Favorites: Green!

Hello!!

I'm back with my next installment of my favorites, this time with my favorite greens. :)

I've decided to abandon any sort of distinction between this year and last year, etc., and just pick my top greens, period, end of story, done and dusted. It's just too hard to not include a polish I'm excited about just because I only discovered it recently. And that's the cool thing about having your own blog...you can shift the rules as needed! :)

So, let's get to it, my favorite greens:


Barielle Date Night:

This is my favorite Christmas green shimmer. Not just for Christmas, of course, but that rich, wintery green that makes me think of forests and glens. If you'd like to see some nail art using this polish, click here to see my snowy trees. :)


Barielle Polished Princess

A slightly blurry picture to show the spray of holographic glitter throughout, while preserving the color This is the sort of goldenish-green that makes me think of lush meadows on a spring day. Ths shimmer and the splash of glitter make it interesting and eye-catching, without being over-the-top.


Butter London Wallis

Ah, Wallis...my very first lemming. This polish was a lemming of mine before I even knew the polish term 'lemming'. I waited and waited for it to go on sale at Ulta, and then still only got it as a special gift for myself, 6 months after I started my blog and polish obsession. It was worth every penny and every day I waited. This stunning golden-green-black-flecked polish is like no other that I've seen, and it makes me think of some magical mossy bog in the Highlands of Scotland (which may be nothing like reality, since I've never been to Scotland--but I want to believe it looks like this). The formula on this polish hates me, and I don't care. Not at all. I love it with all my heart.

China Glaze Tree Hugger

A limey-margarita-y sort of vibrant green, this is shimmery summer grass in a bottle. Not only is it pretty in its own right, it's magic for nail art and stamping, and for me, that's a really big deal. I dropped my original bottle of this polish and it hit the edge of my garbage can and smashed--and I almost cried, because I didn't know if I could replace it. Luckily, I was able to. And I will never judge anyone for having back-up bottles of polish, ever. Some risks you just can't take. Here is some nail art using Tree Hugger as a base. :)

InDecisive Nail Lacquer Lush: 

Lush is a richly pigmented Kelley green with a soft spray of teeny silver glitter. This polish is just so...lush. Seriously, not trying to be funny, it is. It's lush and luxurious and smooth and rich and intense. Among other things, I think it's the perfect Irish-y green, so of course I had to do some nail art with it for St. Patrick's Day.


Maya Hex

Mmm, olive green. Maybe I love this color because it's he same color my eyes are in mid-range outdoor light, flecks and all. Nah--I love it because it's just plain beautiful. It's one of those cases of a polish that takes what might be considered an 'ugly' color by some, and makes it beautiful and elegant. I love my olives, and I haven't found one I like better than this. It's a very vintage sort of color, which is why I used it for this art nouveau nail art. :)


Models Own Golden Green

This one was on the verge of not being included because I think of it as a duochrome, and wasn't sure if it should be included in that bunch. It does shift from a deep gold to a dark green, and so technically is a duochrome. I love the particular olivey-golden greens in it, though, and had to include it here. I used it as the base in this Renaissance Christmas manicure.


Nina Ultra Pro Mossy Britches

Another border-line duochrome, although it's hard to see in the photo. A forest-olive with hints of golden brown, it changes color if you layer it--it's a chameleon, even going to a red-brown at times. Here it is in one of my all-time favorite manicures.


Orly Coachella Dweller

This is a newcomer to my collection, having just been released this spring. A light, soft avocado green creme, it's pretty and soothing. To loosely quote a commercial you might know...I don't often do pastels, but when I do, I do Orly Coachella Dweller. Here it is with a little nail art. :)


Ruby White Tips Lonesome Pine

I'm not even quite sure how to describe this one...it's not a frost, but it looks a bit like a frosty feel to it. It's a unique darker avocado green with teeny holographic glitter throughout. It looks gorgeous in all lights and has enough shine to keep the eye dancing.


Zoya Irene

 Irene is a gorgeous forest green with rich wisps of copper throughout. This is one of those polishes I can't stop looking at when I wear it. If you don't have it and you love green polish--get it. You won't be sorry. Here it is with a copper glitter accent nail.


Zoya Gemma

Gemma was one of the first polishes I bought when I began my journey into polish obsession, and she still blows my mind when I look at her. Who thinks to take an olive drap polish and give it a soft blurple flash? Who does that? I don't know, but I hope they got a raise for it. This polish is otherworldly and ethereal. It's like a cool breeze wafting through sheer curtains on a summer day. It's fairies and mystical creatures but also aliens and butterflies, all wrapped up into one. And if you think I'm going off about it, I absolutely gush about it in my original post about it here, along with some of my first freehand on it. This is another must-have if you love greens, in my opinion.

So there they are, my favorite greens so far in my polish explorations! I hope you saw something you liked, and if you have a favorite that didn't make it on here, please let me know about it so I can check it out! Let's work together in this enabling thing. :)

Peace, love and polish. :)
M.

Before & After: Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast

Hello!!!

Oh yes oh yes oh yes today is my very most favorite prompt of the 31 Day Challenge (NOT)!! You guessed it, it's pink day!

::shudders::

Putting the drama aside, lol, my feelings for pink are still not positive, but I have become more positive toward it than I used to be, and I even own a few pinks these days. But no, it's still not a prompt I greet with great enthusiasm.

So you won't be surprised that I chose to use it as an accent color, and chose a nice purple for my base, Barielle's Jess' Champagne Toast, which is a frosty lilacy-lavendar color with pink microglitter that doesn't show up in the pictures or in real life well, unfortunately:

Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast

Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast, direct sun

Next, I stamped on it using Bundle Monster plate BM209, and Ana Hickman Escandalo, a pink I actually do like that was sent to me by my friend Janaina. Finally, I used my dotting tool to put Nina Ultra Pro Purple Xing, a darker purple glitter, over some of the dots:

So what to you think? I like it, other than the gritty look of Jess' Champagne Toast. I hoped that the glitter from the Purple Xing would somehow make the other glitter look more like glitter and less like grit, but it didn't quite work. However, other than that, I love the design, and I even love the pink!! :)

Thanks for looking, and please check out the other pink manicures, linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.

MSMD Monday: Mossy Britches glitter sweep

Hello!


It's Monday again, which means it's time for another Monkey-See-Monkey-Do manicure. Today I wanted to recreate a manicure that I fell in love with a while back because of the way it uses glitter--it showcases the glitter beautifully without being glitter-bomb overwhelming, and adds cool depth. Since I am still being converted over to the glitter side, I found the approach really appealing--you can see the original manicure by clicking here.

I wanted to change up the colors a bit, so I started with an olive-ish green (who me?); this is Mossy Britches by Nina Ultra Pro:

Nina Ultra Pro Mossy Britches in indirect light

Nina Ultra Pro Mossy Britches in direct sunlight

Mossy Britches is a really pretty almost-duochrome olive-mossy-gold green polish with a hint of brown in certain lights. It has an excellent formula, and covered in two coats.

For the glitter sweep, I started with Fanchromatic Nails Fistful of Latinum (Indie Alert!!), and sponged it in a diagonal across each nail. This was the perfect polish for this, because it contains several different sizes of gold glitter. Then, I added a yellow-gold large gleequin and a gold stud to each nail, to give added texture to the design:

I couldn't be happier with how this came out, and it was so easy! I can't wait to do with with red and gold or red and silver for the holidays. For someone like me who likes a little bit of glitter, there are so many possibilities here. :)

Thanks for looking, and please check out the MSMD manicures by my fellow bloggers, linked below. :)

M.