China Glaze First Mate and Doctor Who geek out

God bless Netflix for showing me the wonders of Doctor Who. I am a straight up nerd when it comes to a few things... Harry Potter (I display the highest level of geek here), Lord of the Rings, Twilight (sort of, but not really)... I knew of Doctor Who and I knew the show had quite a following, but had never seen an episode until I looked for something to occupy my brain a little while I work on my husband's giant (but yet unfinished) knitted blanket.

I promise there is nail polish after the jump!

Essie As Gold As It Gets over OPI DS Mystery

I first saw the Essie Luxeffects swatches over at The PolishAholic and thus began the drooling over As Gold as it Gets and Shine of the Times. Out of the six, those are the only two that caught my eye. I've been on a no-buy for a while now, but happened across a display at Meijer and there were only 2 AGAIG bottles left. Um, see ya no-buy! 

I got so excited about having it, I threw a coat on over my DS Mystery in the parking lot. This polish has an odd consistency to it. It's like a thin gel packed with gold flakies. It went on a little thick to my index and middle fingers, but dry time was great. The above shot is one I posted on Instagram, and I used the Brannan filter. There is so much shine (without a top coat!), it was difficult to capture without the filter. The polish color is still very accurate.

I absolutely love this combo. It wore like iron for 5 days without a chip. I only took it off because I got another polish (for free, so it was still no-buy legal) and was excited to try it out. I am also very anxious to try out Shine of the Times because Bestie picked it up for me in Chicago! My bestie is the best bestie.

Happy Birthday Pam!

I have no photos to post, but it the birthday of a very special nail polish fanatic so, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAM!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from me, my broccoli casserole & caramel nut tart, Abbie, and her mashed potatoes & sugar cream pie! Enjoy your food and your families, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not. :)

BUTTER London Bluey (again!) and plans for December

Ouch! Dammit, even. My nails were growing out nicely, and with the exception of my pointer and middle fingers on both hands, peeling was getting so much better. Then, my silly car door goes and bites off a chunk of nail. It broke off pretty far down, and it looked really silly with one nubbin, so...

Now I have 10 little nubbins. That is a really great representation on Bluey, BTW. I think my first photo of it was rather washed out. It's lovely, go buy it! :)

As for December, I got 3 of the 5 Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail strips, and plan to make it through the month with them. One appeals to the knitter in me, one reminds me of both Christmas and my fab trip to Scotland with Bestie, and the other is black and silver argyle. How can you say no to that??? I accidentally deleted my pic of them, so I'll snap another and add it here at the end. I think it'll be nice to have fewer polish changes. I'll just have to find stuff to blog about...

Holo frankening with SpectraFlair

I happened to come across a post on blogger or Tumblr of a frankened holo polish that was so completely beautiful that it made me jealous. And order a gram of SpectraFlair (SF for the sake of typing, k?) for myself! My first attempt was a total fail. I mixed some Zoya Mira and SF in a bottle of clear Wet N' Wild. 

Learn from my mistakes, dear frankening virgins, glitters and holos need a thicker base. All that beautiful SF sank straight to the bottom. I have since found TKB Trading, where one can order polish bases, pigments, bottles, and anything else a creative do-it-yourself polish freak may want! I have yet to indulge, but will be placing an order soon!

What I ended up using was a 3/4 empty bottle of Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps that had gotten rather thick. It worked much, much better. There is some sinkage after time, but the SF stays suspended nicely while polishing if you shake it up with some bb's in the bottle. I also added my mini OPI Color So Hot it Berns and a bit of my Nails Inc Charing Cross. Yes, dear readers, note the very un-red color below. I have read that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to keep the red with SF. It turns the reddest of reds a bright pink. On to the results!

This is the original mix with a flash. It was very pretty, but I wanted more holo. I added just a little bit at a time, because it is difficult to take away once mixed in. Silly me. Is it possible to have too much holo?

