Scofflaw Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut

I'd like to start this post by asking my lovely readers to keep my grandmother in your thoughts. On Monday, she had a major stroke and due to her age (almost 94) and as per her request, we will not be seeking any life sustaining procedures. I don't want to be all "blah sads blah" but I did want to inform you all that is why I hadn't posted for a few days. I'm very thankful that she has been so amazing and is a huge fan of my polish habit. I know she would have loved the polish I am about to show you all today. Okay - TMI over. 

DISCLAIMER: I RECEIVED THIS AS A GIFT FROM AN AMAZING PERSON! She was awesome and got it for me because I was in the hospital due to a car accident during the restock and I knew it would be the last time it was available. Oh. Spoiler alert. This was a LE. Sorry. Anyway - today I bring to you Scofflaw Nail Varnish Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut. I put this baby on SUNDAY night. That's right - it is currently WEDNESDAY night. I have maybe a little bit of tip wear. Maybe. Anyway. PICTURES!

Here is the lovely amazing bottle. It's a periwinkle blue base with stupid awesome shimmer in it. It also has delicate and subtle blue flakies and more KAPOW silver flakies. I'm also 99.9% sure that there were even some little holographic glitters in there. Finally - just in case I wasn't already a blue-polish "collector" and mildly obsessed with literary topics..... THERE IS ALSO MICROGLITTER. That's right- superdarkblue (i.e. "midnight") and urhglsmentis (i.e. "periwinkle") microglitters. 

And here is is from the bottom now. And finally - a nail! This is three coats of polish - I applied it late Sunday and wanted to ensure I had zip/zero/nada VNL. I should also mention that this polish applied like slightly warm Nutella - i.e. fantastic and hunger inducing. I wanted to put it on EVERYTHING. Did I mention I applied it with a fan on (BUBBLES) and I didn't even get any of them? WHAT?! MAGIC! 

All of the nails! I'd like to make you all aware that after THREE FULL DAYS I had tip wear (at pictured) only mildly on my pointer finger. (I did wrap my tips, but I tend to bash them off after about 12 hours). I used Poshe as a top coat, and I only used one coat of that stuff. 

Of course - here they are MATTE! (Julep Matte Top Coat)

This polish is worth all of the lemm I ever ing-ed. It's an LE and the last of it sold on Llarowe a couple weeks  ago. Just in case you want to buy other things, here is the link to Llarowe. I'd also like to say that this is my first Scofflaw, and I absolutely intend to spend stupid amounts of money whenever there is a restock... like this Sunday. I learned about this restock via Facebook. GO FORTH AND LIKE IT! And the restock is on Etsy - so this is also important. What's on my list? David Bowie's Bulge, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Flotsam &  Jetsam, Love Letter to Bea Arthur, and who knows what I'll even want from her new collection! 

If anyone is interested, I have a picture of my grandmother feeding seagulls with the biggest grin on her face. Sentimental, I know. But if that isn't something that bothers you (especially with my TMI vomit up there) let me know. She is a very special lady.

Emerald And Ash Helix Nebula

Dear internet: I LOVE SPACE. I have loved space since I was a small child and I had a space themed birthday party when I was four years old. I even refused to allow people to wear alien deedly-bopper headband thingamajigs because I didn't think that aliens would have pom poms for antennas. I painted our solar system (when Pluto was a planet) and made a mobile in elementary school at some point. Yes, it was color accurate. TLDR: I LOVE SPACE. Which brings me to Emerald & Ash's Hubble-Inspired Collection. There is one named Deep Field, and another called Dark Matter. I ended up buying Helix Nebula. She doesn't state that it was inspired by a picture taken by the Hubble, BUT IT IS SPACE THEMED AND FOR THAT I LOVE IT. For reference, here is a link to Nasa's picture of the Helix Nebula. She put all of that in a 11 mL bottle of happiness. And, might I add, those bottle of happiness are cubical and adorable. PSA PEOPLE: I PAID FOR THIS BAD BOY. 

