PWI: RED. (By which I mean OPI Red, plus threefer Jane Megawatt and Pure Ice Bare It All, but whatever. RED)

Soooo, two things about red nail polish!

1. One is always looking for the perfect, flattering, amazing red polish. (And lipstick!)
2. People* are Concerned that red polish may make one look Fast, and, perhaps, Loose.**

That said, one of my oldest polish acquisitions is...

O•P•I Red.

Red.  This shot makes it look pinkish maybe?  But it's so primary,
unapologetically red. Maybe a hair blue leaning?  It's not 3-free
or 5-free or vegan or whatever, and I know there's a newer version
that is, but this is my canonical and beloved Fast Lady red.

There's a new post-reformulation red.  I feel like I ought to try it, I guess.  Because I am not completely happy with my existing, classic, vampy, and hot red.^†

Anyway!  There are only about 4, 5 "nail art" things I'd be interested in?  The simple ones!  So I am interested in the "glitter gradient."  Basically, you take a glitter polish with medium-to-bad coverage, and paint it in receding layers, so a gradient comes out.  Which is my thing!

The glitter is two things: JANE Megawatt – which is the solid glitter on my index finger – and Pure Ice Bare It All.  They are identical.  Weirdly so – they are both gold glitter with random copper glits.  The PI BiA has thicker coverage, so that's a difference, the only one.  I'ma get rid of one, probably the Pure Ice, because it's less usable for gradients.

My index finger is the Pure Ice.  Less gradient-y but otherwise identical.

But anyway: RED.

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* To a certain Type of Person, don't you know.  (The kind that sits on hiring committees.)
** ...why? Red? It's a color? I don't... even...
^† Yeah, no, I really am.

Post-interviews nails time!

I've been rocking the Interview Nails for like... three weeks or summat.  And it is terribly dull to be honest, I mean mannequin hands are kind of fun but for heavens' sake.  So you know what that means (or will by the next sentence):  nail color blowout!

This is not a PWI, but for fun, I'll tell you it's...

OPI Euro Euro and/or SC Enchanted,* Pure Ice French Kiss, SC Rise'n'Shine, Orly Lucky Duck, Wet'n'Wild SaGreena the Teenage Witch,**  Pure Ice Wild Thing,^† Rimmel London Sunny Days, SC Pull Over, Sinful Colors Citrine, and Orly [mystery red].^†† 

This is not interviewy at aaaaalllll

Wheeeee! ...I don't know if I'll wear this to work tomorrow. (I don't even know if I'm going to work tomorrow.) But honestly I love the fact that I can have this little brainstorm, poke around in my stash, and accomplish it.^‡

Ooo wait, sunlight (actual sunlight, Seattle is getting to that time!):

Indirect sunlight!  It's, ahm, not very different.  But it was awesome of Mr. Fix-It to take pictures.

Okay, next is cooking many foods, answering many emails, deciding many things.  But loooook I can make rainbows!

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* Yes a number of things were liberated from the PWI bin to make this happen!  The daylight shot is SC Enchanted, because by morning I had dinged my pinky. ...somehow?
** A shimmer because I still don't have a real green creme rrrrr. Also, I did not make this name up.  
^† THIS is the one-pass nail-staining monstrosity! Rrrrrrrrrrr... but it does work here :-P
^†† There's a sticky spot where the label came off... dude I'ma be honest. This is another probably-10-20 year old polish, I am sure it doesn't exist any more in this formulation, and I only used it because my even older OPI Red was stuck closed. It's red, ok?  
^‡ Except for green, dammit! And, uh. That one teal I ran out for.  Shhh.

PWI: Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt, or, an interesting cheat; plus! L'Occitane Neroli

Well, I was going to do Rimmel London Burgundy Flirt. But... here's the thing. I just did UO Spiked Punch, and they're the absolute same. Really. Same creme/jelly* formula, same effort, same final color. The interim color was a bit different, but who cares? I had originally convinced myself that RL BF was a teeny bit browner, but, you know... it's not. So, they're BOTH going in the PWI bin.

