I get by with a little help from my friends...

So! On June 13th, 2012, the amazing Dolly from Dollish Polish sent out a message to her followers, asking for help on a problem with her labels. Being a devout fan of her glitters, and a tech junkie, I immediately jumped at the chance to help. Turns out, the new (circular) labels she was using couldn't be edited entirely, but rather only a square in the middle of the label could have text, pictures etc. This presents a problem as far as getting names of polishes centered and pretty, and still having room for the Dolly logo. I kid you not, for around 4 hours we racked our brains trying to find a new template, editing the existing one, ev-ery-thing. At one point, I simply got so frustrated, and decided swearing was the only way to soothe myself. Not wanting to offend one of my favorite polish makers who has been just as frustrated by the situation (And seemingly forgetting she had a XXX line of nail polish, duh!) I ended up using my go to G-rated swear: OH PICKLES! We continued to toil away to no avail (Obviously she fixed it, or came up with an alternative, because her labels on her new bottles look amazing!) and she thanked me for my time. She asked if I wanted anything, I said no, but I'd love if it she could set aside a bottle of 'It's a me, Mario!' and the Zelda duo, because just as a personal moral, I don't like accepting gifts for offering to help, I'd much rather have the chance to give someone a sale. As an offhand, I mentioned if she wanted to make me a custom called "PICKLES!" I'd buy that too!

Turns out, she was feeling extremely generous, and added the custom to my order at no charge. She sent me pictures, and it was exactly what I'd imagined, but either way how cool is that? A custom from one of your favorite indies with a STORY behind it!

Without further adeu, here she is:

 PICKLES!

'Pickles!' is a fully loaded, clear based glitter polish containing metallic yellow hexes and squares, and some fine yellow metallic 'dust'; also green metallic hexes, squares, 'dust, small holo green hexes and a smattering of larger green holo hexes.

Here she is on the nail, this is two coats over 3 (good lord is it sheer and streaky) coats of Sally Hansen 'Emerald City' a rich, emerald green with a slight shimmer. Pardon the wonky angle, I could not capture those gold glitters unless I was in total shade.

Slightly blurry closeup.

As I was putting this on, I realized it was very very close to 'The Hero of Time' from the Zelda duo. My heart sank as I had the sudden thought I had near dupes on my hands...(heh heh...on my hands, get it?)

NOPE!

After throwing two coats of 'The Hero of Time' onto my thumb, I breathed a sigh of relief. Pickles is more concentrated, where as THoT is meant to be more of an accent than full on glitter coverage. Also, you know, the presence of brown, light green and more overall green in THoT. Pardon the pink glare in the picture, I didn't realize just how neon my neon tank top is.

A side-by-side of Pickles (L) and The Hero of Time (R).

Not even close, silly brain! Either way I would cherish my first Dolly custom for a long long time, and knew I had to share it with you guys! I'll be doing the Zelda duo tomorrow morning if there's sun, it's been kind of overcast all morning.

Thanks for looking guys!

You can buy Dollish Polish on Dolly's Big Cartel store HERE. 

You can read Dolly's blog HERE (She's one of us!)

And you can visit her Facebook HERE 

She currently restocks whenever she feels like it (IE when she has sufficient stock.), sometimes announcing, sometimes not, but if you have nail polish friends, or are in a group that talks about nail polish odds are someone will say when she restocks. She also almost always has stock of nail art supplies like gems, fimo canes and nail files.

I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous' Granite & Evil Barbie

Today, after 400 promises, here they are. The two most coveted members of my Nail-Venturous lacquer collection: Granite and Evil Barbie. Why are they so special? Well, Evil Barbie was a limited release, or so I understand. I lusted over this after seeing Rebecca Likes Nails blog about her bottle. Granite is special because I was given the chance to purchase these after Amy had made her decision to stop selling polishes.

I had an issue with a bottle of my "Robin Laid an Egg", the weirdest thing started happening. All of the glitters randomly started to sink to the bottom after months on my shelf. I asked Amy if this was normal, she immediately apologized and offered to send a replacement. I actually didn't want one, because it still worked, it just took quite a lot of shaking. She insisted on replacing it, so I met her half way. I offered to make a purchase to justify shipping costs, and the cost of the replacement bottle. She said she still had supplies laying around, so I asked for Granite, and went out on a limb and asked for Evil Barbie. I was so ready to be turned down, because she didn't have the pigments or glitters etc. To my surprise, she said YES! We then got to discussing details, and she said she would be open to doing a swap, because she, like the rest of us, is just another polish junkie. She does swatches and reviews, she just happens to make it as well.

