Holly Jolly Green Midget

I know, another green so soon?  Don't blame me - blame Ulta and their 20% off your purchase coupon.

But since that has expired, you can use that time to get off your couch/computer chair, and go VOTE!  Don't be one of those "my vote won't count because my state turns ____ every year anyway."  Yes it does!  Go!

Back to the business at hand...I added a few to my stash on Sunday, and Butter London's Jack the Lad was one of them.  I'm a sucker for most glitters, but this one is beautiful right there in the bottle.  A mix of green/gold/turquoise and sparkle, I snapped it up and when I got home, I compared my swatch sticks to find a perfect base.

Zoya Ray and Butter London Jack the Lad

Beautifully simple in the shade...

...and fiery green genius in the sun.  Shield your eyes from the awesome!

Zoya Ray is an absolutely flawless pine green that's almost imperceptibly dark in the shade.  It's got just a touch of frost in the light, and it's forest color really comes through in the sun.  I did two coats of Ray on all fingers, and it only took one of Jack the Lad to highlight my index and middle fingers.  It makes a really beautiful tonal match, pairing the two together.

Just another danger free combination from two of my favorite people (and animal!) friendly polishes.

Barielle Blackened Bleu

A gorgeous deep navy shimmer in a blackened base, Barielle strikes gold again.  Your nails will look like gorgeous little sapphires in the sun, and subtly shimmering waves in the shade.  I'm a big fan of polishes with multiple faces, and Blackened Bleu is gorgeous.

Dark and lovely and...highly reflective.  Forgive the profile.

BAM!  Alien hands shows you the shimmer.

The formula has a tendency to run just the teeniest bit, so take your time on the first pass.  Do one thin coat, three times, seal it with something shiny, and stare at your flawless manicure for the next however long it takes you to fall in love with something new.

Zoya Aurora, Take Two

Because the pictures the first time were so crappy, and I love this polish so much, here are some better swatch shots of this gorgeous purple-pink holo from the Zoya Ornate Collection

Kind of indirect sunlight - my camera refuses to blur, but you can still see the holo.

Full unadulterated sunlight gives it a deeper purple color and more fire.

Two coats to opaque, and because the holo is glass flecks and not glitter, clean-up is a freaking breeze.  This is my favorite polish in the box right now, and that's saying something.

Deborah Lippmann Santa Baby Collection

Took me a bit longer than the night I said I'd get them up, but here they are!

Exclusive to Neiman Marcus, the Deborah Lippmann Santa Baby Collection contains The First Noel, Sleigh Bells, and This Christmas

Deborah Lippmann Sleigh Bells

In the shade, it's a gorgeous teal blue, with flashes of royal blue and sometimes purple.

In the sun, it turns into an ice blue shimmer foil.

Deborah Lippmann The First Noel

In the shade, it's a sultry purple with lilac and lavender flash.

In full sun, it's a gorgeous royal purple shimmer with a hint of foil and lighter purple.

Deborah Lippmann This Christmas

Another gorgeous shimmer, this time in a sultry burgundy red, in the shade. 

Direct sun gives it a foil shine and deepens the burgundy flash and sparkle.

Following along with my other Lippmann experience, the formula on all three of this is phenomenal.  It's a bit sheer at one coat, but two gets you to opaque shimmer-y perfection.  They're all deeply pigmented, so I'd suggest taking care of your cuticles BEFORE you paint, because the clean-up can be a monster.  I swatched pretty quickly, so I wasn't as careful, and cleaning up the mistakes was a dark process.  The color payoff is huge, as each of these are just as gorgeous in the shade as in the sun.  The sun reveals the foil and shimmer, but the shade gives you the best duo-chrome flashes.

I picked mine up at Neiman's for $42, and if you love Christmas foils or peacock colors, you won't regret grabbing all three of these lovely lacquers.

The Rug, She Inspires Me

First, a bit of a long-winded back story.  I live in an insanely allergy-laden area.  Add to that three animals, and a park across the street, and I'm in Kleenex hell a lot from March-October.  I've been on daily allergy pills, we bathe the dogs once a week, we clean like mad and yet...I'm red-eyed and sniffly at least once a week.

