Pahlish Mind Like a Diamond

SWEET HEAVENS TO BETSY THEY HAVE ARRIVED! Roll out the red carpet - the Coney Island Queen collection has made its way to my mailbox. Those of you who know me personally know I have an addiction to microglitter and microflakies. Really, if it's got "micro" in the word, I'm  probably down. Anyway, Pahlish makes a ton of polishes that totally float my boat. I fell in love with Mind Like a Diamond at some point, and then I saw the whole collection. Which I needed to own. And I finally bought when there was a free-shipping sale. Seriously, the way to my heart is free shipping. Anyway, Mind Like a Diamond is a warm, taupe-y grey with charcoal microflakes and pink color-shifty-shimmer bits. I know, scientific terminology. 

I mean, look how yummy this is. It's like warm delicious grey taupe super-neutral. I love greys that actually look grey and NOT green on my nails. And this polish DOES it! 

This is three coats of Mind Like a Diamond. It looked opaque at two, but I'm a teensie bit type-a on opacity. Formula wise it was pretty awesome. Not too thin, not too thick. It was pretty self-leveling, but my idiot pinkie nail was just not having it. Top coat fixed the problem. But seriously looking at it - this polish is a grey perfection. I was worried it was dupable with Dandy Nails Bound to Fall , but the good news is that while they are similar, they are totally different. I'll now probably try to do some stupid subtle taping or gradient.

Here is a macro shot. It really shows the sparkle this polish has. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and re-did my nails without matte polishing this mani first. I regret it immensely. I will probably need to go read some Sylvia Plath. 

Aaaand that's all she wrote! I got Mind Like a Diamond with the rest of the Coney Island Queen Collection. The whole collection runs $52 on Etsy, but you can just buy Mind Like a Diamond for $9 if you so please. Pahlish runs some really great sales and I usually try to hit one of those when I buy anything. Did I mention I also won a giveaway of hers on Facebook? You should go like it, because she does them OFTEN. And you know, so you can keep up on her sweet promos and pictures and stuff. 

Dandy Nails Bound to Fall

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present to you a lovely birthday gift from a fantastic lady and friend of mine - Dandy Nails Bound to Fall. She discovered that I had yet to try one of these gorgeous, fantastic, glorious polishes, and I had been drooling over Bound to Fall since my grey obsession a few months ago. Here is why I drooled over it: it's a medium grey that looks like granite or some sort of other stone because of the flakies inside and there are iridescent flakies as well and they actually show through and I can SEE THEM. So when she told me she got me that for a present, I was thrilled!

This is three coats of Bound to Fall on top of OPI Nail Envy Matte with a layer of Poshe as a top coat. Is this not GORGEOUS?! The formula wasn't anything to ignore either - no bubbles, lumpiness, and went on smoothly with no hiccups. At the time of these pictures, I'd like to mention I had been wearing it for about two days and I had minimal tip wear - which is pretty impressive. 

Here is a close up. I love how this looks like actually rocks. You see a hint of the iridescent flakies on my middle finger. 

If you get a good flash and shift the fingers, the flakies really liked to pop out. They were gorgeous and subtle  - I'd keep this in my neutral with flair arsenal. 

Not really too picture heavy today, I'm totally exhausted. I have grand plans to matte this baby in the future. Either way - I highly recommend this polish and I plan to add more Dandy Nails to my collection in the future.

If you'd like to add this polish or other Dandy Nails polishes to your stash - check out their etsy by clicking here. You can also obtain their polishes at Ninja Polish, WHO SHIPS INTERNATIONALLY. Finally, be sure to go like Dandy Nails on Facebook!

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!