Helic Nebula is a black jelly jam-packed with blue and pink flecked shiny/shimmery bits that really are out to burst your retinas. It also is chock full of four different sizes of holographic hex glitters, methinks of the light gold/silver variety.

So - this is ONE coat (painted, not dabbed - although if I wore more than one coat I would recommend the dabbalicious method) of Helix Nebula on top of Illamasqua Baptiste **not my picture**. The reason I used undies is this: this is an 11 mL bottle and I tend to use heavy coats, as well as a new paranoia I have of running out of it, and because my new calling in life is to find perfect undies for everything. Ash mailed me Baptiste as a birthday present, as one of her favorite purples because it glows from within. I therefore decided it was worthy of being undies for her creation. Please, disregard the cat hair. She is fluffy and wanted love. Nothing I can do. Really. I am her pet. Also - I used Seche as a top coat and with the awful shrinkage that followed, regretted that decision.

SPACE ON MY NAILS. And that GLITTER PAY OFF! I really should have thrown another coat on there, simply because the depth would have melted my corneas into a pile of really happy goo. 

I had NO issue whatsoever with glitter payout or formula. I dabbed my pinkie and ring finger, and then painted my pointer and middle finger. Pretty great, regardless of application method. 

Also, I'd like to note that her glitter ratio was pretty rad and very space-y. I didn't have to fish for the larger hex glitters, and they just lept from the brush to my nail. I also had quite a few floating around on my fingers, but not too many either!

Holographic goodness.

Really, I should stop taking pictures now.

Eventually.

Rationale behind this picture: On the swatch wheel is three coats of Helix Nebula dabbed on. I wanted to compare it to my thumb for underwear comparison, glitter comparison, and so you all could see what three coats looked like. And yes, it took three coats for opacity. Hence - why I use panties. Also, for a fresh feeling. Other undies I'd want to try are OPI Ink and Nubar Indigo Illusion. And a Digital Nails I acquired that you and the universe have not seen yet. 

What do you need to know?! That Helix Nebula was a smooth rocket ship ride to my childhood and an excuse to browse pictures on the NASA website? That I am obviously not destined to be an astronaut because I couldn't paint my nails in zero gravity? Oh - Helix Nebula is available for $6.50 at the Emerald & Ash website! There is also an Etsy! Don't forget to like it on Facebook because of spoilers and stuff! Also - they are all 3 free, animal and cruelty free, yadda yadda yadda. 

And here is a collage. Why not, right?

Ninja Polish Divinity

There are the color-shifters heard around the world: Clarins 230, then Max Factor Fantasy Fire, then all of the glorious scarlet red to gold to emerald green shifters from then on. I was faced with the decision of which of the famed similar colors to buy: Nail Pattern Boldness Boop-Oop-a-Doop (Late Night Lacquer did an awesome review here)? Ninja Polish Divinity? Darling Diva Ringer? The list went on and on and on, and finally..... I had waited long enough. Also, I had a birthday. And I was recently inflamed by the blog sale phenomenon. So lo and behold - I whipped out the wallet and snagged Ninja Polish Divinity from someone's blog sale for a damn good deal. And I was not disappointed. Ninja Polish Divinity is part of her Enigma collection, and now I will probably need to eventually buy all of her color-shifting goodies. This is why I have a job. DISCLAIMER: THE GLORY BEHELD IN THESE PHOTOS ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO THE HEAVENS THAT OPENED WHEN I PUT ON THIS POLISH TWO DAYS AGO. 

In these swatches, I'm wearing two gratuitous coats of Ninja Polish Divinity over OPI Nail Envy with one coat of Poshe on top. In application, you'll see that there are oodles and oodles of color-shifting bits suspended in a freaking awesome bright purple base. I almost wish I just had the base, as purple is my favorite color. I found out that I needed to start out with a fair amount of polish on the brush, elsewise I'd get some patching going on. Hence, the phrase GRATUITOUS coats. Worst case, throw on a third one. Either way, everything turned out PERFECT in the end. As far as durability goes - it made it two days on my fingers with minimal tip wear and one chip on my right thumb. Not bad!

