PWI: Wet n Wild Champagne Toast 2

Real quick, here's Wet-n-Wild Champagne Toast:

Indirect actual sunlight [!]

Much more reasonable photo in daylight.

It's gold, but it really reads more nude on me. A little pale, a little shiny, but definitely very interview-able.

Okay! Work!

The Stash, plus, PWI: Wet-n-Wild Champagne Toast 1

Polish All the Nails just posted these amazing shots of her entire collection lined up. O.O If my casual x × y count is even close, this is roughly a thousand bottles, which makes me question my handwavey "about a thousand" bottles in my collection, like, a lot. I doubt I could cover a 7-foot table... or could I? People are notoriously terrible at estimating volume, coverage, etc... but I still think I only have a fraction of these.

Well, PWI should make it a lot clearer. (Yay, "science"!)

I was going to do a PWI on Wet-n-Wild Champagne Toast, as another possible interview polish, but I can't help feeling like we have to wait for daylight swatches. I think it's a product of my nighttime lighting and/or camera, but this very pretty polish makes me look like a boiled lobster.

Wet-n-Wild Champagne Toast at night:

Left: more cooking, right: marginally less cooking. To my eye this looks like a
lovely, suitable pale gold, but to the camera... not so good. Daylight shots tomorrow!

I can say... this is a lovely, but streaky, pale gold. It's pretty sheer; this is 3-4 (fairly fast) coats. I don't mind streaks, to be honest. In my opinion, without a macro lens or a nail obsession, nobody notices or cares.

But I'm looking forward to a daylight post. Current feeling is that this is pretty, but subtle-verging-on-unnoticeable... which is to say, an excellent interview polish.

More tomorrow!

PWI: Island Colors Old Lahina and Surfing Safari

Island Colors is a new-to-me brand, because Hawaii. Cheap, too! I love cheap. (Don't look at me that way, I'm a student.) Unfortunately, most of the colors are something I already obviously have. They do have some shaped glitters that I found interesting; and let's be honest, I'm not going to leave a completely new kind of nail polish alone.

I almost always put glitters over basically the same base color, and generally don't like multicolor glitters. So I picked up the deep red Island Colors Old Lahina, and the lighter red Surfing Safari:

(Does "surfing safari" say "red stars" to you? Because it sure doesn't to me.)

I started with Island Colors Old Lahina:

3 coats, indoor lighting. Mysterious blue thumb.

Which was actually a nice, smooth creme. 1 coat was pinkish, but the 2nd and 3rd settled down to a nice, deep, not-quite-berry red.

I then added Island Colors Surfing Safari:

Look! Stars! ...yeah, I don't see them either, although I swear
they're in there. The red is brighter because this is daylight.

Obviously, this is when things went downhill. I like my glitters subtle, not invisible. Also, the stars were a pain; I had to fish them out one by one and blop them on the nail in a puddle of clear carrier. Sometimes, this process scraped the red off part of a star. I feel like working with loose glitter would have been easier, and that's saying something.

But the main problem is the too-perfect match to the background color. So, when this PWI is over, I may try it on something else. In the meantime, I bought two more colors, because... well, because that's the sort of thing I do, I guess. :-)

So far...

Update: I am color-coding this list by day, starting with Saturday.
SAT; SUN; MON; TUES;

Food tourism:

