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!

31DC2013 Day 5- Blue nails

Greetings from the past! For the next three days everything you see was written and photographed on Wednesday. Gotta get creative for the high holidays after all :)

So of course, being blue day, there is one thing that I absolutely had to do:

TARDIS nails!

I actually frankened this blue myself, because I have yet to find a truly perfect TARDIS blue. And after months of searching, I simply decided to make one myself. I love how it turned out- glossy crelly finish, sooooo shiny! And the perfect shade- not too dark that I can't draw on it, but just dark enough to look right.

Unfortunately, no Hannah nails for the next three days, since she didn't have time to prepare her manis in advance. She told me she'd like to catch up, so perhaps on Sunday we'll have a Hannah picspam!

To see other 31DC2013 day 5 manicures, click the jump!

NOTD: Franken gradient

I learned something new today- apparently I should never take pictures in my yard. I took a few photos at work today, and they came out much nicer in terms of color. My landlord painted the walls around the yard (yes, WALLS) yellow, which apparently reflects onto my hands a whole lot more than I thought! No more yard photos for me!

Colors used:
My frankens- Autodidact
Maybeline Colorama 135
My franekns- Osmia Avosetta

The glitter at the tips was actually a happy accident- I didn't add Osmia Avosetta until a day later, when I decided the original gradient wasn't as impressive as I wanted. I forgot to dampen the sponge first, so a lot of polish got absorbed into it, while the glitter sat on top. So I only got some color, but I got all of the glitter! This is actually a method I'm considering trying later.

Hey guys, I made some frankens...

...and now I'm addicted. That's not to say every franken I made was a rousing success, but damn, it's fun! I learned stuff as I went along, and you can see my progress.

I made six frankens total (five and a half, sorta- you'll see when I get there), which is the number of empty bottles I had. A good use for empties, fun and thrifty.

Unfortunately, on most of them I couldn't possibly tell you the exact ingredients of each one, so I could never properly recreate any of these.

I happen to have been marathon-watching all of Elementary, hence the names on these.


I'm Ambidextrous