just used the right angle of the tape to reduce the chance of variations. I put the tape on my fingernail to gauge placement, then trimmed around the bottom of my nail. (Creating a pie-shaped piece of tape.)

Once the tape was in place on all my fingers, I painted on the black polish. When that dried, I removed the small pieces of tape with tweezers.

Then I put a coat of OPI clear over the whole manicure, followed by a coat of SV.

One thing I would recommend is getting enough of the clear coats on the brush so you don't have to go back over the pink part...I had a few little streaks of black polish come through.

I'm not usually one for nail art, like, AT ALL. But I love the retro-glam appeal of this look, which is reminiscent of Dita von Teese's moon manicure.

Nail Party, Christmas Edition

So I don't really condone Christmas sweaters or candy cane-shaped earrings, but I do like decorating myself for the holidays. Nail polish is ideal for this because of the variety of colors and the extent of the "bling" factor -- and since the glitter/color is confined to a very small area, you can really go all out. (By the way Bridget Callahan, I am waiting to hear how those fancy Zoya glitters worked out for you.)

Below are some Christmasy polishes I have in my vast stash. I'll post more as I change my own nail polish over the next couple of weeks. What colors are you wearing for the holidays?

A deep, dark holiday green reminiscent of evergreen. Slight shimmer. You can buy Butter London at Beauty.com. If you use Drugstore.com or VisionDirect.com, you can earn discounts and rebates that are applicable on Beauty.com. This is good if spending $14 on nail polish -- plus shipping -- is not appealing.

Known on MUA as "The Jesus," Illamasqua Rampage is truly one of the most stunningly beautiful polishes I own. It looks like green glass on the nail. You can get Illamasqua at Sephora or direct from Illamasqua. This is another pricey polish, but WORTH IT. Practically applies itself.

This gal is harder to lay hands on because it is a Sally Hansen product exclusive to Canada (at this time, anyway). But very festive and Christmasy with the dark green jelly and twinkly gold glitter.

Here's one that's inexpensive and easy to find: China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, available at Sally Beauty stores and many, many e-tailers.

Mattified, this polish looks even more exceptional with a matte topcoat from Essie. There are other matte top coats from Orly, China Glaze and other companies; I like Essie and it's widely available. Try Ulta if you must have it.

So far as I know, Zip is still available, though it is part of a limited edition fall release from the ever-elusive Sally Hansen. Anyway, it's a great, glistening holiday red, with that molten glass look I like so much.

Applies beautifully, does Misa. These are great, great polishes -- high quality, fashionable colors, fantastic application, and typically less than $3. This is a beautiful and sexy bright red, perfect for a holiday date, if you do such things.

If you like a more retro, Joan Holloway-type red, this Dior fits the bill. May be hard to find at this point, but you can find a similar one in almost any polish range.

This is a holiday OPI exclusive to Ulta stores. Just a very pretty, sparkly purple. It would probably look killer with a matte topcoat, so maybe I'll try this color again before the end of the year and mattify it.

Another holiday OPI, but this one should be available anywhere OPI is sold, including e-tailers. This is a purple jelly, so it looks better over a red, purple or black creme base coat. In my opinion, anyway.

More to come, I'm sure...ho ho ho.

Another Week Of Nails

This week's theme was Maybellines Past & Present.

Some of my earliest nail polish memories involve Maybelline polishes...polishes I wish I'd kept as they are highly sought after now. You can still find old Maybellines at dollar stores and close-out places and lots of nail polish ladies really love to find them. I think for most of us it's more the nostalgia than anything else. These were some of the first cosmetics I bought with my own money, back in the day when blue glitter nail polish was truly out there.

I have a lot of Maybellines, which, please understand, I acquired recently and all at once for literally pennies each. So I decided to go through a bunch of them at once and see if I could find any favorites.

This is actually an older picture, but it's an old Maybelline so I thought I'd throw it in. I found this at a dollar store and I actually remember having owned this polish previously, maybe in college or right after. Mattes are back again, you know. Fashion is cyclical even in nail polish.

I liked this one a lot even though "sparkly pink" isn't really a go-to look for me.

Very pretty.

This wasn't a favorite, though to be fair I only tried it on without using base coat or top coat. Browns in general don't do a lot for me on the nail, and even though this has a lot of red in it I'm not totally sold on it.

Ding ding ding, winner. This is much more my style and I actually hated to take it off. Shiny? Berry? Creme? Yes please.