• Ahi tacos (Hula grill)
• Ahi sashimi  (Hula grill)
• Spicy chicken-meatball "lollipops" (Hula grill)
• Poké "bao" (closer to soft tacos) (Hula grill)
• Mai tai (Hula grill)
• Some kind of li hing mui margarita (Hula grill)
• Mai tai (another place) ...I'm sure I did not dream this, but I don't remember where...
• Burger/chicken burger with avocado and pineapple (Teddy's Bigger Burgers)
• A pineapple shake (Teddy's Bigger Burgers)
• Mai tai (QK hotel)
• Virgin volcano (Duke's) -- they get their own review; I'll link it
• "Hawaii salt" (another blended li hing mua drink, also delicious)  (Duke's)
• Huli Huli Chicken (Duke's)
• Macadamia and garlic crusted swordfish (omfg you guys) (Duke's)
• Salad bar w/ fresh pineapple (Duke's)
• Ono Hawaiian Foods combo... so many, such authentic things, I don't even know, you guys, this one gets its own post I think
• 808 Flow @hotel (QK hotel)
• Mai Tai #4 (Moana Beach bar)
• Piña colada #1 (Moana Beach bar)
• Cocktail shrimp with mango cocktail sauce (eh...) (Moana Beach bar)
• Caesar salad (fine) (Moana Beach bar)
• Mai Tai #5 (Wai'olu Ocean View Lounge)
• Virgin Island... Sunset or something? (Wai'olu Ocean View Lounge)
• Margherita flatbread (eh) (Wai'olu Ocean View Lounge)
• Tempura Shrimp (yom!) (Wai'olu Ocean View Lounge)
• Homemade sandwiches. Turkey and cheese. Because enough is enough :P
• Mahi-mahi with macadamia crust (Hula grill)
• Lobster and scallop potstickers (!!) (Hula grill)
• A "Wrong Island", a "Strong Island", and a Lava Flow. (Hula grill; QK hotel)
• Tots and turkeyburger with pineapple and avocado. (Teddy's Bigger Burgers)
• Moar sandwiches. 
• Pineapple coconut creme brulee, cooked inside a coconut. (omfg, y'all.)

Events:

• Waikiki beach @ sunset
• Wandering Waikiki shopping strip 
• Honolulu aquarium 
• Reading by hotel pool
• Long walk along the beach at night, with incoming/attacking tide 
• Chilling by hotel pool together after a long outing (QK hotel)
• Viewing the sunset over the beach, with a drink and delicious snacks (Moana Beach bar)
• Spending time together, admiring the Honolulu skyline (Wai'olu Ocean View Lounge)
• Saw (part of) the Waikiki Beach Hula Show, which was honestly awesome.
• Another lovely sunset.
• Some more time chilling by the pool and eating burgers. So nice...
• A bunch of work :-( 

Purchases:

• Water & Dew
• Island Girl nail polish
• Sunscreen
• Sarong (whee!)
• DayQuil (sigh)
• Feminine supplies (double sigh!)
• Iced, canned Kona coffee
• Flip-flops
• Red clay baked salt (for Coopers)
• Turkey, cheddar, milk, dew, water, bread (it's time!)
• More nail polish
• Postcards and stamps

Upcoming super interesting food reservations: 3

Books read: 4? 5?

Schlocky-fun books read: see above

Sick husbands: 1 :-( :-( :-(

Hotel: tiny room, very clean, excellent pool & poolside bar

Ocean view from hotel: yes (still!)

Devoted bloggers made ecstatic: 1! still! ecstatic!

PWI: Sally Hansen Tweedy

Quick post because we're leaving for Hawaii at... ugh... never mind it is so early. Sooo eaaarrrlyy.  Although I guess I can't bitch, because Hawaii?

So anyway!  I wasn't going to buy any of these Sally Hansen weirdnesses, because the swatches all looked terrible.  But then I guess everyone agreed with me, because they were marked down (eventually) to about two dollars.  I'm kind of weak, so I bought one, even though I kinda thought blog swatches of these looked like little bugs on your hands.

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat Tweedy:

Up close: bugz. Distance: better!

Once again, hooray for trying stuff! Macro shots: little bugs. But from any distance, it looks interestingly complex and kind of awesome.

It's white and black bar glitter. A slightly darker gray might make the white more visible.  Anyway, ok!

Collecting, or, An Existential Crisis

Someone once pointed out to me that like 47%* of blog posts start with "So."  It's like you're coming in in the middle.  As in, "So there we were, me and 25 soaking wet Japanese architects in my apartment... and I'm out of brie!"

