NOTD: Interview Nails 4 & 5- The grand finale!

Yes, folks, that's right! No more interviews for me! (For the time being anyway). I have officially signed with a new job, which I started a week ago.

The thing is, interview nails 4, while pretty, were nearly impossible to photograph. And interview nails 5, the ones I got the offer with, were tipworn and unimpressive. So I've lumped the two kinda mediocre presentations into one, to save space.

For the first mani, I matched them with a new pair of fingerless gloves that I absolutely adore- a soft grey with subtle sparkly threads woven into it. I really wish I'd been able to get better pictures of this, but my camera would just not cooperate. I tried a ton of different lighting, angles, and poses (with and without the gloves in case that was the fault), and I only came up with a couple of usable pictures:

Polishes used:
GA-DE Black Orchid (dark grey)
Indigo Bananas Pan (green-blue duochrome, but with matte only the green is visible)
Unnamed generic light grey

For my second mani, I was called in for the interview kind of last minute, and I still had the Ciate that I swatched from my 2013 roundup on. I had just done a bunch of polish stuff and didn't really have the energy to do anything elaborate, so I just stamped right over my swatch. I then proceeded to forget to take pictures for five days, hence the tipwear. (Really, what got into me though? I never leave polish on for five days!)

All things considered, it held up quite well! Since this just plain black on top of something I swatched just a few posts ago, I don't think I need to list the polishes for you :)

And thus ends the saga of the Interview Nails, at least for a good long time I hope! I've actually been at this job for an entire week already, so I have a bunch more things to share (like my first day of work nails and a few suprises!) But I'll be saving that for another post. My first week was pretty nuts, even just in terms of getting readjusted to 8 hour work days and waking up at a decent hour for transit. I'm hoping I'll manage to scrape together the energy to do multiple posts this week!

2013 Roundup

Good morning 2014! Nice to meet you, I hope we have fun together!

I figured right around now would be a good time to look back and see if there was anything interesting over the last year or so.

So, let's start with my 10 favorite new polishes in 2013 (in no particular order):

WOW 427- This dries to a satin-y kind of finish, but it looks even more stunning fully matte. I love how unique it is, it's like a blue jeans color. It is also impossible to photograph. I had to play with dozens of combinations of settings and lighting to get it to look right. For some reason my camera kept reading it as a much brighter blue.

Ga-De Gold Sugar- And really, texture polishes in general this year. I'm not a gold person usually, but this one really blew me away.

???- 104- I'll be honest, I don't know what this brand is called. The bottle just says "Mirror effect" on it, and the other finishes from this brand all just have the name of the finish too. But I have a few of them, and they all look pretty awesome.

Autodidact- Not to toot my own horn here (well, technically yes), but I've been playing around with frankens, and I'm really quite happy with how some of them turned out! I would love to try out mixing polish from scrap, maybe this year I'll pull together the funds to actually buy supplies!

GlitterBunny- You Can Do It, Brucey!- Speaking of Indie polish, GlitterBunny! I have never bought indies before, and now I have a bunch from  GB and Indigo Bananas. I use this one constantly, it's an awesome glitter topper.

Born Pretty Store Holos- 12- This year also marks the year I could finally start ordering stuff online. And look at this sucker! Both the color and the holo quality are amazing.

Ciate- Beach Hut- This one scrapes in just under the wire, I bought it on December 29. I know Ciate has shown a really crappy attitude towards bloggers (with the "caviar nails" fiasco and all that), but I couldn't resist this glowy glittery orange.

Orly- Star Spangled- My picture doesn't even come close to doing justice to this incredible polish. It's a beautiful red jelly packed with microglitter, and it has incredible depth and finish. Basically, it's amazingness in a bottle. 

Inglot- 202 and 203- This one is a tie, because I couldn't choose between these two incredible duochrome flakie toppers. I mean, just look at them! (this time I do think the picture did them justice. I'm usually terrible at catching color shift but this one was nice and cooperative)

L'oreal Paris- Mysterious Icon- Last but not least, a brown-gold-taupe-indefinable-SOMETHING that seems to not quite fit into any category. It even has purple undertones, to make things more confusing. I love that I can't quite quantify this.

Since most people get bored once the photos end, the rest goes under a cut!