Dear readers,

check it out, it's a review with a proper swatch! No nail art in sight anywhere. Crazy, eh? Well, with polishes this fun and sparkly, you don't really need anything else.

This is one of Different Dimension's recently released polishes, Never Grow Up. It reminded me of Money, so I grabbed it when I was reordering that one, but where Money has small and large glitters in various shades of green and blue as well as black, white and silver holo, Never Grow Up has only silver holo and blue in a milky white base with a blue, glassfleck-type shimmer. So while I am attracted to both for the same reasons (huge circle glitters! White crelly!), they are different enough for me to want them both.

I think Money seems more playful, while Never Grow Up has a somewhat crisper air to it. It can be fun and playful, but with its snow-blue shimmer (especially in matte) it's about as close to sophisticated as a glitter-loaded polish can get.

Here's a comparison for you. The two fingers on the right are matted, the other two have a glossy top coat (second pic). It doesn't make a lot of difference - in fact, I think I prefer the glossy version of Money - but the blue shimmer of Never Grow Up shows up really nicely in the matte version.

 

The full hand mani of Never Grow Up is without a top coat because it spread so smoothly. I went swimming that day and oh, you should have seen it in the clear green water! Between the sun and the water, my hands that were all but trailing sparkles as I was swimming. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me, but you should try it sometime. 

Both of these polishes spread well and are opaque in three coats. I have the impression the base of Never Grow Up might be a bit more opaque than Money's, where the first coat seems to consist of more glitter than base. Particularly the latter is chock full of glitter, but if you want large circles in either of these, you may have to fish a bit, though not excessively.

You can find these at Different Dimension's etsy shop, but you'll have to wait for the next restock if you want Never Grow Up or its pastel purple sister Today Was a Fairytale (but you can't have that because I want it, so forget all about it, sorry about that).

As always, I'm doing this review because I feel like it and want to show you pretty polish - I bought these pretties myself. I know it says so in my disclaimer and we don't have blog disclosure laws like in the US, but I doubt everyone reads the disclaimer so I sometimes add one to my reviewier posts. That said, I'm not generally opposed to writing reviews for indie polish makers in exchange for sample products, I just never have been asked to do so. If I did, you can be sure it will be clearly labeled as such and as honest as all my other reviews.

Have a nice weekend and go swimming if you can!

S.

READ MORE

Dear readers,

After yesterday's trip back in time to day 8, we're back on track with day 28 of the OMD Rather Awesome challenge, which is TV shows. With a preamble like this one, I really should have a Doctor Who mani for you, and that was the original plan. But then I was playing around with two LynBDesigns polishes  from her Baker Street collection for separate posts and this happened. 

This is a three-for-one, actually, because I started with a full mani of Lost Without My Blogger on the left hand (because John is left-handed and he's the heart, while Sherlock is the mind - though I've been reliably informed he does have a heart).

Lost Without My Blogger consists of silver hexagons of varying sizes, some shreds, light and dark green circles and square green mini-glitters in a greenish milky base. I was so focused on the art that I didn't take notes, but I think I'm wearing three coats on the pointer, middle finger and pinky. The holo polish on the ring finger and thumb is Literary Lacquers Green Gables. The later pictures show Lost Without My Blogger over one layer each of Literaray Lacquers Green Gables and Lake of Shining Waters on the thumb - undies definitely help with the making it seem more green without sacrificing too much depth. All jellies in this post are topped with a matte top coat (which bubbled on the right hand), the holos have no top coat.

Initially I was just going to do the number for John's blog's post count, which has some significance in the show (massive spoilers here, only click if you've already seen both seasons: John's blog) but then on a whim I decided to sketch John using LynBDesigns Quoth the Raven (see yesterday's post for a review of that).

On the right hand I did a Mind Palace mani - I think that's two coats on the pinky, middle finger and pointer, three coats over Purple Polish of Sex on the thumb, and two coats of Purple Polish of Sex on the ring finger. This is chock full of glitter! We have large white diamonds, black, white, silver and purple hexagons, and tons of little blue squares in a slightly purple-tinged, mostly translucent base.

Now when you look at these next pictures, keep in mind I did this with my non-dominant hand and my right-hand nails are very short. First I tried doing Sherlock in black, to match John, but it didn't show very well over the rich, dark, sexy purple. So then I decided to use Eloquent Dust, another one from the Baker Street collection. That didn't go so well either. 

Finally I realised why Sherlock wasn't cooperating: He wanted to be with John! How could I have made the mistake of separating one of literature's greatest couples?

I removed all but John from the left hand and gave Sherlock a purple holo background to match John's green: ILNP Amanda Hugginkiss. It's a gorgeous light purple both in the shade and the sun, and as soon as I get round to posting non-challenge manis I've made in the last month (read: hopefully sometime this year) it'll get its own post. 