So I try not to start my posts with So. Even though I am pretty sure it's common because it is amazingly convenient and feels right?

Right, right, crisis, right...

So I'm reviewing this nice seafoam green color, shortly after I've consigned a couple of polishes to the Hall of Shame and/or swap-landia. And I think, well, it's a nice polish I guess, looks like liquid paper, but... should I add it to the Swap tag? I mean, when am I going to reach for a seafoam green? When I rewear my 80s-styled 10th grade prom dress (hah)? Why should I own this?

Then (oh no slope) I think... when am I going to reach for many of these?  Most of these?  I have (total guess) probably a thousand bottles of nail polish.  Probably 90%+ of those aren't something where I'm going to be like, "Oh! This totally matches my graduation gown!" or whatever.  I don't do nail art really,** and how often is a friend going to say, "Ooo, can you paint my nails midlevel-seafoam-but-not-too-green?"†

And this very quickly comes down to: why do I need these?

I don't.

I buy nail polish for clear reasons:
   (1) it makes me happy after a shitty day
   (2) for that, they are small and easy to store and cheap and calorie free
   (3) my husband doesn't mind (see 2)

But why do I keep them?

Ultimately, I suppose, this is the truth of the dilemma.  Why collect?  I will never reach for my seafoam polish because I need it and nothing is like it -- or at least, on average, that's true for the vast majority of my little bottles.  I'm not a professional cosmetics artist who needs breadth. I'm not even someone who can paint anything on her nails at any time (see upcoming rant again).  Project Wear-It has really made me consider: why is this in my house.

My only answer: because I'm a collector. And what that means, ultimately, is that owning all of these things makes me happy.  In and of itself.  Having a zillion little glass bottles makes me feel like an alchemist.  Or a wizard!  I've actually written fiction about it.

So. I'm not (just) a polish nut; I'm a collector. It's a decent collectible (see 2 above), so... okay?

This raises a few more questions for me, including some frequently visited ones about video games...††  but ultimately, see 1, 2, and 3 above. So I will keep it because I have it, and it makes me happy, and there's no harm.

And, if I ever get to go to an n*10-year reunion prom... I'll be ready. :-P
* (this number is completely made up)
** (Sticking your hands inside robots all day tends to discourage nails that aren't teeny weeny nubbins)
† (spoiler: not often)
†† (huuuuge dork)

PWI: Sinful Colors Tantalize

I actually put this on as a base for another polish (coming soon), but since it's on I figured I might as well post it, especially as I'm not exactly dying to wear it a lot. Behold, two coats of Sinful Colors Tantalize.

Indoor lighting. Color is pretty spot-on though, and doesn't change in sun.

So... it's gray. Not a bad gray, mind, but I'm having trouble figuring out what about this is "tantalizing."  Maybe it's because I like metallics and am generally kind of obsessed with shiny things, but I can't describe this as appealing. Maybe if it was a creme, but the (very slight) shimmer just makes it look like a failed silver.

OTOH, I guess gray is sort of a basic thing to have around, and it's not like it looks bad.

(But "Tantalize"?)

PWI: Urban Outfitters Girrl Like You

Another day, another green.  I have a small mountain of teal polishes, which are woefully under-represented so far... actually, when Project Wear-It winds to a close, I'm excited about using this blog to do some graphs and analysis about this collection. (Still a dork.) I do have some limits on what I will comfortably wear to work, at least given meetings or talks, so that may be something of a selection function.

Babbling. Here. Polish.

Urban Outfitter Girrl Like You:

Outside. There was sun but I was avoiding it.

It's a pretty color. Strange on me, but not, I think, terrible. Nice, easy to work with formula. But...

Hrm

 ...that's gonna be a hard image to let go of.

(update: my beloved husband: "Should you buy some? To compare? ...although it would probably cost more. And scrape off way sooner." Still, good thought!)

