Quoth the Raven...

AKA Different Dimensions Nevermore


First off, I don't think this is a fitting name for this Polish. A Polish called Nevermore should be black. Very dark gray at the very least.

I have a love hate relationship with this polish. While I think it's beautiful and unique, it's also kinda boring. That doesn't make any fucking sense but that's how I feel.

This is a dark warm brown strong linear holo with a white gold shift and some larger holo or shifty glitters (I can't really tell). Honestly, these indie brands are getting crazy complicated and my Polish vocabulary is insufficient to describe some of the shit going on in these Polishes.

The formula was on the thick side and the brush was like painting my nails with a broom. all that said, it wasn't horrible. It wasn't the best formula, but manageable and would have been better if the brush wasn't bullshit.

But onto the Polish!!

These were all in direct sunlight. The holo is still fairly strong indoors/in shade. My biggest issue with this is that the larger glitter pieces make it look a bit lumpy and textured. I'm a huge fan of silky smooth cremes, so I kinda hate anything lumpy. A coat or two more of topcoat probably would take care of that, but that's too much effort for me.

Thank goodness for peel off basecoat!!

This was a late night/after a few glasses of wine post. I promise to go back to my standard review format next time!!

Oh, and I broke a bunch of nails moving my new renter into my old house :-( So my nails are uneven, sorry about that. The good news is, I really whipped my crazy ass cuticles into shape today! I'm rather proud.

Where I Wish I Was

I went on a many year nail polish hiatus. I just recently got my groove back and not without a little guilt at spending yet more money on, well, paint. I used to use the hobby excuse, but now I knit, crochet, weave and spin. I have bins full of yarn in my house (hoarding yarn is much like hoarding nail polish... Or maybe I am just a hoarder in general).

I just like color, dammit! So, now that I can again have long, decent nails, I decided to paint again. then I discovered the world of "nail art". I pretty much suck at it, but damn is it fun! So I will preface with this, if you come for swatches of the latest collections or perfect, clean cuticles, leave now. If you don't like swearing, get the fuck out. I'm just doing this for fun, so hopefully someone will enjoy it!

So let's do this!!!

I started buying nail vinyls and playing with them. Then I discovered the sponge gradient. THEN I saw the most awesome palm tree manicure ever and I had to try it. It turned out a little sloppy, but I still love it.


This is how it looks in direct light from the window. it's not super sunny out today.

I really botched the pointer nail. This is what happens when you don't take your time. Then I smeared it all up trying to fix it.


Here it is at my desk, in less direct natural light.

The nails I saw had all palm trees. also, the trees were mirrored, they didn't all lean the same way. The vinyls I have are all the same and because only one side is sticky, there's no way to mirror the direction of the tree, so I decided to also do dolphins.

I feel like the placement could have been better with the dolphins and my nails are super curved so it's hard to get the vinyls to stick evenly.


Here's my right hand. Not too bad. I was too lazy to wait for another top coat to dry so I could use a vinyl for the waves under the dolphins, so I tried to free hand it. Yeah... no.

Here are the vinyls I used. They are Bundle Monster from Amazon:

 I used the martini ones yesterday. Definitely getting more of those!!! EEE! I gotta find some vino ones. I'm seeing wine colored polish with antique gold wine bottles and glasses. I like these vinyls. They stick really well, which is useful for me because my nails are so curved and vinyls tend to not lie down flat. With how sticky these are, I can push them down and fake it if they don't lay completely flat. I'll show an example next time.


AAAAANNNDDD... The polishes!! First is Color Club East Austin. I fucking love neon corals. My favorite neon coral of all time is the ORIGINAL china Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy. It's the neon coral by which I measure all neon corals. Anyway, East Austin is much lighter and peacher than that color, but it's still a rockin coral and it is most definitely neon.