This is with a flash after adding more holo powder. Nice and obvious linear pattern. :)

And this is what it looks like in the sun. I'm very, very happy with this mixture and have enough powder for another 3-4 polishes. Thinking I might mix up a black holo next.

Nails Inc St. Pancras

Okay, this really is the last of my Nails Inc polishes I'll be showing. St Pancras is a very deep burgundy. Very similar to Essie Wicked, but not jelly-ish at all. St Pancras was very thick and opaque. I could've gotten by with 1 coat if I were more careful. Wear was horrible with this color. I had chips in less than a day. I can usually get a day and a half out of a polish before I notice a chip. Thankfully the others had wonderful wear time for me.

Nails Inc Paddington

I showed up half an hour early for Zumba by accident, so I figured I'd throw up a quick blog post.

Paddington is the last of my Nails Inc Autumn set I'll be showing. *Correction: It's absolutely not. The last polish is Charing Cross, which is a great red, but is very similar to Zoya Sooki and OPI Color So Hot It Berns. I have grand plans for it and SpectraFlair. I'll show you how that turns out.

Paddington fell into step with my other Nails Inc polishes as far a formula, brush, and wear. Fabulous.
I've seen others talk of this leaning green on them, but for me it really looked like a deep grey. It leaned a little bit blue, but aside from a clueless 20-something male patient thinking it was black, most people commented on its grey-ness. Regardless, it's a great fall/winter color, and $25 for a 4 color set is a great price, so I say fill your carts. :)

Nails Inc Fenchurch Street

This is the first polish I have to show you from Sephora's Nails Inc Autumn Colour Collection. The collection includes this color, a bright red, a smoky grey, and a nice wine color. They are all named after Underground stations on the Central Line in London. They definitely appealed to the Anglophile in me. :)

After Kensington, I found I had a much easier time with application this time. The full-ish brush holds a lot of color, and I didn't find it so awkward to get the right amount of color this time. Fenchurch Street is described as warm caramel on the Sephora page. It definitely reminds me of Brach's Caramels, which is a great candy to be thinking about in the fall! I've had this color on for 4 days, and were it not for closing my finger in a drawer (ouch!), I could easily get another day or two out of this mani. The drawer chipped the color though, so I'll take it off tomorrow. I think I'll go for Paddington next, which is the smoky grey color.

Nails Inc Wyndham Duo

Nails Inc Wyndham Overcoat over Kensington

Oh my heavens, I love flakies! I saw The Polishaholic tweet that the Nails Inc Limited Edition flakies were available on Sephora and the next thing I know (almost literally) I had a basketful of goodies on its way to my door. :)

Nails Inc Kensington (applied sloppily)

I've never used Nails Inc polishes, but had heard great things about them on others' blogs. The formula of the Kensington blackened teal was wonderful. Super smooth and pigmented. I used just one coat on the manicure you see, but I'll do two next time. The Wyndham overcoat is a clear base with green/blue duochrome flakies. It was rather thick, but that's okay because that meant it dried pretty smooth. I used 1 coat of Seche Vite, but I don't know that it's really necessary. The caps are fat and round, and the stem on the short side. The brushes are firm and very full, and hold a ton of polish. It takes some getting used to.

I've also got to mention the wear. I used Seche Vite Rebuild (hoping to fix my horribly peeling nails) as a base coat and Seche Vite Rapid Dry top coat. This manicure wore for four days before it showed any tipwear. I got my first chip today, five days later. That was only because I grabbed my doorknob wrong in the dark and chipped the nail as well. This is unheard of for me. I have to wash my hands 20-40 times a day and usually start seeing wear within a day or two. I'm taking it off, but because I've got growth and the Nails Inc Autumn collection to dig in to!

I also have to share the excitement of blogging on something other than my iPhone! I got an early birthday gift from DH in the form of the netbook I really, really wanted. He wanted to buy me a new MacBook Pro, but Practical Pam spoke with Apple Lover Pam and I decided to go for the $275 option that works wonderfully over the fabulous $1000 one. I'm very happy with it!