Essie Recessionista: One Polish Two Ways

I'm back in New York after the holiday weekend with my family, which is a little depressing.  But I see a light at the end of the tunnel, so I think I'm less upset than usual to be back here.  I just have to keep plugging away, and then I'll be home with Ben for five weeks.  Yay.  So, speaking of Ben, he picked Essie Recessionista for me while we were at Rite-Aid.  It's not one I would have normally chosen for myself because it looks pretty boring in the bottle, but I ended up really liking it once I put it on.  First I wore it with OPI Man With the Golden Gun.  It was a birthday gift from my aunts, and I was really excited about it.  As my Aunt Michele pointed out, it was a fun thing I probably never would have bought for myself.  So true.  Also, so fun.

As it turns out, the gold leaf in this polish is actually pretty sparse.  I did two coats on all of my fingers except my pointer, and as you can see that one has a bit more gold going on.  I didn't mind the sparse look, but I think next time I'll do more coats.  Also I think it might help to shake the bottle before you start applying, because the gold might be sinking to the bottom.  I'll have to experiment.  But, all in all, a totally cool concept.  I'm really excited to do different combinations with this one once I have the time.  Thanks, aunties :)  Also, no, the irony that I'm using a polish with 18k gold flakes over one called Recessionista is not lost on me.

For my next Recessionista-based manicure, I used a Shimmer Polish to create sort of a gradient starting at my cuticle.  I was really into this one.  Here's Recessionista with Shimmer Katherine.

UM.  All kinds of yes.  So very fall, isn't it?  I'll be honest; when I got a bunch of Shimmer Polishes from Cindy to review, I didn't think I'd like Katherine.  In the bottle it didn't look like it would be my favorite.  But on the nail it looks pretty awesome.  It's small bronze, red, maybe pink? glitter in a clear base.  But it's so dense that I'm reasonably certain it could be opaque on its own in 2-3 coats.  Anyway, Essie Recessionista is a win for me.  It's shiny and wonderful, isn't it?  And with both looks pictured, I only used two, easy coats.

If you want to check out Shimmer Polish Katherine for yourself, visit the Shimmer Polish Etsy store, check out the Facebook page, or have a look at the blog.  They run at $12/bottle, but for $15 you can get a custom glitter.  Which is a neat concept.  And stay tuned to my blog, because I'll be putting more up.

So, anyway, Thanksgiving.  Here are some things that happened.

 I petted and snuggled with my kitty (Alley).  You can just barely see OPI Dazzled by Gold, my birthday polish.

 I hung out with my cousin Mattie (who is awesome).  She taught me to make flowers out of duct tape, and we made one for each of our 24 Thanksgiving guests.

Also, I went for the full-on fringe bangs.

 Mattie is making the duct tape crafts while I school the boys on how to properly play The Lion King for Sega Genesis (I have achieved what is known as EXPERT BALLER STATUS--because I've been playing that game and only that game for like two decades).  That's Mattie's brother Jacob over yonder, and Ben, who apparently has a migraine from how awesome I am.

 My dad makes THE BEST Bloody Marys.  Also, as you may be able to see from my shoulder, I did end up wearing my offensive-on-many-levels Forever21 sweater.  And yes, after considering it for close to an entire day, Ben did say to me, "Hey.  I like that sweater."  My mom also got me this coat for my birthday, which I absolutely LOVE.  Will it, too, join the ranks of the offensive sweater?  Only time will tell.

 Some plane photography on my way back to NYC with my new iPhone 5.  Thanks mom and dad!

 New York City from above.

Ben got me this ring (on my ring finger).  I love it.

Also this.

This past Monday, upon my return, I finished my fellowship hours (YAY), and yesterday--normally my work day--I shut myself in and wrote and wrote and wrote.  Most of what I wrote is crappy, but hey, it's getting done.  And I had my Pandora Christmas station on while I wore a scarf and drank tea, so I like to think my time here is festive enough.

Anyway, that's what's up.  I hope you all had as nice a holiday as I did.

