Blast from the Past: InDecisive Lacquer Neon Speckled

This is an old manicure of mine, way back in November of 2013! But I can't remember if I've ever posted it anyplace, and I really enjoyed looking at it again going through my manicure photos! This is InDecisive Lacquer's amazing Neon Speckled collection, in Blue and Pink, which I put over complementary colors. Unfortunately I can't remember what the pink is (I may not even have it anymore!) but the blue is Nina Blue La La.

I was privileged to communicate with Aleksandra, the brain behind InDecisive Lacquer and she is the nicest person :) I was a huge fan of Speckled Black and White, so when she was developing colored neon versions, I got a few of the very first bottles. I immediately wanted to do a matchy pos-neg sort of deal to show off the speckles! It actually turned out so bright and contrasted that the colors kind of wigged out my camera - they sort of bleed in a weird way in the photos! (This was my old camera, by the way, with worse resolution as well.)

Edible nail polish ... #thatexists

Isn't this what polish addicts have always been dreaming of? ... Edible nail polish. And KFC flavored at that! There's original recipe (brown) and hot and spicy (red), made of all natural ingredients, so that you can paint your nails with it, it dries, and you can continue to lick it all day! ... I swear am not making this up, nor is this some sort of prank. It's a real thing.

The Lilacism phenomenon - that weird thing with Essie's lavenders

Guess what? The polish I'm wearing and the bottle in this photo are BOTH Essie Lilacism.

Essie Where's My Chauffeur?

This is one of my favorite polishes of all time. Essie Where's My Chauffeur? is a gorgeous deep turquoise. If I had to pick only one of Essie's turquoise/teal shades, it would be this one. It's also one of those great Essie formulas that really does only need 2 coats, and no top coat to dry without getting sheet prints that night (it seems to be properly dry, so it won't dent or imprint, in a few hours as opposed to the next day). I love this perfectly intense blue-green - it looks green in some lights, blue in others, and is fun to look at next to a variety of other colors. 

Revlon Chamma-leeyun ... I mean Chameleon

I'm happy to see Revlon Chameleon join the company's core line now - the market needs a really cool gold duochrome, and this is it! I was using this one for frankening, then decided to wear it by itself, and fell in love with the unusual greeny-gold shifting tones. It definitely changes with the light you're in, and for that reason never gets boring! It's a natural pair for gold jewelry, obviously; I got these, like most of my jewelry, from Born Pretty.

Fashion nails! ~ Blog win!

I've finally found someone as obsessed with the NAILS on the high fashion runways as the clothes!

You don't know how hard it is until you've tried to find good pictures or any sort of spotlighting on the manicures that go with contemporary runway shows - much less anyone talking about what colors they are or showing the designs up close. And if they do, they're scattered around every random fashion article along with all the other stuff about the collection, and you're lucky if they actually tell you the color (and then usually only if it's some partnership between the polish company and the designer!)

This blogger even tries out the styles herself! - Even though it hasn't been updated this year, I am right about the same point she is at in catching up on the runway shows from previous seasons, so I'm happy. I love most of all to find photos, details, and even an example collected all in one place, at least a good amount of them if not up to the minute!

Pink n Glamrock

I've been meaning to wear Nina Glamrock for literally years - it's one of the first polishes I ever bought, and it's a gorgeous slate grey/silver made of tons of glitter. I finally decided to use it as an accent to break up an "obnoxious" pink mani! The pink is Revlon Bubbly, which is kind of the perfect bubblegum shade, bright without being neon, and nicely balanced between warm and cool. Unfortunately it's an old shade now, and mine had a horrible formula - it was globby and elasticky and didn't cover very well. Presumably Revlon has improved their formula since, but as far as I know this shade is no longer around. In any case, it made a fun sweet-and-edgy manicure, with Glamrock and a silver skull charm. I topped it off - or bottomed it off, really - with a couple bracelets, including my sky blue PVC changeable-letter bracelet. I modified it from Born Pretty and bought some silver slider letters to spell out whatever I'm into at the moment!

Coffee and TV

Coffee is my drug of choice. I'm up to about 6 cups a day. Naturally, I gravitate toward nail polishes with coffee names. I was really excited to run across this cute nail sticker on a sheet of kawaii type foods and things from Born Pretty Store (unfortunately don't think it's still available) to adorn my coffee mani!

Oh Baby! ... it's dangerously pretty!

This is an unusual combination for me ... so is a bow and a spike I guess! I wanted to do something that looked venomous - seductively cute but also prickly. So I put Pure Ice Oh Baby, which is a mostly shimmery blue topper, over Covergirl Outlast Crushed Berries, which is pretty much the perfect rich berry red/pink. For some reason I enjoy wearing a bow on my pinky, so I complemented the sky blue of Oh Baby and added a little edge with a silver spike stud (both from Born Pretty).

Sprout for Spring

I got into a very springtime mood, and was inspired by my new Sally Hansen Luxe Lace Crochet, a lovely cloud-like mixture of many sizes of white and sky blue, which just screams the idyllicism of spring. I put it over a gentle warm grey, Covergirl Outlast Non-stop Stone, a really great neutral that is somewhere between tan and grey, but not actually the full intensity of a greige. (Hold it up to any other grey and you will see the tan come out!) Finally, I added some nail stud shapes to form the two petals of a little green sprout, which I painted with Pure Ice Wild Thing (appropriately!).

OPI Next Stop ... the Bikini Zone and exotic jewelry

I picked up OPI Next Stop ... the Bikini Zone at a secondhand store, intending to find out what it was worth and resell it (I'm a nail polish "flipper" in my spare time!) but I kinda fell in love with the unique duochrome!

My love affair with greige

My favorite nail shade of all time is GREIGE. There is some dissention by now about what color actually constitutes greige, but to me it is a blend of tan, purple, and grey; you could call it a purple-tinged beige or a warm, rosy grey. It seems to have started "trending" in fall of 2010. No doubt some of this was due to  Lady Gaga, who went through a greige phase around that time, appearing in Vanity Fair decked in the color and also wore it on her nails to the VMAs that year.