I actually came back from vacation to these beauties. She had sent them out before I even got home, and obviously before I sent out my end of the swap, and that's just reason #184 Amy is one of the best polish bloggers ever.

On to swatches!!

Nail Venturous' labels are simple. Logo, polish name, size, contact info.

Bottle shot. Evil Barbie is a raspberry shimery jelly with black bars, medium hexes and squares, and micro hexes and squares.

 This is three thin coats, with just a little wiggling around. Pardon the lack of tip wrap and my wonky nail shape. They were pretty short here and I couldn't do much in the way of shaping until they grew out.

 Diagonal shot. I think I might start using this more often...

Closer-up shot with one coat of Poshe. I love the depth this has even at three coats.

I wish my nails were more up to par for these, it's tragic really. They've been breaking left and right, and now I'm dealing with a tear that's started East-West on my thumb, in the middle of my nail. I just can't win.

Evil Barbie is one of my favorite pinks of all time. It's subtle yet out of the box, and the shimmer gives it just enough pop to be more than just another jelly. 10/10

Granite. 

Granite is a milky semi-sheer white base, with copper glitters in medium hexes and micro-squares, white medium hexes and black micro squares.

This is one coat of Wet n Wild white creme (To keep from wasting precious polish layering to opacity) and two coats of Granite.

Closeup.

Let me first say, Granite is sheer perfection on shorter nails. I don't know why exactly that is, but the texture and color combination really lends itself to be appreciated in small amounts. Not that it wouldn't look good on long nails, it's just one of those things I think looks best in metered doses.

Second, it really does look like granite! It's one of the most unique polishes I own, and when layered evenly and slathered with a good topcoat, looks remarkably like some sort of decal.

The finish was very smooth, even with the amount of textured glitter. I only needed a normal coat of poshe to seal and shine this one, no need for any smoothing or pressing errant glitters down. It also applied like a dream, much like Robin Laid an Egg, there was no fishing or wiggling glitters around, this mani is exactly how the polish was brushed on my nails, with the small exception of pushing some of the hexes down off the free edge of my nail.

There you have it ladies (and gentlemen?) my two newest beauties from Amy at Nail Venturous. She currently isn't selling her polishes, but you can follow her blog HERE, and be sure to look at her stamping posts. She is unparalleled for her amazing stamped manis, especially considering she often uses regular polish and not stamping polish.

Ok...that's the end of my post revolving around my girl crush on an amazing blogger.

I'll have a miscellaneous mani post in a few days, I've been pecking over my stash for days to find things I haven't tried. Included are DP's Expecto Patronum and a black light mani.

Second post-hiatus post!

let me just say.....

I LOVE KB SHIMMER!

It won't let me make that any bigger. I was aiming for like 50pt font, but this is "Biggest". Well Blogger, it's not big enough.

I freaking love KB Shimmer. Today, tomorrow, next year. These polishes will be among my most treasured for a long long time. Christy, the super amazing woman that brings us these polishes (and soaps, and bath bombs and scrubs and lotions!) is incredibly accommodating, creative and overall AMAZING. I own four of her polishes (Diva, Orange Pop, Ice Queen and Clown Puke) and several of her incredible soaps (Blue Hawaii is one you have to try, her soap samplers are a total bargain.) 

Today, I have for you Clown Puke and Ice Queen.

Clown Puke you saw in my last post, my comparison of rainbow glitters, but I couldn't go without showing it on it's own. It's amazingly complex and the colors are so thought out, it's not just a mish mash of glitter. It's deliberate and unique. The dash of black and white sets everything else off in just the right way.

 Three 'brush-full' coats over a bare nail. Two coats of Poshe.

 Super macro shot, those white glitters do amazing things for me.

 Index finger. You never realize how many bald patches you have until you look at the photos...

 Be still my beating heart...

Clown Puke will remain one of my go to multi glitter polishes for a long time. Each bottle is JAM packed with glitter which means even if I need to thin it, it will last me a long long time.