Sinful Colors Winter Wonder

I am so behind on like, nail polish community stuff.  Last I remembered, Sinful Colors had perpetrated some awful shenanigans against a few bloggers, stealing photos, etc.  But, apparently that has all been dealt with?  I have no idea.  I'm sadly too busy to keep up with these things.  WHAT I'M SAYING IS that I felt okay buying this Sinful Colors polish because evidently they have apologized.  Probably forever ago.

I guess Winter Wonder is a dupe for Zoya FeiFei and a near dupe for OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  There are abundant comparisons.  I have neither of those polishes, so I can't do one.  But I do have this one, which I got for $2 at Rite-Aid.  Like Zoya FeiFei and OPI OHMSS, this polish is sort of hard to describe.  Sort of a smoky, charcoal-colored base with pink, gold, green, blue, silver shimmer.  I would say that you definitely have to see it in person.  I did two coats here, and the formula was good.  I really like this one.  I'm glad I found it.  It was hiding on a bottom shelf with the rest of the Holiday Shimmers display.  For shame, Rite-Aid.  For shame.

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so that's exciting or something.  I do like the holiday.  I always look forward to mashed potatoes and my mom's stuffing, which is THE BEST.  EVER.  Also, there's pie.  In honor of the holiday, I pulled out my now-traditional and VERY CONTROVERSIAL Navajo Pendleton sweater.  You may remember from last year my lamentations about how no one loved my sweater.  My then-boyfriend told me it was hideous and suggested I throw it away.  My best friend told me it looked like a crappy blanket from the back of a pick-up truck.  But I love it.  And dammit, I will wear it.

Maybe I should tell you some stuff I'm thankful for in the spirit of National Pie-Eating Day.  I'm thankful for:

1.  My supportive parents

2.  The guy who for some reason has agreed to spend the rest of his life with me, despite my type A neuroses and constant bouts of worry.

3.  This blog and all of you.  What would I do without all of your encouragement?

4.  Pie.  WHAT?  It's GOOD.

So, I'll leave you with this delightful Hyperbole and a Half cartoon to illustrate why you should love pie more than cake, and really more than most other things.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, guys.

Shimmer Polish Taylor

Greetings, and the happiest of Mondays to you all.  It's happy for me because I'll be on a plane in less than 24 hours, on my way home for Thanksgiving.  My mom is picking me up at the airport, Ben will be home from his work trip that night, and life will feel normal for almost an entire week.  Yaaaay.

This is Shimmer Polish Taylor, all on its lonesome.  I didn't layer it over anything.  And this is only two coats, so that's pretty amazing.  The formula on this one was a little dicey.  Really thick and sort of difficult to work with, but not impossible.  Still, it's very pretty.  The base is a purplish-red jelly, and there are all different colors of glitter up in here.  A couple different shades of blue, green, red, purple.  I think this one would be gorgeous over black, navy, or an oxblood color.  

If you want to check out Taylor for yourself, visit the Shimmer Polish Etsy store, check out the Facebook page, or have a look at the blog.  They run at $12/bottle, but for $15 you can get a custom glitter.  Which is a neat concept.  Cindy is on vacation right now (jealous), which gives you some time to look at her blog for some swatches and to figure out what's on your wishlist.  And stay tuned to my blog, because I'll be putting more up (though I'm taking a hiatus from Shimmer Polish until after Thanksgiving).

You guys, the other day these were my search term stats.  I'd like to draw your attention to the third one from the bottom:

And to that I just have to say:

source

Aaaaand I'm out.  Happy week of Thanksgiving!

 Disclosure:  the polish in this post was provided to me for review.  The opinions expressed are my own.

Shimmer Polish Tiffany

I thought I would alert you to the fact that Fashion Polish is also going to be putting up swatches of these Shimmer polishes.  Her photography skills are out-of-this-world amazing, and my sad little iPhone camera is no substitute.  So if you like one of these polishes that I'm showing you, keep an eye out at Sam's blog.  That having been said, today I have Shimmer Polish Tiffany over Essie Play Date (which you can also see here).

