A few holiday colors

I haven't started holiday-themed manicures in earnest yet, but here are a few that I wore a month or so ago that would be good for Christmas.

Revlon Mistletoe

Above is Revlon Mistletoe from the Spice It Up holiday collection. This is a deep evergreen with multicolored shimmer - I can see green, red, copper, gold...really pretty. This has a smooth finish. Now that I'm looking at this picture, I can't wait to wear this again.

Wet 'n' Wild Rockin' Rubies

I purchased two colors from the Wet 'n' Wild Ice Baby collection, and I didn't really care for either of them. I really, really, really hate super lumpy glitter and this is as lumpy as they come. Two coats of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite couldn't tame this and in fact seemed to make it worse. It was so gritty I couldn't stand it.

Which is a shame, because it's beautiful. Tons of sparkle and some gorgeous holographic glitter thrown in for good measure. Perhaps leaving plenty of time between coats would allow this monster to dry smoother, but I'm reluctant to try. Removal was, as you might imagine, labor intensive.

OPI Speak for Your Elf

Speak for Your Elf is one of this year's Ulta/OPI holiday exclusives. It's a red jelly with red and perhaps pink or silver glitter, nothing groundbreaking, but truly pretty. I wore this for nearly a week and got a ton of compliments (why do people always seem to notice reds, of all things?) The picture above is two coats but I think this could use three for the deepest, richest color. I'll definitely be wearing this on or around Christmas Day. Removal was about as you would expect with a glitter, but I didn't even use foil and it didn't require too much elbow grease.

In addition, here's a link to a holiday post I did two (!!!) years ago, with some more ideas. Some of them are mostly long gone by now (Sally Hansen Project Runway, SH Zip, OPI Visions of Sugarplums, OPI Merry Midnight)...and oy, my pictures. I need to re-take some of those!

What are you wearing on your nails for the holidays?

Little White Liner

So this isn't groundbreaking, but on the off chance it's helpful to someone else I thought I'd share it anyway. I've been wanting a flesh-toned or white eyeliner for a while now, having ditched my faithful (and old - very old) Nat Robbins shimmery ivory one a long while back. Once I got rid of it, I forgot how easily white (or just light-colored) liner on my lower waterline makes my eyes look a little brighter, a little more awake.

(BTW, I'm going for something like this, not so much this.)

I've never found anything I liked as much as the Nat Robbins, though I've been getting by using lighter colored shadows applied with a damp liner brush. Mostly I've been using Chase or Vanilla from my UD 15th anniversary palette and sometimes the gold from my Topkapi quad.

I really wanted a liner, though, mostly because I am lazy and also because I tend to poke myself in the eye with a liner brush. Of course the one I have earmarked is from Chanel and costs $28, which is just stupid. So I bought a Wet 'n' Wild eyeliner on Friday for a whopping $.69. I thought oh boy this is going to be great!

When I first tried it on the back of my hand, however, I was a little bummed out. There was the familiar greasepaint smell. The application was uneven and patchy. It took me straight back to the old, bad days of Wet 'n' Wild , when I would ride my bike up to Gray Drug and spend my babysitting money on chalky eyeshadow and dry, pasty lipstick. It's shocking how strong my associations with that smell are - it was like I was right back in the girls' restroom in middle school, shakily putting on blue eyeliner before school.

In the last year or so I've purchased some really nice WnW eyeshadows and nail polishes, so I just assumed the eyeliner had changed as well. Sadly it seems about the same.

However, after working with it for a little while - rubbing in on the back of my hand, sharpening it - the liner has mellowed a bit and I've been using it over the weekend. I'm actually pretty happy with it - it creates enough of a brightening effect for casual looks and I'll probably continue to use shadows as liners if I want a little more TA DAAAA.

Weekly update

Here are some colors I've worn lately; enjoy!