Next up is Ice Queen. I didn't want to do this on it's own, but wasn't really feeling it over a brighter color. I settled on Color Club 'Revvvolution' which has sat untouched *gasp* for over a year. I am not disappointed.

Fail...I tried to retouch the glitter off my ring finger and now it just looks like a pimple.

Rainbowwwwwsssss!!!! 

Matte-ified!

Matte Closeup!

I LOVE Ice Queen! I had this on over vacation. I used 3 heavy coats on it's own, and it almost blinded me every time I went outside. There are no chunky peices to slip around, it coats really nicely without any fuss. The holo diamonds are the perfect touch of texture to push it past just holo hexes. 10/10, would polish again.

I really hope to have more from KB Shimmer in the near future, and I will be re-swatching Orange Pop and Diva when my nails grow out a little more!

Visit Christy in all her glory at www.kbshimmer.com or her Etsy shop HERE.

I'm a bad blogger...

I know, I've been on hiatus forever. I'm not going to apologize or anything, but it wasn't supposed to be this long. I'm trying to get a post or two in now because in 2 days I'm celebrating a pretty grim anniversary, and truth be told I'm probably going to be a wreck. I'll share that story with you all tomorrow, because right now it's time for some swatches.

I have some individual swatches planned, but need to bulk up the amount a bit, because I honestly thought I swatched way more than I did. For right now, I have a rainbow glitter comparison. I got KB Shimmer's 'Clown Puke' before I went on vacation, and realized I have a fetish for packed multi-glitters, because I  have like 10 different ones.

For this comparison, I swatched Milani Gems 1.0, Lynnderella's Glittering Crowd, Kleancolor Afternoon Picnic, KB Shimmer Clown Puke and Claire's Bedazzled.

Kleancolor's Afternoon Picnic. Multi metallic hexes in a "clear" base (It looks orange, but comes out crystal clear)

 KB Shimmer Clown Puke. To. Die. For (solo swatch coming soon). Multi shape and color glitters (A lot of golds, red, blue, but also green, orange, pink and purple) suspended in a clear base. The BEST part about this is the white glitters. I don't know what it is, but they make everything else pop. Seriously, probably my #1 multi glitter ever. Ever.

 Claire's Bedazzled. I thought this was going to be another Gems dupe, but it has a lot of smaller blue/green hexes that really set it apart from Gems/Rainbow in the Sky-lie, Rainbow connection etc. I was really impressed by this one.

Milani gems. We've all seen this one, multi colored small and medium hexes in a clear base.

Lynnderella's Glittering Crowd. When I first bought this, I made sure to put two on my wishlist because I never thought I'd find anything like it again. I was glad to be wrong, as demonstrated by this post, but it's what I break out when I'm depressed and just want to stare at my fingers. Hexes, squares, strings, a few errant stars and moons. It's got everything. Mine are heavy on the bright chartreuse glitters, which is alright with me. Also: This mother****er needs like 4 coats of gelous to calm the eff down, so I try not to use it too often. She's a rough one! (Literally, the first night I used it, I slept without the TC on, and it scratched my face...)

 Thumb: Afternoon Picnic. Index: Clown Puke. Middle: Glittering Crowd. Ring: Bedazzled. Pinky: Gems. All one coat, either brushed or dabbed, no base coat, no top coat. I wanted you to see JUST the glitters.

 Afternoon Picnic (and a boat load of bubbles...)

 Clown Puke (Whiteeeeee glitterssss!)

Glittering Crowd

 Bedazzled

Gems

Now for some opinion:

My favorite as far as color scheme goes, hands down, is Clown Puke. It's a multi, but it's DIFFERENT. I could go on and on about it.

My favorite application, oddly enough, was Claire's Bedazzled. One swipe was all I needed. No dabbing, no moving, no wiggling things into place. Sometimes I have time to be anal about placement, sometimes I'm doing my nails in the car (not while driving!) and can't be bothered. This is the polish for those times. Gems is a close second for ease of application.

I love all of these for their own merits, and if my house was on fire, I'd save all of them.

I have a dedicated swatch post of KB Shimmer's Clown Puke and Ice Queen coming up shortly, because I can't show you one nail without promising a full mani. :)