Are you ready for photo overload!? I hope you're ready because it's time to share swatches of Emerald & Ash's new PFUDOR Duo!

This is a duo that is a long time in the making. Nate and I had been sitting on the idea for awhile and started teasing about it months ago. The pink part of the duo, though, had other ideas. Nothing was working. The pinks that were created just weren't playing nice. So the holo topper sat alone, waiting. Then the perfect pink happened and now we have a duo that is finally allowed to see the world. 

Onto the info about the polish. 

First is the pink or PFU. This is a blue leaning bubblegum pink metallic foil. Now when I say foil, I mean that it is filled with a large particle chrome pigment that is used in a lot of foil finish polishes. For those that own it, PFU has a similar finish to Water Bay, our blue polish from our recent summer collection. On top of that there are micro glass flecks in various pink colors floating around in it, along with a bright pink shimmer that shows itself best in low lights. The color and feel of the metallic foil finish does change and shift depending on the light source.

DOR also known as the holo top coat is just that, a holo top coat. It's a scattered holo that has the added bonus of glass flakies that also shimmer in a rainbow color. They are like an added bonus of happiness, especially if you are in a lower light source. DOR can easily be worn over the top of PFU or any polish for that matter. For the photos below I topped it over Illamasqua Loella. I did this so that I could show off the holo and flakies better in the photos. While DOR looks awesome on top of and adds more shine and shimmer to PFU, my camera did not agree and made it hard to capture how DOR really looks. Thus the different polish used as a base color.

Also, I apologize for any of the bubble looking spots closer to my cuticles. It was a whopping 2 degrees with a wind chill sitting at around -18 out yesterday. My polish wasn't 100% dry and the switch between a warm house to freezing parts of my body off made for less than happy polish.
That being said, here are the pictures. All of them. Lots of them. Tons of them. I couldn't stop. 

{Outdoor: full sun}

 {Outdoor: shade}

 {Indoor: natural light from a window}

Brand: Emerald & Ash
Availability: Shooting for this weekend, Monday November 17th at the latest
Coats: 3 thin coats PFU, 1 heavier coat DOR over 2 coats Illamasqua Loella

More Enchanted Polish for you today! 

This beauty was a gift from a friend who has a very very very deep love of all things Enchanted. I'm very grateful for her kindness in gifting this to me as it's not the easiest to find. This polish being Olive the Other Reindeer which was part of her Ho Ho Holoday Collection from 2012. It is a hard to place color as it tends to pull an olive green and/or bronze depending on the light. I saw a lot of the olive green when I was out in full sunlight, with the bronze showing more of itself indoors. And of course there's the holo, which is beyond stunning out in the sun.

{Outdoors: full sun}

{Outdoors: shade}

Brand: Enchanted Polish
Availability: Discontinuted; very occasionally pops up on blog sales
Coats: 2 coats

It has indeed been quiet around here, but for good reason. We've been busting our humps getting new things ready for release over at Emerald & Ash. Along with that it's be a mighty cold week already and clouds have settled in, even producing some snow. Which I love. But cloud cover makes it hard to get outdoor photos.

So instead, today I am sharing with you a quick post about a new storage box I acquired a few weeks ago. This is a portable box with an attached lid. This isn't something that I keep a specific brand or color in, instead it holds my recently purchased polish. My nail polish lair is actually in the basement, so when I get a new polish or twelve they actually hang out on our main floor till they get cataloged. Sometimes they live upstairs for a long while. Collecting. Taking over. Normally when this happens they get put into the nearest box to keep them together. Said box is usually cardboard and from wherever our latest online order is from. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's not the prettiest to look at especially if we have company over. Thus why said box was bought. It allows me to store my new polishes, in a pretty manor, till I can get them downstairs into their corresponding drawers.

I found this specific box at TJ Maxx/Home Goods for a whopping $7. Sometimes the simplest fixes make me the happiest and this is one of those fixes. I will be back soon with actual swatches, as long as the sun plays nice!

Another Christian Louboutin found its way onto my nails this weekend. Nate said I should do a fall color and then just said that it should be one of the CL polishes. Thus this mani.

Bianca is the other shimmer in The Noir collection from Christian Louboutin. There are only two shimmers, with Farida being the other, which I blogged about almost a month ago. Christian Louboutin describes this as a shimmer denim blue, which is fairly spot on as long as you're thinking about darker denim and not that acid wash stuff. Bianca is a very dark blue bordering on navy in low lighting. Out in the sun it shimmers and glows, bringing out a brighter blue hue.

Once again the formula is wonderful. Goes on smoothly and easily. Never feeling like it will flood my cuticles. Again it could have been a one coat wonder, but I went with two for the photos and my need to wrap my tips.