PWI: Urban Outfitters Oyster

I picked up Oyster because it seemed interesting in the bottle, a milky purplish-gray-fuschia iridescence. To really show off, that sort of color usually needs to be used over something dark, or it's just transparent.

Urban Outfitters Oyster:

Over purple, black, green, purple. Doesn't it
look interesting in the bottle, though? :-p

I tried it over yesterday's purple. It turned... purple.
I tried it over black. It turned... purple.
I tried it over green. It turned... strange. Green with purple reflections. Not a good strange.

Maybe I just haven't found the right combo yet (blues?), but so far, this one is pretty pointless.  (Of course, I'm super grumpy.)

PWI: WW Buffy the Violet Slayer AND SC Let's Talk

Interesting Project Wear-It occurrence today. I decided to wear a purple polish. Once it was on, I looked at and said "hrrmm" and grabbed a different polish for one nail.* So this is:

Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer and
Sinful Colors Let's Talk (ring finger):

Two "different" colors of polish. Actual sunlight!

You can see a difference, if you look. Let's Talk is a hair bluer, a hair more luminous, somehow more electrically purple (which is hard to catch in photos). But they're pretty much dupes. There's no universe in which I desperately need to own both.

So, keeping Let's Talk, Buffy goes in the swap pile.

* I don't know my polish collection this well. It's just that I was excited about showing Let's Talk to my mom, because it is so radioactively purple, so I remembered.

"There is an end to everything, to good things as well." ~Chaucer 1374

I'ma talk about my cat a little. It's depressing though and probably without much substance, so "Read More" only if you want to.

PWI: Sephora by OPI Indi-go With the Flow

Yesterday sucked a lot. Today sucks. Tomorrow will suck. Eventually it will suck less.

Sephora (makeup store) sold "Sephora by OPI", store-branded nail polish. Different bottles and different colors, but OPI quality. (They make really good nail polish. There's at least one other "by OPI" brand out there). Past tense because the whole line has been discontinued, replaced by something in-house that costs $15 a bottle -- not gonna happen... I'll buy 2 or 3 OPIs or Essies instead.  But, I did pick up a few bottles of SOPI on mega-clearance.

This is Sephora by OPI Indi-go With the Flow:

Meh picture, meh nails, meh polish.

It's glitter, a sort of steel-blue glitter with larger and smaller glitters in a clear base. I put it over some random fairly-close blue, since I didn't know how many coats it would take for full opacity.

It's strange. I could totally like this? I like all the words in the description. But instead I don't. It's sort of meh without being work-appropriate, full of glitter without being sparkly. Not Hall of Shame appropriate, just... totally unexciting. I'm not throwing it in the swap pile for now, but... so much meh!

Project Wear-It: Essie Going Incognito

Even since before discovering the blue perfection that is Eurso Euro, I've been mildly obsessed with finding a similarly wonderful green. Every option I see is slightly, but noticeably, kelly green – which is to say, has a definite blue/teal component. I love kelly green! But I want is a beautiful, saturated, true emerald green.

So when I saw The Polishaholic's swatches of Essie Going Incognito, I already knew it was kelly green. Her swatches are pretty much always spot-on and informative. But it was so close, and I wanted it to be green so badly, and Amazon (as always) was right there...

Essie Going Incognito:

See? A little too blue to be "true" green.

But good gravy it's pretty.

Formula lovely, color as shown or darker in some lights, yada yada.

I've collected nail polish on and off for years. My husband can vouch for buying me holographic polish, what, 15 years ago. Heck, my parents can vouch for buying me polish. But what really kicked off the last 2-3 years of obsession is the $2 Sinful Colors polish, and all its more recent competitors. ("What? People don't always like spending $10 for a cosmetic that might or might not work? What?!" Why is this idea novel you guys.)