I'm having a real moment with sheers and neutrals even though I generally despise French manicures. This color was necessitated by a meeting, but if I'm being honest I was happy to have an excuse to try this one. I also used two coats of Instant Artificials as a base and was really happy with the results...sigh...this is the kind of Nail Polish Crazy that I can't talk about in public. Thank you, Internet, for being my enabler.

Theme Week: Sally Hansen Salon

So, this is one of my favorite brands of widely available drugstore polish and now I hear it's being discontinued? *cries*

Oh well. In celebration of these lovely square glass bottles with their sturdy rubberized caps, I present to you: Sally Hansen Salon Week! What follows are pictures of all the polishes I wore during the week, plus a couple of bonus pics of colors I'd worn previously. What do you think? Do you like this line, are you sad to see it go? Or are you too eager to use the new Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure line to care?

This is from the Tracy Reese collection from Spring 2008. I had to find it on eBay because it pre-dated my most recent love affair with nail polish, but I didn't really pay much more for it than if I had bought it at CVS or Walgreens. I really like this polish, and it looks really sharp with a matte topcoat, too.

From Tracy Reese, Spring 2009.

Also Tracy Reese Spring 2009.

This is the first Salon polish I bought, and I think perhaps they haven't made it in a couple of years? It's my very favorite neutral/sheer polish, although when I pulled it out again last week after not wearing it in a while, it was much more stark and almost mod-looking than I remembered. I really like polishes that are seemingly neutral but still have a fashiony edge to them...OPI Tickle My France-y is another one that's good like that. Essie Chinchilly, too, though that's more pigmented, not a sheer at all.

This is a Canadian exclusive that I only recently got my hands on. They are not sold in the US (yet, anyway...one never knows), but I managed to get four of them through a fellow (Canadian) nail polish buff. I thought Project Runway would be the green version of Arabian Night, but to my surprise it is a deep green jelly with lots of fine gold glitter. Very pretty.

I'll be sad to see these polishes go, but of course, I'm looking forward to trying the new line. I haven't seen it yet around northeast Ohio. What about you? Have you seen it? Going to try it? Or does the price tag put you off?

Mother Lode

Over the weekend I met up with a lovely woman from MUA who offered to go halfs on a nail polish windfall with me. We split up the treasures and I hauled home what must certainly be more than 100 bottles of nail polish, mostly older Maybellines, Sally Hansens, Revlons and L'Oreals. There are some really neat colors, along with some good basics likes reds and nudes, and I've started cataloging them but I'm only through the first 60 or so. It's really a LOT of nail polish.

I expect to gift away some of it in swaps, and of course I know a lot of women who wouldn't be opposed to a fresh bottle of red nail polish, so I'll enjoy playing nail polish Santa for the next several months. Plus, it's always nice to know there's a nail polish ally out there...who understands your "hobby"...

Elsewhere Online

This used to be a link to an article I wrote for Become.com. After I wrote the article, they emailed me several times requesting that I tweak the links, add more links, be more specific with the description of the link, etc etc. Now, four years later, they've taken the time to ask that I remove these links as they are trying to "clean up" their site.

Whatever...but I find this highly annoying...!

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms

I'm sure if you're a girl who is the least bit girly in terms of makeup and whatnot, you know about Sally Hansen products. Basically, if you do your nails, you've used a Sally product at some point, because she makes all of them. I'm a big fan of the instant cuticle remover myself.

Anyway, in terms of nail color, Sally Hansen makes A LOT of freaking lines of nail polish. So many in fact that one might wonder...why exactly...but anyway. One thing I've discovered as I've learned from more hardcore nail polish devotees is that this humble drugstore brand can inspire deep devotion, especially to such beloved discontinued polishes as the Chrome Nail Makeup, Magical Nail Makeup, Fire Opals and Nail Prisms.

I stumbled across a few Nail Prisms recently (you can find all of these wonders on eBay, and some at dollar stores) and they are indeed quite pretty. Normally I'm not a glitter fanatic, but this one is lovely.

The color is Purple Diamond. I put it on over 2 coats of Rescue Beauty Lounge Bruised, which is a really pretty polish by itself.

Shiny goodness!

Question of the week/Review of the week

The issue at hand today: Why are mass market brand mineral makeup dispensers so incredibly jank?

A bit of background: I switched to mineral makeup several years ago because liquid foundation is the devil. No, sorry, that's not totally accurate. It's just that liquid foundation was a terrible, terrible thing for me. How many did I try over the years? A dozen? Probably more. And they were all terrible, they would just sit there on my skin and slide around all day, and then they would give me zits. To be perfectly frank, I find liquid foundation disgusting. But I understand this puts me in a minority. I switched to powder foundation and tried both NARS and MAC (WTF, CAPS LOCK LOL), both terrible and NARS being the worst. Eventually I realized that I don't like or need that much maquillage slathered over my face and I tried Jane Iredale makeup at the recommendation of a salon owner. Later I switched to Bare Escentuals on the advice of a friend.