Don't they look much happier now? Well, Sherlock's raising his sarcastic eyebrow and John's got his usual look of restrained annoyance and exasperation, but that's just their way of saying they love one another. 

I like how their expressions seem to change ever so subtly depending on how the light hits the holo.

blushing Sherlock, smiling John

disgruntled Sherlock, mischievous John

To complete the look, I added Mind Palace over Purple Shirt of Sex next to Sherlock and Lost Without My Blogger next to John.

I can wholeheartedly recommend all of these polishes. Mind Palace requires some patience (which is basically the same as in the show) since you have to dab it carefully to achieve a smooth finish, Lost Without Your Blogger was easier for me to use. Both are well worth it though! The holos are all made of awesome. You can get Lake of Shining Waters and Green Gables here, Amanda Hugginkiss here (it's even currently in stock!), and all the rest here at LynBDesigns, who currently has a 50% sale until the 1st. 

The shipping options shown are only for the US but she does ship internationally, just contact her via etsy. I've ordered three times from her now and she is very nice and pleasant to communicate with. Shipping to Europe is quite fast and the polishes have arrived safe and sound packaged individually in bubblewrap.

Just one more fangirly remark: Do you see the background of the polish labels? That's the wallpaper at 221b Baker Street. Her Doctor Who polishes have a TARDIS on the label. Such a cute detail!

Check out today's other TV show-inspired manis here:

28. Inspired by a TV Show :

The nail newbie (deducing that you like nail polish)


Note: Any links to external blogs or stores are pure link love - no advertising or affiliate linking going on here. I paid for everything and it's all fine.

READ MORE

Good morning everyone!

Today's theme in the OMD Pretty Awesome challenge is music, which means we're all likely to have songs stuck in our heads all day long. At my stop I'm serving up psychedelic tunes from one of my all-time favourite bands, Pink Floyd. (I considered doing Leonard Cohen but I just got the Pink Floyd collection from Different Dimension, how could I resist?)

As undies I used LynBDesigns' Quoth the Raven, which turned out to be better at two coats - you might manage with one thick coat but why get one longer-drying coat when you can do it in two thinner and faster-drying ones? This polish dries to a semi-matte finish (and I used it to do the matte manicure I skipped), but the pictures of the finished nail art show it first with a glossy and then with a matte topcoat. Here it is on its own though:

I used about a gazillion polishes for this, as you're wont to do with refracted light, so I'll refrain from posting all their names, but if you have questions, ask.

You've probably all seen this image at one time or another - it's the cover of Dark Side of the Moon. It was designed by Storm Thorgerson (Hipgnosis group), who designed many iconic album covers and sadly passed away earlier this year.

The other nails feature Different Dimension polishes from the Echoes collection. Time (middle finger) and Money (ring finger; ignore the daft visuals in the video) are tracks from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here on the pointer is from the album of the same name, and Comfortably Numb on the pinky is from the album from which everyone has probably heard at least one song, The Wall. I think the pink, white and black glitter topper The Wall would've looked better over black than Money, but I couldn't very well skip that when I've got the album cover on my thumb nail. Besides, it's my favourite from the collection and I'm eagerly waiting for a restock so I can get a full-size bottle of it.

matte and beautiful

look at the colour changes on the pointer!

I like these polishes, the four glitter toppers are suitably glittery and the other two (Money and Hey You), which have thin milky bases, are slow to build but beautiful. I like the large round glitters, which I'm seeing a lot more of recently (could be just me discovering them for myself, not a general trend), and though you need to fish for them a bit and place them carefully, they're well worth the trouble. I also knew what I was getting into, as Missi gives fair warning in the listings: "This is not a polish for the faint of heart as it does need work to get some of the bigger holographic circle glitters out." I think that's pretty cool. Of course, I can't be deterred by statements like that but I imagine it's useful for people who want to just put on one layer of top coat and be done with it.

Ready to get some new songs stuck in your head?

23. Music Themed :

See you on the dark side of the moon,
the nail newbie

Note: Any links to external blogs or stores are pure link love - no advertising or affiliate linking going on here. I paid for everything, including my original Pink Floyd LPs. The earworms come free with purchase.

READ MORE

Dear readers,

Today's theme for the OMD challenge is "ruffian/halfmoon". The name 'ruffian' for what is essentially the opposite of a French manicure has always confused me a bit. Do lawless brutes paint their nails in two different colours to show they are rebels? Is the differently-coloured rim at the base of the nail a signal that tells those in the know "don't mess with me"? I do not know. But I do know that if I can get away with using the dictionary to make a mani a bit more amusing, I'll do it, so here is my take on a ruffian mani, inspired by ruffian and consulting criminal extraordinaire, James Moriarty (though I suppose Sebastian Moran could be considered even more of a ruffian). 