My only point is that spending $8 for a not-quite-right green is a vote of confidence from me! I still haven't decided to spend $20 + $10-15 shipping for Rescue Beauty Lounge's Recycle (whimper but pretty whimper) even if it might be closer, so I'm still me.

Interview polish, maybe?

Since my nails are currently 1/2 ugly yellow (ssiiiiggghh), my need for a nude (ish) polish has stepped up. Like, I have to make something work before the first job interview. I wasn't planning to wear nail polish to a job interview, but I wasn't planning on dying my nails nicotine-yellow, either. Oops...

It's not like this realization made me buy nail polish; it just made me buy comparatively boring nail polish. (Let's face it, I was gonna buy nail polish.) This isn't exactly a Project Wear-It, either, since I'm explicitly looking for something I plan to wear several times, soon...

So, the possibly-interview-ready OPI Dulce de Leche:

In indoor lighting it's basically perfect...

...but in sunlight it's pretty pink! You can see the slight gold shimmer.

It's certainly a very pretty color! I'm just not sure if I'm feeling it for interviews. I do think it's flattering, in an incredibly understated way. Not a bad thing to own, although I rarely want "understated" nails. I mean, if nobody is going to notice it, I would just go without nail polish. ...usually.

Amusingly, I had to find the color name by slowly navigating OPI's all-flash website, rather than walking eight feet and picking up the bottle.  Why?

you knew that was gonna be why

Honolulu is not about nail polish! Or advisors or jobs or anything!!

Good grief there's a lot going on in my life. I'm up to 3.5 job interviews (3 scheduled, plus a phone screening and we'll see if they call me back). Medical fun-and-games (capital-T-Trying) proceed apace. (fingers crossed...) Health of the ancient declining feline continues to decline.

My advisor yelled at me this morning (with followup more-yelling email 12 hours later), and I am like 95% certain that if he had listened to what I was trying to say it wouldn't have happened. So I'm kind of seethe-y, which isn't actually fun. I feel like I have so many things on my stack and so few hours right now.

None of which is fun! That is like the definition of anti-fun! So let's not talk about it. Let's talk about Honolulu instead. Honolulu is definitely, definitely fun!

Diamond Head volcanic tuff cone, and a catamaran we'll probably be
taking out to go snorkeling to see fish and sea turtles. Sea turtles, people. 
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/treevillage/5836523541/

We (me and husband) are going to Hawaii! :-D Not for very long, and not at a very good time. I'm frantic, he's frantic, antique cat is declining, yada yada yada... but there's never a good time. Never. The last (and only!) time we've gone someplace just us two was on our honeymoon. So... we're going, poorly timed, poorly planned idea and all.

Not surprisingly given the lead-in, this wasn't really "planned" or whatever. Just before the holidays, United sent email saying our (many) frequent flier miles were going to expire shortly. Once I investigated, I found out that United was planning to gut their rewards chart in January anyway, and those miles would subsequently become worth a lot less.

Also, Seattleites go to Hawaii. It's, like, a thing. It makes sense; the non-stops from here are fairly quick and comparatively cheap, and when the sun hasn't come out in a hundred years it gets very tempting. Since we'll probably leave Seattle about 3.6 minutes after I graduate, we're running out of time.

Plus, did I mention, Honolulu?

Fishes! Fishyfishyfishes! Probably we will see some very similar to these
fishes because we are going snorkeling which I might have mentioned!
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swimfinfan/1865590745/sizes/o/

So on about two hours notice, and without talking to my husband (not recommended), I booked us some mostly-paid-for United tickets. (Much more recently, I blew probably 10 years and 3 continents' worth of miles to get a hotel room for four days. Uh... yeah... if you go to Hawaii in January or February? Book rooms way ahead of time. No competent adult needs to be told this... but, but, I was busy.... sigh.)

But as far as I am concerned, this is going to be the best thing ever.  We're staying in the Queen Kapiolani; according to the internet, it's old and dated, but very clean and friendly, and the location is amazing. (Here are some less biased pictures. Still looks great to me, to be honest.)