Not long ago I ran out of Bare Escentuals foundation and Mineral Veil. (Let's not even talk about Mineral Veil...there is literally no replacement for it and I miss it so much I could cry. Really, don't talk about it.) To replace the two of these things costs $44, American, plus tax. Due to I am unemployed, this is not feasible. And seeing as how you can practically buy mineral makeup at the corner gas station anymore, I decided to give cheaper brands a try.

Now I understand "cheaper" is relative. No one has to pay $44 for makeup, but I like to, and I used to have a job that afforded me that pleasure. The two mass market brand mineral foundations I tried cost $11.99 and $12.49, which is also not really "cheap," depending on your perspective, your budget, and the importance of makeup to you personally. But for the purposes of this post let's consider it cheap enough.

The first one I tried was Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation, which I purchased at Target for $11.99. It comes in eight shades and has an SPF factor of 10 (Bare Escentuals is SPF 15). It is also sold in the worst dispenser in the world. I won't try to tell you that the Bare Escentuals sifter is foolproof, because I've dropped plenty of them and also they are terrifically inconvenient for travel. But I can fit a makeup brush in there, which is more than I can say for Revlon's crappy dispenser.

Where to begin? The shape of the sifter is odd, practically ensuring you'll leave a third of the product unused because you can't get at it; the brush is stubby and painfully scratchy; the powder reservoir is too narrow to get a real brush into; the brush apparatus is clumsy and droppable. The makeup itself? Fine, if not spectacular. The coverage was decent, although it didn't seem to last as long as Bare Escentuals. (That may just be the Mineral Veil difference...but then again we're not talking about you-know-what.)

I hated the Revlon container so much that I decided to try L'Oreal Bare Naturale Mineral Foundation for my next purchase. I picked up a coupon circular in my apartment building mailroom and, sure enough, there was a coupon for L'Oreal cosmetics, making it only $10.49 at Target. The L'Oreal mineral foundation comes in 10 shades with an SPF of 19.

To be honest, it's a much nicer mass market mineral foundation. The L'Oreal shade works better for me and seems to provide better coverage for a longer time. Also, the container is less stupid, but only slightly. You have to pop the brush out of its dumb little bell jar, leaving you with a clumsy "handle" that's covered with powder, since the bottom of the brush is the lid of the powder reservoir. At least the bottom of the jar resembles a traditional sifter, although somewhat dinkier in size. Though L'Oreal's brush is softer than Revlon's (by a lot), I am still using a regular old Sephora brush with this. It's just not worth it to fool around with the too-cute-by-half arrangement that L'Oreal has chosen.

Anyone use mineral makeup? Have you found anything you like at mass market prices?

Painted Lady

A few years ago I went on vacation to the beach. For some reason I had neglected to get my toenails done before I went on this vacation, which was really dumb and careless on my part, a girl wants her toenails polished when she's at the beach. But anyway, I went down there without doing my toenails. And now that I think of it, maybe I hadn't even had my nails done. The horror.

So, one day near the end of that vacation, I found a nail salon and I went in to get a manicure. The guy did my manicure and inquired whether I wanted a pedicure as well. I said yes, and he asked what color. I shrugged and said, "red," because that is really the only color I get for pedicures. Red or some variation thereof. Anything else just looks weird to me.

So I said "red" and the guy must not have heard right and thought I said "French." Which...I mean, I don't want to offend anyone, I know people love their French manicures. But they are just...not for me. And French pedicures, well. You can see what the Internet has to say about that. And that's how I got a French pedicure and ended up with the feet of a stripper for two weeks.

The kicker is, French pedicures cost extra! Blar!

Anyhow there will be no fancy pedicure-getting before my trip this year. I wore a pair of vintage Ferragamo flats the other day and gave myself some blisters, so I am not about to go sticking my feet in any salon tubs. I did my own toenails, which I hate doing because I am bad at it, but they look okay.

I used OPI Peru-B-Ruby. It's a treasure, this polish, because I got the old formula which means it smells extra toxic and has all the good chemicals in it that they don't use in nail polish anymore.

I would show you pictures but you know...feet.

You Heard It Here First

The Golden Age of nail polish.