This is another polish from LynBDesigns' Baker Street collection, called So Changeable. I don't think it's much of a spoiler for the TV show Sherlock to say that this name is very appropriate. (You'll want to avoid clicking on any further links in this post if you're concerned about spoilers though.) Is he blue or is he purple? Does he have a hint of turquoise? Is he going to kill you or not? There's no way to tell. He's just sooooooooo changeable.

I adore Jenna's polishes, their formula is one of the best I've ever encountered, and they don't just carry geeky names, they embody them. This is three thin coats (no top coat) over a coat of Essence go bold! Why gold, you ask? Because, honey, you should see him in a crown.

Click on the linky below to see the ruffians and halfmoons the others have prepared for today!

16. Ruffian/Half-Moon :

The nail newbie, consulting nail polish addict

READ MORE

 

Dear readers,

This is my 100th post. I had hoped this would be a slightly more momentous occasion than just a quick post of a mani I prepared for the OMD challenge a week ago, but there you go.

Honestly, I never expected to get to this point. My few previous attempts at blogging petered out after a month or two and a dozen posts, but now I've been blogging for over half a year. At the same time I don't really feel very accomplished or experienced - I still feel like a newbie, so I guess I don't have to think about changing my name anytime soon. I was going to say that I feel my nail art's improved but then I went back to look for my first nail art post and found this - not so different from today's flowers, eh? ;) That was a challenge too, which I gave up on after two days. So that's progress, I guess - at least this time around I'm doing most of the manis. And if you look at my actual first mani, the red "gradient" in this post, then yeah, a lot has happened since then.

I don't know where I'm going with my rambling or my blog, but I do know I love hanging out with all you polish girls (and boys?) and doing weird nail art and geeking out about nerdy nail polish, so I guess you're stuck with me for a while.

So with that said, here's a flower mani I actually planned to redo because it's not very tidy and the idea of using the dots as part of the flowers only came to me while I was doing it, so there's no planning in their placement. Because of work and other manis I had no time, though, and I didn't take this one with me on vacation, so this'll have to do.

no top coat

matte

 

The polish is Dot of the Bay by Pretty & Polished; a lovely aqua jelly with round green, blue and pink metal glitters. I'm not quite sure how many coats I used here, probably 3 or so. The petals are my standard LOOK white.

I'm pretty late posting this tonight so there's already an impressive collection of flowers in the linky, go have a look!

14. Flowers :

The nail newbie, ready for another 100 posts

READ MORE

Very sunny on top of being pretty cunning

Dear readers,

I'm pretty late posting this tonight, it's been one of those days... but I won't go to bed until I've shown you my stripe mani!

I wasn't sure what to do for today and was just going to do some random stripes, but then my order from Lucky 13 Lacquer arrived, which included a Firefly-themed polish: The Hero of Canton, the Man they Call Jayne. I know, longest polish name ever, right? But I appreciate a nice long quote when it's from one of my favourite shows.

I have a lot more to tell you about Lucky 13 and Kyoti, who is the woman behind it and is incredibly sweet and awesome, but I'll leave that for another day when I'm not in such a hurry to finish packing because yay, I'm going on holiday! I'll still be posting though - in fact, I'll finally have time to blog!

matte

So back to the Jayne polish. As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what kind of stripes to do: a Jayne hat! If you haven't seen Firefly, Jayne is this big coarse guy with more brawn than brains, but when he gets this knitted hat from his mother, he wears it all the time (despite the others snickering about it). You can't see it so well in the video below but it's yellow, orange and red. In addition to being "pretty cunning" and iconic geekwear, it was also the subject of a bit of nasty business when FOX decided to ban people from selling hats like it on etsy etc., despite it being one of the simplest knitting patterns and colour combinations out there. But I'm pretty confident they can't take my nails from me.

Here's a fan video that explains the whole Hero of Canton thing, complete with the song from which the polish takes it's name, but it's mildly spoilery, so watch out.

3-4 coats of Hero on its own, matte top coat

The other polishes used here are H&M Yellow, L'Oreal Lush Tangerine and Dior Diablotine (in what is probably the smallest and cutest polish sample bottle I have ever seen). For some reason it wouldn't photograph well, it's actually more orange, not that pinkish tone most of the pictures show.

Do you like Firefly? How do you like my hat? And have you seen today's other stripes yet?

11. Stripes :

The nail newbie (always a browncoat)

Note: Any links to external blogs or stores are pure link love - no advertising or affiliate linking going on here. I paid for everything (except the Dior, which was a drugstore freebie), but then, there is no power in the verse that could stop me from buying geeky polishes.

READ MORE