Here's my thumb. With a label!

Capturing this color shift was rough - no lies. This polish is straight up magical and at any given time you can stare at your fingers and watch them shift from coppery red to a stunny gold and then to a deep (almost teal) green. This is why I took eight kajillion pictures and waggled my fingers about for an hour (or two).

Here is a nice close up - I almost got all the colorshifting! 

Here we go - three little fingers off the the sparkly market.

Then I made the worst decision of my life. I matted it. While it's pretty - don't get me wrong, you can really see the red and copper here, I lost most of the stunning shift.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It was audible. 

Anyway, while I nurse my wounds by re-doing my nails, you can go buy Ninja Polish Divinity  at their website here. Also, don't forget to follow them on facebook for updates, restocks, and general awesomeness.

Nubar Reclaim and Zoya Maya

Hello bloggiverse! I have an announcement: I AM RED AND PATCHY. This is very important. I was abducted by my family to go to the beach from Wednesday to this morning. It was very exciting - I have more pictures of birds and the cat in the rental condo place than people, and that's cool. Which  brings me to the polish(es) I will bring you tonight! Nubar Reclaim and Zoya Maya. Now, I do not have bottle shots today, mainly because I forgot Reclaim in the apartment and Maya I took pictures of in a super-classy hotel bedroom at 1 AM. I bought Reclaim when people were selling it on Amazon for $6.81 (WIN!) and I consider it a birthday present to myself! Maya is a super lovely gift. THANK YOU AMAZING GRAD SCHOOL FRIEND. Now - PICTURES! 

TWO COATS. TWO GLORIOUS EMERALD AMAZING COATS. Nubar Reclaim - you have my holographic heart. And I'm sure I even dulled it when I threw on a top coat too. It also doesn't have that chalky-holo look that linear holos sometimes end up with. 

Thank you for planting flowers, father. I have documented it - WITH MY NAILS.

In the shade. It's a perfect emerald green! I even love the color WITHOUT the rainbows.

I wanted to get a little bit closer.... and freakin' A is this pretty. I never wanted to take it off, but sand kind of told me I had to. 

Here we go. Stay tuned - at the end of this post I will have a video! But what do you need to know about Nubar Reclaim? I recommend stalking on Amazon or your local blogsales. Or, any of them really. It's kind of worth it. It's a 3-free polish, and the formula was second only to polish-godliness. 

Zoya Maya is a cool-toned coral jelly polish. What you see here is three coats. I still have some VNL on my thumb (not pictured because awful bathroom shots are awful and shameful). I only took two pictures because it was 1 AM and I was tired, sandy, and splotchy. But no way was I going to the beach the next day with a bad manicure. It took a bit longer for Maya to dry because I needed thick coats for opacity. I'd like to try it out with undies, but I'd need to find a matching coral. OR I could throw in some glitter. Eheheheh. Ideas. 

Anyway, here is my squishy jelly love. The formula was pretty amazing on it and easy to control - I had no cuticle flooding that wasn't caffeine related. I should also mention that it is grandma-approved. Zoya Maya is available for purchase at Amazon and the Zoya Website. Zoya is 4-free, if that matters to you. 

BONUS: VIDEO OF NUBAR RECLAIM

I'll pepper in pictures I took from my beach trip throughout my next posts: there are kitties and pelicans and my grandma with seagulls! 

DifferentDIMENSION Excelsior!

WARNING: WHAT OCCURS BELOW IS MY ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE STUPID AWESOME HOLOGRAPHIC GLORY ON A CLOUDY DISGUSTING SMOKY AWFUL DAY IN TEXAS. THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY POOR PLANNING ON MY PART. PICTURE ANEURYSM IMMINENT. 