Next are two Cirque Colors - Plastik and Rehab. I'm am obsessed with Cirque's Vice Collections. These are from the 2016 collection and I missed out on ONE freaking color in the collection which happened to be, you guessed it, neon CORAL! Damn! If anyone know where I can find Sin City, the neon coral from the Vice 2016 collection, please let me know, I will buy 3 bottles!! Anyway, Plastik is a medium pink/fuchsia creme. I wouldn't call it eye-searing neon, but it is definitely bright an summery. Rehab is the blurple to end all blurples. I absolutely love this color and it is one of my top 5 polishes of all time.

So I did a coat of Color Club East Austin over my basecoat, then I covered my fingers and cuticles with liquid latex and waited for it to turn completely dark pink (that's how you can tell it's dry). Be really careful not to stick your fingers together (I recommend at least one hand at a time, if not one finger at a time) otherwise the latex from each finger will stick to each other and pull off of your fingers. Don't skip this step, if you do, you will have a huge mess. And if you have dry fingers and cuticles like me, you'll never get this polish off with a clean up brush. trust me, the latex is worth it and is super easy to use.

After the latex dried, I grabbed a makeup sponge and put a stripe of each polish on the sponge to create the gradient. Then you just dab the sponge on your nails carefully, moving from side to side and maybe up and down by like a millimeter to blend the colors. Don't move it too much vertically or you will create mud.

I ended up doing about 4 coats and I feel like my left hand could have used more (it doesn't apply as thick as when you paint, so don't worry about having a mound of polish). Once it's mostly dry, slap on a quick dry topcoat. When that is completely dry, 10-20 minutes, do the vinyls. If you do more than one vinyl like I did for the dolphin nails on my left hand, you'll have to wait for the black to dry (use a one coater and remove the vinyl immediately, and carefully while the polish is still wet), then do another topcoat before doing the next vinyl. I you skip the topcoat, the vinyl WILL pull off your polish unless you wait literally hours for it to dry completely.

Top it all off again with a quick dry top coat. Just make sure you wait til the black is almost completely dry before adding the topcoat or it might smear like a few of mine did because I am impetuous and can't be bothered to wait for drying.

Here's what I will do differently next time:

1. More coats of the gradient and maybe wait a little longer in between. I think I may have just been picking it back up with the sponge because I wasn't waiting long enough between coats.

2. Place the vinyls more carefully. I did like the dolphins but they were just a bit too big for my nails and didn't fit quite the way I wanted them to. If I do this same mani, I will get the mirrored palm tree vinyls.

3. Less black on the tips. For the little islands from which the palms grow, I would only do a mound in the corner like the middle nail on my left hand, that way it doesn't cover up the coral so much:

 4. Pull the vinyls off more carefully and do a better job cleaning up the image.

5. Wait for the black to dry more before putting on topcoat and maybe find a topcoat that doesn't smear as much. I had this same issue with this topcoat and stamping.

Now enjoy this kitty picture because... kitties.

Maksim and Daenerys

Grapes of Gold

Aka Zoya Daul

So Zoya names all of their Polishes with women's names. So I'm thinking, WTF is Daul? I have never heard that name before, how do you even say it? So I Google it... The first page of results are some model named Daul Kim who hanged herself in 2009. Lovely. Mooooving on...

I'm really getting into painting my nails again for some reason, so I figured I might as well enjoy it while I can, because there will be no time for it with a newborn babe in the house. Plus, I'll be chopping all my nails off (well, as short as I can get them anyway) and keeping them that way for a while.

On to the Polish!

Daul in natural, indoor light, no flash. 

Sunlight.

Cost: I picked up this one at Ulta, where I think Zoya goes for $8. You can also get them from Zoya.com or Beauty First stores. I don't know of any reputable places to get them cheaper than $8, unfortunately.

What I used: I used Nailtek Foundation II, two coats of Daul, and a coat of Poshe fast dry topcoat

Application: Excellent. Zoya rarely disappoints, especially the foily colors. The shorter, wider brush is one of my favorites too, it really cuts down on Polish dripping and makes it really easy to cover a good portion of the nail and get a good line at the cuticle.