Now, per my usual Research All The Things approach (and spurred on by husband's unexpected excitement), I'm trying to figure out what we will do there! Snorkel. Eat. Hang out. Wear a lot of sunscreen. But look for detailed updates that are not about nail polish, because, Honoooluuuuluuuuuuuuu!

(What can I say? I'm a student. This is a once-in-my-lifetime-so-far event...)

PWI: some mysterious UO pink thing

Maybe this is why I keep wearing blue. This was kind of another disaster. I keep buying pink polish, because my husband likes it, but I keep having fairly yellow skin on my hands? (Not so much my face, really.) And it keeps being weird and unsuitable. I suppose it's not helped by my not liking pink very much.

This is another of my UO guilt haul polishes. Weirdly, the name fell off! So I don't know what color this is, actually, unless I find a little round sticker lying around. (And the internet is oddly unhelpful.) So I guess it's my kind of coral, kind of pink, gold-shimmer-laden UO mystery polish.

Indirect (but actual!) sunlight. Mostly I just take these in front of a window.

And by "my" I mean "soon to belong to someone with the right skin tone for it". When nail polish is the wrong color for someone, it always looks to me like it got sloppily photoshopped in. The application is so hilariously terrible because it's very sheer, so I kept going to try to fix it... this must be 5 coats. I think on someone else it would go more smoothly.

I think I need to use something soothing next. :-/ This made me sad. Oh, I tried putting various glitters and sfx toppers over it, but it just kept getting worse... lipstick on a pig, I guess.

PWI: Urban Outfitters Babyboy

Another day, another blue. I think I'm going to make a point of not wearing blue tomorrow. Unless I just keep this color on for another day, which would be fine with me, as it's wonderful.

I went to Urban Outfitters last night to get a couple of 2/$8 polishes, and also to get out of the house and get moving. (Nail polish motivates me.) Aaaand they had a bunch of colors on fire sale, $0.99 a bottle. So I got six new polishes! ...and a couple more for $8. (What can I say? I'm weak.)

Indirect sunlight. In indoor-only lighting it's much more teal. Dang,
I feel like if I swapped this and the physicians formula blue,
they'd both be more color-accurate. do not need another hobby...

Why I haven't seen more on the blogosphere about Urban Outfitters polish? I mean, yes, everybody wants in on the nail polish market right now. I wouldn't be surprised if my insurance agent comes out with a line of nail polish. But UO has lots of colors, a reasonable price ($5, with various specials like 2/$8), and, in my experience, exceptional formulas. Am I missing something??

Update: I mentioned this to one of my (two) polish-interested friends, and she said, "Maybe it's all that ripping off indy designers?" So I Googled 'urban outfitters controversy', and... yeah. Well, I'm not returning one-dolla polishes, but good to know. I guess. :-(

Depressing! Let's look at cats instead.

Sunbeams are the best thing.

PWI: Essie Sparkle On Top

Like any good academic, I've decided "Project Wear-It" is too long and too comprehensible, so I'll probably go with PWI for a while. If it's hateful I'll go back!

J'avoue... when I said I might put glitter on Golden-I, I was thinking of a new acquisition, which is not a glitter but a flaky. I love flaky polishes, and my husband described one of the few I own as "looking science fiction-y". ^_^ So I'm generally on the prowl for not-too-expensive ones!

Over Golden-I, meet Essie Sparkle on Top:

It looks like crumpled tin foil. Or very, very, very badly applied gold polish. Sigh.

Unfortunately, it really didn't look great. From any distance it just looked uneven and lumpy. The iridescence didn't really show. So I did what any sensible blogger (or academic) would do, namely Googled for someone else's solution.

The swatches that appealed to me most were over pale colors, blue and pink primarily. Aha, sez I! I have a medium blue kicking around somewhere. So I tried it over the unnamed Physicians Formula blue, and magic happened:

Better!  Uh... I promise.