I will not insult your intelligence with additional pictures.

So instead I will talk about perfume again! (wheee)

First, and important, there are two formulations of this, old and new. This is important because it is true of MANY perfumes (and some other cosmetics). This is because of either IFRA requirements (suuuuch a useless link) or EU requirements; basically, both have the same aim, which is eliminating perfume constituents that people are allergic to.

As a hopelessly pan-allergic creature myself, I love it. I never ever ever want my perfume to interfere with someone's ability to breathe. (This is also part of why I favor low-sillage** perfumes.) But, a number of pre-existing perfumes had to be reformulated to comply with one or the other, and how much they changed is extremely variable.

So, L'Occitane Neroli (bitter orange blossom).

Some eBay seller. Thanks dude and/or lady!

I have a sample of this, and I have no idea when it's from (I got it second-hand). My best guess is that it's the original: exactly what's shown above, a beautiful deep red. The newer versions seem lighter, plus I haven't seen a new one in a little box-let. The internet suggests that the pre- and post-reformulations are moderately different. Also it ... kind of smells allergenic?†

Review: y'all. I hate it.

I mean I can admire things about it! It has personality! It's interesting and not the same as a million other perfumes! It has novel notes and dry-down! Just... they're kind of a bad idea? (On me.)

It's a very unisex smell, but not in a very soapy way; bitter orange is strong, and it's backed by strong, strong cedar and spice (I get cloves and coriander). Sounds like it would be up my alley, but... it's chokingly strong. Like, after 20 minutes of a fairly mild spray, I couldn't take it anymore. Washing it off led to a lingering neroli/spicey/mildly soapy smell, tolerable... but not good.

This is someone's perfect perfume. Go, someone! (You can have my sample.)

* I really need to get on a domain-jargon post
** reeeaaaallllyyyy 
† Look, it sounds pretty hippy-dippy. But when you've been this allergic for this long, you actually start to be able to smell when certain things are a bad idea. I'm not crazy.

PWI: Sally Hansen Rouge Rush

This is another topper-over-previous thing. It's very convenient! Also, Mr. Fix-It gave me the plague a head cold, which doesn't change what I have to do to get a job, so forgive me if postings are kind of short and uninspired. Really uninspired.


Over UO Spiked Punch, here's Sally Hansen Rouge Rush:

Indirect daylight, not-daylight. In person it looks better at night.

These were disappointing to photograph. In person, especially at night, they have a sort of glimmering depth that I usually associate only with flakies. I mean, I'm really too casual a blogger to get a lightbox and a macro lens and suchlike nonsense, but I can see why people do.

The polish has several different shapes of glitter in very, very minor variations of color; I'm a little surprised by how much I like it. AFAICT, it's: pale pink glitter shreds; pale red glitter shreds; and smallish fuschia hex glitter.

It's... a lot more harmonious than it sounds?

PWI: Urban Outfitters Spiked Punch

Captain Fix-It has had a nasty head cold all week (overlapping our time in Hawaii, ugh). I thought it was somewhat miraculous that I hadn't caught it from him... until I woke up this morning midafternoon with a sore throat and fever. Sigh.

Last night my polish-interested friend N came over with a bunch of Julep she'd gotten on sale. We swatched them all, then I foisted a bunch of swaps off on her, and she gave me a couple of colors that suited me better than they did her. It was a very pointless, girly, relaxing interlude. Then, shockingly, I painted my nails.

Meet Urban Outfitters Spiked punch:
 

Indirect overcast lighting, dimmed to zombie chic

This was basically impossible to photograph. In real life it's the deep, dark, true red of a well-aged Cabernet, leaning neither pink nor brown. My camera, however, insisted it was Bright Red. I darkened this picture until it was closer to color accurate, at the expense of making myself look like the undead.

It's a very pretty color, although if my nails were ANY longer it wouldn't work. (My very pale skin makes dark colors look garish and out of place in larger quantities.) It's a crelly, so this was four coats. It looks deep and interesting, but it was a mild pain. Dries fast though.

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. :-)