Color/Finish:This is a foily/glass fleck finish. The base color is a medium, cool-toned grape purple and the glass fleck is a yellow, almost coppery, gold. It's very very similar to Zoya Faye, but the purple is darker and cooler. From what I have seen, it's a dupe for Orly Oui (which I never bought because I thought it was a dupe for Faye!).

Most Awesome Polish EVER

Aka Ludurana Aurora Boreal in Show

No, seriously... For me, this is the Polish to end all Polish. I could wear this every day and never ever get sick of it. Unfortunately, my application and pictures kind of suck... Sorry about that.

No babbling for this one, here are the pics:

 Yes, I know this is blurry, but it shows the predominant colors best. When I wore it, this was mostly what color my nails were - this dark metallic aqua/teal with purplish magenta around the edges.

This shows more of the hard angle color shift... You can see the coppery orange at the very edge.

I believe I took these pics after 3 or 4 days of hard wear. It held up really well. This is somewhat color accurate, except that you couldn't see that darker blurple color most of the time.

 This color was NEVER flat. It always showed at least 2 colors, usually more, at the same time.

Another accurate one color-wise. The teal leaned slightly more green than shown here.

Cost: This was $14 at shop.Llarowe.com and worth every single penny (something I have said thus far for every Polish I have ordered from her site).

What I used: I used Nailtek Foundation II, a coat of Orly Bonder, two coats of Show, and a coat of Poshe fast dry topcoat

Application: Pretty good. I have heard bloggers describe Ozotics as being airy or fluffy when applied and I guess you could say this was sort of like that. It was definitely different than most polishes, maybe slightly thicker than normal, but not hard to control. It also seemed like it would be incredibly sheer and it wasn't at all! A lot of people apply these over black for that reason, but I really think this one looks best on its own.

Color/Finish: ZOMGWTFAMAZINGNESSS!!! It's a predominantly darker teal-aqua and purple-magenta multi-chrome that can also flash a darker blurple and coppery orange on the edges at more extreme angles. The finish is a metallic shimmer, but not chrome or foil.

Beach Nails

I AM GOING TO THE BEACH!!! Woo hoo! Leaving tomorrow night to drive to Holden Beach, NC for a whole week! This is the first time I have ever taken a real vacation that involves nothing but me sitting on my ass and doing whatever I want for an entire 7 days. Unfortunately, I have to be 29 weeks pregnant for it, but I'll take the bad with the good!

When placing my second order at shop.Llarowe.com, I kept my vacation in mind and found the perfect color for my nails and I give you....

Enchanted Ocean Potion!! This was really hard to photograph... This pic looks almost fake to me, but it was just my camera on the usual macro setting in full sun. It's definitely a more linear holo in real life than it shows here. It's also slightly more green and metallic looking.




Yeah, I know this pic is blurry and kinda sucks, I'm sorry, either the color or the holo made my camera freak out... this pic is most color accurate.

This is with flash and shows the holo better but removes most of the green from the color. I do like this color, but it's not accurate.

Cost: This was $15 at shop.Llarowe.com and worth every single penny. I ordered several more Enchanted Polishes and I currently have 2 from the Beatles Collection. I plan to buy pretty much all of them because they are so awesome, and this from someone who used to refuse to pay that much for Polish!

What I used: To give this, hopefully, more staying power, I used Nailtek Foundation II, a coat of Orly Bonder, two coats of Ocean Potion, a coat of Color Club Vivid topcoat and a coat of Poshe fast dry topcoat. We'll see if it helps it not chip in the sand and surf!