Okay, I freely admit that the pictures just don't look any better than the gold!  Flakies are super hard to take pictures of, y'all.  But in person I see lots of glinting greens and distracting sparks of red and orange. I'm much happier. Except for my photography...*

* Write on chalkboard 50 times: I do not need another hobby, I do not need another hobby, I do not need another hobby...

Project Wear-It: Physician's Formula medium blue

I don't like it when nail polishes don't have a name. It breaks something in my little OCD heart not to be able to fill out a mental spreadsheet properly. I'm not particularly organized, so I have no idea why it bothers me, but it does.

Physicians Formula (no apostrophe) sells trios of unnamed minis. I bought "Trendsetter Chic": dark blue, medium blue, and plummy purple. I bought the trio for the dark blue (before I found my beloved Eurso Euro), and was disappointed by it. So I didn't have the highest hopes for the boring medium blue creme.

Physicians Formula Trendsetter Chic #2:

Bloooo!

Joke's on me, and hooray for swatching! This turns out to be a beautiful polish! It's a rich, saturated cornflower blue, which covered flawlessly in two easy coats.

Okay, so this photo is a mess. My polish is super lumpy (I was trying something (don't ask)), and there's nail polish on a lot of things that aren't strictly my nails. But I don't care, because (1) it's pretty true to color, though the actual color is a bit dustier/whiter; and (2), pretty.

When I said I wanted Eurso Euro in every color, this is the medium-blue fulfillment of my wish. Yaaay!

Project Wear-It: Sally Hansen Golden-I

I'm meeting with a visiting VIP today, meaning my nail polish has to be work-appropriate – which in my field just means "subtle" (I have a whole rant on that, but it can wait). I'd go without polish, except...

I recently switched back to PVA peel-off base coat. In the meantime, I had forgotten that water-based coats won't block stains. (Lab Muffin gives an excellent explanation, as always.) I was reminded after a day of chartreuse polish turned my fingernails three-pack-a-day yellow overnight! doh.

So, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Golden-I, which is unprepossessing on me:

It's a tiny bit cooler and shinier than this shows. Indirect outdoor light.

It's a foil; application is okay, definitely not a one-coater. The color is a pale, pretty gold, somewhere more in the champagne family. This is two coats; it would really have needed three for full opacity, but very short nails have their charms!

Perfectly nice color. Too much for a job interview (sigh) but reasonable for one casual half-hour meeting. Maybe tonight I'll put glitter on it...

Project Wear-It: Sinful Colors Satin

Here's something I hadn't expected to come from Project Wear-It: definite fails!

I've been looking for The Perfect Nude for a while; I've also had Sinful Colors Satin for a while, but every time I've gone to use it for something, I've ended up aborting its involvement for some reason. Well, when it's the last time I'm going to wear something for a really long time, I'm going to try hard to make it work!  And so I learn: sometimes I can't.

It's very sheer. It's really, really not self-leveling. This is five coats. It's... look, better bloggers than I have had great success. In/on my inexpert hands, however, it was a lumpy, uncooperative catastrophe. I tried putting it over white; then it was a lumpy, uncooperative, white-ish catastrophe. Plus – insult to injury – it's too yellow for my skin.

So for the sake of completeness, here's the first Hall of Shame entry: Sinful Colors Satin.

I really tried, though?

The Hall of Shame here probably refers to me, rather than the polish, dunno. Nonetheless. I won't cry about not wearing this one for a while, because I'm never wearing it again. Want it? I'll mail it to you postage-paid, but it can't stay here.

oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! (job interview)

So, it hasn't come up on the bloggityblag before, but I'm actually... on the job market. (dum dum dummm) And ohmygosh you guys I just got called to set up an interview ohmygosh!