I didn't realize that I had polish on my cuticles until after I took the pictures.  Sorry.  Anyway, Tiffany is this cute mix of baby blue and baby pink glitter, predominantly, but also green and teal, and maybe another shade of pink.  Application was wonderful, and this is only one coat.  I think this looks nice with Play Date.  I was itching to use that one again because it's such a pretty purple color, and I think Tiffany complements it nicely.  It's like a little party on my nails.

If you want to check out Tiffany for yourself, visit the Shimmer Polish Etsy store, check out the Facebook page, or have a look at the blog.  They run at $12/bottle, but for $15 you can get a custom glitter.  Which is a neat concept.  Cindy is on vacation right now (jealous), which gives you some time to look at her blog for some swatches and to figure out what's on your wishlist.  And stay tuned to my blog, because I'll be putting more up.

I think I'll be doing one more Shimmer Polish post before I cool it on them for a little while.  I'm going home for Thanksgiving early next week, which also coincides with my birthday (it is the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year), and I always wear the same polish for my birthday.  I'm going to try to keep that tradition going; this will be year four.

Not much to report over on my end.  I fly home on Tuesday morning, so I'm excited for that.  Today I get to spend all day at The Met for various reasons, so maybe that'll be nice.  I'm definitely ready to go home, even though I'll be stressed out about losing time for ALL OF THE SHIT I HAVE TO DO FOR SCHOOL.  But, as my friend Sam told me today, I've had to do a lot more in a lot less time before.  Like last autumn when I was taking two seminars, chairing a symposium, taking French, teaching 101, and applying to PhD programs.  Compared to that this is cake.  The only problem is that I'm so exhausted when I get home every night that I never actually want to do anything.  I just lie in bed and watch SVU and then sleep.  I really need to fix that.  But god, Elliot Stabler woos me.

K, that's all for today.  Thanks for stopping by.

Disclosure:  the polish in this post was provided to me for review.  The opinions expressed are my own.

Shimmer Polish Cristina

I am kind of obsessed with Shimmer Cristina.  And the number of photos I took of it will probably attest to how awesome it is.  I used one coat of Cristina over two coats of Maybelline ColorShow Tenacious Teal, which is another great polish, and which you can see here as a full manicure and here as an accent nail.  And here's how it came out.

WHUT.  It's just too pretty.  Cristina is made up of green/teal, blue, and fuchsia glitter.  I knew it would be nice over Tenacious Teal when I saw it, but I didn't know it would be orgasmic.  It went so nicely with the Met button that I got on Saturday (gotta catch 'em all; unfortunately I already had a forest green.  Whatever.  I'm keeping them and someday will make a collage or something).  I just could not stop looking at my hands.  Cristina would also make a really nice Christmastime polish.

If you want to check out Cristina for yourself, visit the Shimmer Polish Etsy store, check out the Facebook page, or have a look at the blog.  They run at $12/bottle, but for $15 you can get a custom glitter.  Which is a neat concept.  Cindy is on vacation right now (jealous), which gives you some time to look at her blog for some swatches and to figure out what's on your wishlist.  And stay tuned to my blog, because I'll be putting more up.

Y'know.  Some crappy stuff has been happening to me lately.  Like my debit card number was stolen.  And then my iPhone stopped reliably making phone calls, which sucks.  I also had a total nervy b on the phone with my mom last week after being stuck inside for a week after Sandy.  I know that most people had it WAY WORSE than I did, but the entire thing was stressful, and the cabin fever was super intense.  So I'm going to tell you about four good things that happened to me as an exercise in positive morale:

1.  I tried on wedding dresses, which you already knew.  But I'm still sort of glowing from the experience, so I still think it's a good thing.

2.  I saw this super awesome wet plate photography demonstration at a studio in midtown for one of my classes.  The guy demonstrating (whose name I can't remember, which is terrible because he's an artist in his own right) was very engaging, and he showed us how to make ambrotypes and all of these old-timey photographic media.  He showed us how to pour collodion onto the plate, set it in the silver nitrate bath, expose it, and then turn the negative image into a positive one.  I wasn't looking forward to going to the demo because it was on a Friday from 3-5, but I was actually riveted the entire time.