Well. Now that you'e read my warning - here is a tale of a polish from another indie maker that I love and adore. DifferentDIMENSION was one of the first indie brands I ever owned. Possibly my second. I'm not sure. Either way, I was astounded at all the things ever. I eventually came across a sale! Please listen carefully, there is a large cellist playing harmonious music with the angels that graced my internet. I quickly discovered that there was a new polish up, one that I had yet to see... a glorious and fantastic light grey (I'm talking a hair off of a snow white) holographic polish. List of things I love in life: 1. Grey 2. Holos. GOTTA OWN IT. So I did. This fated polish is called Excelsior! And before you ask, while I am easily excitable and am prone to lots of THISS!!!!! the name of this polish actually includes an exclamation point. 

For these pictures I used one coat, killed a gigantic cockroach from the 7th level of evil, screamed a lot, removed all of my polish, and then used three coats of Excelsior! with one coat of Essie Good to Go. Retrospect - should have used Poshe. Ready for the pictures?

This somehow ended up becoming the most awkwardly modeled photo with the best way to show you the rainbows. Please keep in mind this is in NASTY WEATHER underneath an OTT LAMP! Pretty amazing for crappy lighting, yeah? Now - when I put it on and was dismayed that I had minimal rainbows at first (thanks bad apartment lighting and horrific outdoors) I noticed something else - colorshifting bits! WHAT!?! There were some miraculous bits in this polish that appeared to shift from blue/purple to kind of pink. And onwards. Which meant I had to attempt to photograph rainbows and colorshifty bits! IMPOSSIBLE!

Here is another attempt. The shaded part of my index finger shows the shifty bits pretty decently. Other fingers have some rainbows. 

Same deal here.

WHY SO HARD TO TAKE PICTURES OF?!?

Again!

PLEASE SHOW UP.

Reaaaaaaally close now. 

At this point, my camera had been receiving a large portion of verbal abuse because I was attempting to capture this amazing polish. So I did what I could do - took a video!

Thank the heavens. A better depiction! At this point, I'd like to mention that I was so totally thrilled I had a decent video of this polish and it's prettiness (despite my poor backdrop skills). I should now probably mention that the formula on Excelsior! was A+++++. I could have reached opacity in two coats, but I chose to do three for safety's sake. Nice and relatively self-leveling, just minor patchiness on the first coat, but I was using a new base coat and was having some brain derp.

Regardless - the colorshifty bits were being more elusive than I desired - so I matted this bad boy. 

ARHGOEAUFOAHNSGFOITEUON!!!!!! I WILL GET IT EVENTUALLY!!!!!!! But - I will say.... for a matted polish, this is a pretty nice suede-ish grey with pretty colorshifty bits! I wouldn't even mind missing out on rainbows!

Here we go. We can see the subtle colorshiftiness in this one here. Look near the base of the nails - it's pretty prominent!

I'm kind of in love with this polish - matted or shiny! Best of both worlds!

So - what do my lovely people need to know? That when I get frustrated with taking pictures I leave to go to the nearby Baskin Robbins? That they forgot to charge me for a chocolate dipped waffle bowl? WITH SPRINKLES?! Probably not. But - you should know that DifferentDIMENSION has an Etsy and that Excelsior! is in stock as of 10:01 PM CST today. No guarantees. That this is a 3-free polish? (YES IT IS).  That you should ABSOLUTELY run off and like DifferentDIMENSION on Facebook? Instagrammers can follow on Instagram, which is still beyond my skills. And for those who like to shop Llarowe, good news! You can also get it there.

Well - I'm out! I'm being forcibly dragged to the beach tomorrow morning. Yes - I will bring polish. Yes - I'll blog late at night.

SO GUESS WHAT?! I FIGURED OUT I COULD TAKE BETTER VIDEO! SO I DID!

Urban Outfitters Bohemian Summer

I got home today to find that I have a couple new followers! Huzzah! I appreciate it so much, you have no idea. I'm kind of stoked, I informed my cat, and she was indifferent and then attempted to shred my jeans - this is a sign of love and affection. Now, today I bring to you my first "mainstream" polish not used in a nail-art sort of way. I received Urban Outfitters Bohemian Summer as a birthday present (I swear, I got so much polish I'll still be swatching it for next year's birthday) from my lovely graduate school friend. Now - I had been drooling over all of those speckled polishes that came out this spring, especially those freaking droolgasms by Illamasqua. Unfortunately, like many people, I'm poor. I cannot run amok and spend the $17 on a single polish. The good news is that other polish lines are working on dupes and now I get to bring you what appears to be something akin to one. Bohemian Summer is a light blue crelly (think Robin's Egg, but not turquoise) with tiny matte black glitters and another size up's matte black glitters. Ready for some pictures? 