Why is this worthy of so much frothing at the mouth? Well, see, I'm applying for positions where they hire 1-2 people/year, and routinely get 500-1200 applications. ...which is insane. They don't even bother to give you a "no" – you just wait until around April, and then you're like, "well I guess I need a plan B?"

So, even getting called for an interview is a major achievement. I sent a lot of applications, so it's also kind of reaffirming.  But mostly, oh gosh someone read my stuff oh gosh!!

In the interests of making this marginally less dull, here, have another cat.

beloved Dot

oh my gosh oh my gosh

Project Wear-It: OPI Eurso Euro

This is an older picture, but I think it still makes sense to continue plowing through Project Wear-It, even though committing to not wearing it for a while makes me cry a little inside. Here we go with OPI Eurso Euro from the Europe Centrale collection:

It doesn't even matter that my photo is bad when the
polish is so freaking gorgeous. Direct, overcast sunlight.

This is one of only two polishes that I have a (deliberate) backup of. I cannot get over how much I love this color. It's a very saturated, intense, blue-leaning indigo*; not only is it just so freaking beautiful, but oddly, it actually manages to look professional! Ish. I mean, for blue. But mmmm so lovely.

I want a polish with this level of saturation and purity in every possible color. Please?

* "Blurple"? Really? Isn't indigo already the color between blue and purple? And sounds less like an involuntary bodily function? "Hang on... oh god I'm gonna blurple"

Project Wear-It: OPI Push and Shove

The blogosphere seems to have developed something of a love-hate relationship with OPI's limited edition Gwen Stefani polish Push and Shove.  As an affirmed geek, it should be no surprise that I want mirror nails badly.  (I want to look like I'm from the future!  Is that so wrong?)

It is, as many others have said, super fussy.  Especially, I tend to do a lot of light strokes, and this drags so badly.  But I persevered, trying a few combinations, and the smoothest, shiniest look I got was pretty exciting!

A couple of pictures, both in indirect (and overcast) daylight. This was after dinner and 
sleep, and they're a little dinged up, but definitely still wearable. (No, I do not take great 
photos or do cleanup particularly well, it's true. Life goes on.)

The combination that worked for me was:

1. DIY peel-off base coat
2. Regular base coat*
3. Lay down the Base base coat (included with the polish)
4. One thick, unfussed-with layer of the shiny (two thick strokes for thumbs)
5. Patience

I couldn't get Seche Vite to work as an underlayer, although many people have had good luck.  I bet using it for Step 2 would work, though. I did find that top coat dulled it; only a tiny bit, but still.

* I used Sinful Colors Base Coat. Then I put it in a pile to get rid of, because it reeks. Bleah!

Project Wear-It

Project Wear-It was inspired by The Crumpet's apt observation that we tend not to wear the polishes we've had for a long time (original post here). However, unlike all the actual organized bloggers out there, I haven't the first idea what I've worn or when I got anything. I mean, I can say "Oh, this one must be from about five years ago," but that's about it. Plus, even though I try not to, I'm pretty sure I re-wear a few polishes a lot and neglect others.

So I'm starting this blog to chronicle Project Wear-It, in which I am going to go through my entire polish collection and wear every single thing. To make this work, I am not going to re-wear any polish until the whole thing is over. (It feels like such a commitment!)

Obviously there will be exceptions, if I'm particularly inspired, or have a job interview, or have the perfect polish for a special night out, or whatever. But for the day to day what-shall-I-grab question, the answer for a while is going to be: Always something new.

Wish me luck!

gratuitous kitty

Once more into the breach

Let's start this blog off with a picture of kitties, what say?

I have a lot of cat pictures, you see.

The blog title pretty much says it all, I hope. I'm a roboticist with a love of nail polish, good science, cats, and an astounding array of other hobbies and topics.  (See, I don't sleep much.)

I'm planning to put random things here, including the annals of Project Wear-It and the cute cat pix I keep accumulating – but it remains to be seen whether I'll manage. Let's hope!