Application: EXCELLENT! Omg, everyone always complains about holos and how they bald after the first coat and are a pain to apply, yada yada. Nope, not this one, not at all. This applied totally smoothly in two opaque coats, it didn't drip, pool or drag, and I had minimal cleanup afterwards (from my own sloppiness). Not really a one-coater, but damn close. I am so impressed by the pigmentation and formula on this. Totally makes it worth every penny.

Color/Finish: This is a metallic aqua semi-strong linear holo. That's a mouthful! The color is on the lighter side of teal and just slightly more blue than green. The holo is very strong in sunlight and the particles are small and more linear than scattered. As with most holos, the effect is dulled indoors, but still visible.

This is so full of win! I am so happy I bought this, the other Enchanteds that I got with that order, and the ones I just ordered. They do NOT disappoint! I can't wait to review more of them.

Holo Yumminess (And My Renewed Polish Addiction)

Aka A-England Princess Tears (The Legends Collection)

I am pretty sure the princess is crying because this Polish is so effing AWESOME. Seriously, it's been a while since I have really been excited about Polish... It's become more of "Oh I want to get that one because it will be a good toe-Polish" or "I don't really have a color like that, I should get it"... until now.

I'd seen a post somewhere that Ozotic was discontinue some of their more awesome Polishes so I finally got my butt to Llarowe to make some purchases. Of course, while I was there, I threw a few more things that I had been wanting to try into my cart. Sadly (or fortunately for my bank account), so many of the things I wanted to try weren't in stock. So I ended up with a couple of Ozotics, a Ludurana (which seems to be an exact dupe for one of the Ozotics I got) and this gem.

Before I get on with the Polish, I just want to note that I have a renewed obsession for these unique and gorgeous Polishes. I can't wait to get more from A-England and I really, really want some Enchanted Polishes. I've been rather annoyed with all the blog posts lately of all the over-the-top (to me), glittery, chunky indie Polishes - just not my thing... but I can get behind some awesome holo-duochromey-goodiness. I see me placing some pretty pricey orders from Llarowe in the future.

Anyway, on to the awesome...

Outdoors, full sun, no flash:

You can see a bit of the pink/lilac duochrome on my ring finger.

The holo is definitely way more prominent outdoors in the sun.

Look at that holo goodiness!!! 

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I attempted an indoors shot to show how the holo translates out of the sun, but my camera kept focusing on everything BUT my nails! It's still a very lovely, subtle grey/lilac/pink mulitchrome indoors with a pretty sparkle and a hint of holo.

Where to buy: In case you didn't catch it above, here is where you can buy these: http://shop.llarowe.com/main.sc. They are $12 for 13ml or about .44 oz (bottle says 4 fl oz haha that'd be a LOT of Polish - and a great deal!)

What I used: 1 coat of Nailtek II Foundation, 2 coats of Princess Tears and 1 coat of Poshe.

Application: Pretty darn good! I don't have a lot of experience with holos, but I hear they can be a real pain. This one was great, opaque in 2 coats, very easy to control and no clean up required! The brush seemed a little stuff and weird, but actually worked perfect for a nice clean line - and the polish only went where I put it and spread nicely. I guess I was expecting some difficulty, it didn't give me any. My nails didn't exactly paint themselves, but great formula none-the-less. It can be slightly brushtrokey if you're super sloppy (like me), but it's hardly noticeable and most of them disappear entirely once dry. It's a little on the thick side so watch how much is on the brush.

Color/Finish: This is a subtle grey/pink/lilac multichrome base with a fairly strong linear holographic finish. I'd say the color is predominately lilac but the pink flash is fairly strong where the light hits the polish. In very dull lighting, it looks more silvery grey. The holo EXPLODES in sunlight but is still reasonably visible indoors.

Final Word: AWESOME. I seriously LOVE this Polish and plan on buying more from A-England. Even indoors with the muted holo, it's just a beautiful color and I keep looking at it. It makes me feel happy and anything medieval themed has a special place in my heart. I HIGHLY recommend this Polish and think it's 100% worth the $12 price tag.