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.