Look how pretty! This is two coats over my usual base and with two whopping coats of Poshe. This is a pretty hungry glitter. However, after two coats I didn't have any balding issues or a lack of glitter. In fact, I had a hard time getting sparse coverage and one of my nails on my other hand has significantly more glitter than the others! But - woe is me, I can handle too much glitter. I'm kind of in love with the square bottles too. 

Full frontal baby! Look how self-leveling it is. It was a pretty great formula - I was expecting worse for the price tag left on the bottle ($5). 

And of course, I had to matte it. I used Digital Nails Mattematical. 

Overall, I'm impressed! No tip wear at the time of removal, and also it got rave reviews from my mother. Again - here is what you need to know! My friend bought it for me at an actual Urban Outfitters, but they have a website that they might carry it on. I'd keep a lookout in physical locations! 

Thank everyone for working with me while I wear all my untrieds! 

Kunimitsu Nail Potions Love is a Kitten

WHEW! PSA readers: I'm now a Master. Great. My family has come and gone and now I can get back to things like polishing my nails nightly. Tonight I have Kunimitsu Nail Potions, which I have added faithfully to my Etsy registry (I'm marrying myself in November 2015. Save the date!) FOREVER. Well, this year I had a kind of amazing birthday and my good indie-a-holic Michelle over at Late Night Lacquer mailed me a birthday package of exceptional oozing awesome. One of the polishes was Love is a Kitten. I am a proud momma to my preciousbabykittylovekins Ecco and I adore all of the polish in the Kunimitsu Nail Potions shop. Especially the cat themed ones. I was super excited to FINALLY get my mitts on one! Ready for some pictures?!

Here is an awesome bottle shot! So - here we have snow white crelly with itty bitty fuchsia hexes, matte black glitters of tiny and super tiny varieties, and OF COURSE itsybitytinywiny holographic glitters. SCORE! Logically, I knew the first thing I needed to do was put on two coats of polish. And I knew I needed to do it in 15 minutes yesterday because I was on my way out the door for that important thing called GRADUATION. I lobbed that stuff on super fast, threw on some Poshe and ran out the door.  

It's almost been 48 hours since then! And I finally got around to getting pictures. Yes yes, shame on me. Needless to say, the formula was pretty dang awesome. For only two coats I didn't have any real balding or thin spots. I probably should have used three for opacity's sake, but a lady's got to walk across a stage and shake hands with some person called "The Dean." But check out that glitter variety! And ease of glitter placement! It just flowed right on the nail. Fantastic formula. Mmph. Oh - I should also mention that it's 3-free. 

Here we go. Looking nice now! GAH. Except for Janky Pinkie. Oh lawdy - what are you DOING?! We'll tuck you away now.

One more for good measure. Also - after a whole 48 hours which included being paraded around the boiling heat of Texas while dressed in 27 recycled plastic bottles (really) made into a black Masters robe and full regalia while clutching a mortar board to my head in gusty winds..... and a night of opening gifts and writing thank you notes.... the wear is pretty good for a polish peeler like me. 

.

And of course, it's not a party with out a matte top coat Digital Nails Mattematical. While it's not all OOOHHH GURGLY GURGLY DEPTH, I think that mattefying this lady gives it a really nice, soft, sweet touch. Like kitties. What kitties are super shiny, any way?

Oh look! The end of the post. What do you guys need to know now? That there is an awesome Etsy shop where Kunimitsu Nail Potions sells pretty phenomenal lacquers? That she also has a Facebook that you should go like immediately? Those are both fantastic ideas! Lets do them!

Here is a bonus picture of  my precious kitty sitting in the window. She's a dilute calico and some sort of Siamese mix.