In a bid to effect real change, we pulled up 90% of the carpet in our house earlier this year in favor of a hardwood floor, so we could eliminate a lot of the pet dander and other yuck that comes inside the house and stays for awhile via the carpet.
The good side?  It helps tremendously with allergies.
The bad side?  You see all the crap that would have otherwise been hidden in your carpet, just laying on the floor all day every day.  You'll sweep and vacuum like a crazy person, and not get it all.  Human beings are just vehicles for dog hair, dirt, and skin flakes apparently.  Hork.

Another super downside is that you'll want to cover up that gorgeous new floor with rugs to save your dogs from having nowhere to walk again ever, and you'll be blissfully unaware of how freaking expensive bound pieces of carpet are.  PS, they are very expensive.

I found this rug at everyone's favorite, Target, and snapped it up because it was only $20.

Oh, savings, you call to me.

Now I have said AAAALLLLLLLLLL of that to tell you that this rug is where I got my color inspiration for today's manicure.  Aren't you glad you read about my house and allergies just to get to an art picture?

Yay, we're bonding!

Zoya Tao dotted with Zoya Purity, Zoya Kendal, and Essie Miss Fancy Pants

I can't look at this without thinking about Dippin' Dots.
Shout out 90's suburban mall crawling!

Precious.

I just used dotting tools from large to small and put dots of different colors where I felt they might look good.  I also got myself a new clean-up brush, which I am already in love with, and a new appreciation for the difference between natural and strange light.

Have a good weekend!

Greens, Greens, Greens

That's the big color this fall - has it been slammed into your face a hundred times already?

Because ev-ry-bo-dy gets a GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

You get a green!
And you get a green!
**insert maniacal laughter and fancy jig here

The polish delivery I got Saturday included my recent A England acquisitions, and after swatching them, I knew that they were destined to become new favorites.  The formulas are incredible and the ones I ordered, from the "Legends" collection were full of glass fleck/shimmery goodness.

Ombre manicures are fading away, I think, and I never quite got on the bandwagon.  But here I am, six months later, ready to put my own spin on and embrace a trend!  I'm a leader!  :-|

From thumb to pinky:  A England Dragon, A England Saint George, Color Club Port-folio

A England Tess d'Urbervilles, and China Glaze Smoke and Ashes

It's the glitter shimmer shake, baby.

The sun.  She does terrible things to pale skin.

In the shade photo, you can see the gorgeous little flecks of blue and green in Smoke and Ashes, while it takes nothing to get Dragon and Saint George to impress.  Tess d'Urbervilles is a dark horse in my collection, literally and figuratively, because I didn't love it until I put it on.  The super dark emerald green color is very hard to see outside of direct light, leaving it looking black most of the time, but it's so rich and gorgeous that I don't care.

Port-folio is a duo-chrome from Color Club, but it was hard for me to get this one to turn from green to purple.  Next time I might layer it over a dark creme color to force the shift, but I was looking to be the mayor of green city here. 

Halloween, The Final Slaughterin'

There's no coming back from this one.

Barielle Myrza's Meadow, Zoya Mimi, Zoya Arizona, and Essie Licorice

Those cuticles have been murdered.

It was the black nail polish, in the living room, with the pigment.

Myrza's Meadow is a great pukey-green with holographic glitter.  I mean puke-y in the nicest possible way, because I love it; I just don't know a better way to describe it.  It's super sheer though, and even on these little stripes of nail, I needed three coats to provide good color.

Arizona is a fantastic orange, and is good to go with one coat.  Nice, bright, citrus shimmer that levels well.

Mimi is a color cousin to Suri, but with bold tonal shimmer instead of the vague holo shimmer.  It's sheer with one coat, and good at two.

I did one thick-ish coat of Licorice on top of the tape, then peeled and added a coat of Seche Vite.

Despite the fact that this manicure was a freaking nightmare because I did designs on eight nails, so the taping took over an hour, I love tape manicures.  They give a really interesting cohesive look to what would otherwise be crazy colors jammed together.  I'm (clearly) still trying to get a look I'm happy with  using black, purple, green, and orange, and I just don't think it's going to happen.

I'm...okay...with this, but I haven't quite figure out how to get dark nail polish out of the bed of my nails.  As soon as it touches the skin, it's there until the next time I push my cuticles back and clean them out.  It's annoying, but it won't stop the tape love.