Is it the most unique color ever? No. Is there possible dupes? Probably. But that's not why I am buying Christian Louboutin nail polishes. For me it's about the actual formula, the application, the wear time, the visual appeal and how much time and thought was put into producing this whole entire polish collection. The bottle is striking and weighty. The wand/handle is sleek and easy to hold. And when paired together you get this amazing visual piece of art, that just so happens to be a awesome nail polish.

{Outdoor: full sun}

Brand: Christian Louboutin
Availability: Christin Louboutin, Sephora, Nordstorm, Saks Fifth, Neiman Marcus
Coats: 2 coats

Let me start off this blog with an apology. An apology for probably making a VHTF lemming even more lemming worthy after todays post. My bad. I couldn't not share it with you all, it's just so beautiful.

What might that polish be you ask? The one and only Essie Starry Starry Nights (also seen without the s on the end of night). It's one of those polishes you just kind of sigh at because assumptions are made that you will never own it. So you live vicariously through the swatches of it. Then one day a friend lets you know that there is a half used bottle on the market that isn't a totally wallet killing price and suddenly you're scrambling to buy it. Because as much as a newer bottle would be amazing, it probably won't happen.

So now I have a half full bottle of Starry Starry Nights in my collection and I just adore it. Yes, it is a simple polish, but there is just something so perfect about it. The dark blue jelly is just the perfect blue. The silver micro glitter is perfectly suspended and picks up a blueish hue from the jelly base. Could anyone have made it? Yes, but Essie did it and did it perfectly. For how used the bottle was, it did need some thinner added to it, but other than that it was perfect. It applied like a dream and only took 2 coats to get it to what you see in the photos bellow. This polish very much deserves the love and praise that it receives. It truly is a night sky on your nails. 

{Outdoors: full sun}

 {Outdoors: shade}

Brand: Essie
Availability: Discontinued and very hard to find, can be very occasionally found on blog sale or eBay for well into the triple digits.
Coats: 2 coats

Something a little new on the blog today. No swatches, but instead an awesome share of nail mail! You'll see these pop up once and awhile on here. My collection is ever growing and I thought it might be fun to show what is being added. 

Yesterday three beauties came home to me. These are Nail Prism polishes from Sally Hansen. Sadly they have been long discontinued, but if you can get your hands on any I totally recommend it. Sally Hansen was well ahead of the curve when it came to holos and duo/multi chromes. Both of which showed up in the Nail Prism collection. There are at least 40+ colors that were in this collection with a few of the shades even having 2-3 color variations. Along with that there were some special colors released in Canada and the UK, of which, some were totally new and others were colors already released in the US but with different names. So yeah, there's a lot you can learn about these polishes. To me though, all that matters is that they are beautiful. I adore them. They are one of vintage polishes that I collect and snap up whenever I find one I don't have. Must own all of the Nail Prism polishes!

Just for reference in the pictures, from left to right the colors are: Garnet Lapis, Burgundy Orchid and Scarlet Ruby. 

{Indoor: natural light}

{Outdoor: partial shade}

 {Outdoor: full sun}

Oops, getting this bad boy posted a bit later than usual today, but it's a goodie if I do say so myself! Today shows another perfect combo. One of those that just had to happen.

We're heading back to visit the super amazing Electric Chrome Spiderman Collection from Revlon. This time though, I used 1000 Volts. Which I don't think got as much love as the others, but still felt it was a fabulous color. I paired it with Attack Ships on Fire, which is from My Ten Friends. I was actually lucky enough to win Attack Ships on Fire from a contest on her FB page. After I got it, I noticed how similar the shimmer was in both polishes and decided it was a must for a combo. Attack Ships on Fire is very much full of an amazing gold shimmer, which pretty much blends into the amazing gold shimmer 1000 Volts has. They just started mingling once on the nail. And while the duochrome color shift in 1000 Volts isn't as insane as some of the other colors in the collection, I still love it because it's unique. It pulls green and peach in certain lights and just sparkles like crazy.

{Outdoors: full sun}

{Outdoors: shade}

Brand: Revlon and My Ten Friends
Availability: 1000 Volts is discontinued but might be found on blog sales; Attack Ships on Fire is currently out of stock.
Coats: 2 coats of 1000 Volts; 2 coats Attack Ships on Fire over 1000 Volts

Hello all!

Today I have a color that borders on that pretty ugly line of coloring, but that's mostly depending on who you ask. I personally love Electric Feel from Enchanted Polish. I don't think this color gets the love it deserves, but again it's that color that people either love or hate. Plus yellow/gold leaning greens can be unfriendly to certain skin tones. It's that perfect olive color that flashes between a mossy green and gold.  Plus the holo. Oh the holo. It's perfectly blinding when it's in the sun. 

{Outdoors: full sun}

Brand: Enchanted PolishAvailability: Hard-to-find; but shows up for restocks ocassionally on Mei Mei's Signature, Nail Polish Canada and possibly the Enchanted shop. 

Coats: 2 coats