Today's Color

This is Sinful Colors, Show Me The Way. The crumbum picture doesn't do much for the color, it's much more glittery than it seems here. I am warming up to this color, it's a little ho-hum after just taking another green off my nails, but that will change when I change it to For Audrey.

This polish went on okay -- three coats shown here -- but it's not as shiny as I'd like and it has the unfortunate effect of looking kind of bumpy (although it is very smooth). Anyway, I'd wear it again.

Where Do We Go From Here

I'm still wearing this god damned OPI Green-wich Village on my nails and I kid you not when I say it still looks exactly like this. Not a chip, nothing. Maybe it's the new top coat? Which I will have you know I got free at Ulta. Anyway, normally this would be a good thing but now it's bumming me out because I usually like to wait for one manicure to give up the ghost before I start the next one. Yeah, first-world probs.

So, for the next one I'm going to use the Sinful Colors Show Me The Way that was selected last time. But I'm going to go ahead and put up a poll because whee, time-wasting! The poll is in the sidebar deal there to your right.

For now I'm linking to these colors because my photos do a crap job of really capturing these colors. I use a fixed focal length lens on my camera and it's hard to get close-up shots with it, plus I am usually too lazy to put the zoom on, so...for the time being, please enjoy the pictures taken by other, more industrious people.

UPDATE: Never mind, the stupid poll widget gadget thingo won't let me include a link (which, really -- GENIUS, Blogger.com), so I'm just including the list here. Sigh. Leave opinions in the comments.

China Glaze, For Audrey
China Glaze, Purple Panic
Milani, Key Lime Shine

Antiquing

My mom has this habit of slipping me cash when I leave her house after a visit. This started in high school or college, when I would leave home for a play rehearsal or work or whatever, and she would run out the door after me with a five dollar bill "in case you need a pop or a magazine or something." She still does this, sometimes with a ten or a twenty due to The Inflation. So I told her how I'm all a-twitter over nail polish lately and when I left my parents' house this morning she handed me a ten dollar bill "to buy some nail polish."

So yes, I made a bold and now somewhat false statement that I wasn't going to buy more colors until I tried all the ones I own. But I can't disobey my mother.

In order to make the most of my $10 windfall, I stopped at the dollar store, hoping I might find something sort of weird, and lo, I discovered a treasure trove of Maybelline Express Finish matte polishes from the 1990s. I never had these polishes the first time around, but I did have a bottle of something called Matte Maker, which rendered any polish non-shiny. I have always been kind of sorry I got rid of that stuff, although you can of course buy similar formulas now.

Eff why eye, this nail polish thing is not entirely a recent development, it just represents the awakening of a long-dormant strain of beauty product obsessing. In college I was always a sucker for eyeshadow. Circa 1996 it was tiny hair clips and fake henna tattoos, and then it was lipsticks, then hair products. And I bought my share of silver glitter nail polish -- aspirational beauty for the post-millennial possibility of space travel, I guess -- for Y2K revelry. And then somewhere along the line I ditched most of it.

Anyway, I think for a while I kind of got in a rut with my look and I've been addressing that in a number of ways, and one of those ways is that I'm having a good time with some ridiculous nail polish colors. And yes, I feel like kind of a dipshit even saying, "my look," but you know what I mean. Or maybe you don't, which is fine. I am having a good time. This is a good summer, which sounds weird for someone who got laid off two months ago, but I guess you just never can tell about how things like that are going to work.



So here are my antique Maybelline nail polishes, a mid-1990s time capsule of sorts. I got Matte Grey, Matte Ruby, Matte Sapphire and Matt Grape. I may try them at some point soon, or I may save them for fall. Fun in a bottle!

Oh, All That Stuff Is Here Now

It occurred to me that maybe some regular readers of my other blog were getting tired of all the nail talk, so I moved all the nail talk to its own place. So, you can ignore it if you want to, but you're here already, so stick around and see how it goes.

Now over the weekend I asked the Internet what color I should put on my nails next, and the Internet was all, "Ooh! Ooh!" and picked the color. And then I went to Ulta and it cast a spell on me and I bought a couple new colors. So I painted my nails Green-wich Village by OPI.



To be fair...the Internet picked green, and this is green, although this is more of a froggy Kermit green rather than a oh-no-you-ripped-off-my-skin-and-now-you-know-I'm-an-alien-lizard green. Which is not to say I'm not excited about wearing that green, I am. I'm just going to do it another time.

Anyway, maybe it's time to do a sort of poll thingie on the sidebar there, we can leave it up for a while and put this matter to the populace. Because it's important? No, no it isn't important. But it might be amusing, sort of.