3.  Ben got me these incredible earrings.

Yes, they are life-sized cicadas.  I love a good piece of statement jewelry.  If you want these, ModCloth sells them, but they're currently out of stock.  Here's the link.  The site has a new feature where if you want something you click a giant obvious button that says "I NEED IT!" to let the proprietors know that there is a demand for the product.  So, if you like these, go click that button.  I'm sure they'll have them back in stock before the holidays.

4.  Starbucks sugar free peppermint soy latte.  Favorite thing ever.  I JUST LOVE THE HOLIDAYS.

I'm going home on November 20, which is just over a week away now.  Counting down.  I love Thanksgiving, and my birthday is the Saturday after that, so I'm sure it'll be a good time.

Okay, that's all.  Sorry for the mammoth post.  I guess the gist is:  if you like glitter and pretty things, go buy yourself Shimmer Cristina, and if you want bugs in your ears check out those ModCloth earrings.

Over 'n out.

Disclosure:  the polish in this post was provided to me for review.  The opinions expressed are my own.

Shimmer Polish Carol (Also, the Post in Which I'm in Wedding Dresses)

Can you guys not look at my cuticles like ever?  Because they're bad.  And I fear that no amount of Lemony Flutter is going to save them this winter.  Anyway, a bit ago Cindy of Shimmer Polish contacted me to see if I'd like to receive some of her polishes to show you guys.  I said an enthusiastic yes, but I wasn't sure how long they'd take to get here in the post-Sandy NYC distress.  Turns out, not long.  So here's Carol.  Oh, also, I'm still using my iPhone for pictures.  Long story.  So, sorry for the photo quality.  I'm a pretty terrible blogger right now.

I used two coats of Carol over $OPI Chamomile-ion to One (which I really don't like, by the way, so I was glad to cover it up with something pretty).  The glitter in Carol is copper, gold, blue, and silver holographic.  I like the differing sizes of glitter, and this seems to be a trope that runs throughout every Shimmer polish I received.  I'm excited to keep trying them.  The formula was nice, and one coat would have been fine for a pretty dense covering, but I wanted to see what it would look like with two.  Verdict:  awesome.   I've actually gotten more into glitter lately because I like sponging gradients, so I'm happy to have all of these new polishes to experiment with.  

If you want to check out Carol for yourself, visit the Shimmer Polish Etsy store, check out the Facebook page, or have a look at the blog.  They run at $12/bottle, but for $15 you can get a custom glitter.  Which is a neat concept.  Cindy is on vacation right now (jealous), which gives you some time to look at her blog for some swatches and to figure out what's on your wishlist.  And stay tuned to my blog, because I'll be putting more up.

So.  On Wednesday morning, after a frenzied night watching the NPR ticker on my computer and waiting for election results to come in (hint:  I slept soundly), I got up and dragged my butt to J.Crew on 5th Avenue.  I had an appointment with Patrick (and I cannot recommend him enough, so if you're in the market and the NYC area, book him; for real).  It was my first time trying on wedding dresses, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  Would my butt fit into the samples?  (yes)  Would there be annoying other brides there?  (yes)  Would a nor'easter blow in as I was walking to the store, causing me to step in a million puddles in three-inch wedges and have wet hair?  (yes; seriously, New York cannot catch a break, weather-wise)  Anyway, I found one dress I love--L-O-V-E--and one dress I really like.  I won't post the full-length photos because I don't want to let any felines out of any sacks.  But here are a couple pictures.

I don't know why I don't want to post full-length photos.  I already sent all of them to Ben, and he's the one who isn't supposed to see any of the dresses.  But, I've only tried on like six dresses at one store, and one of them is already the one to beat.  I was sort of worried that the appointment would end up being stressful, but Patrick put me at ease in a lot of different ways.  When I told him about some of the family issues that have been coming up during the course of planning he made me feel better.  And he kept telling me my butt didn't look big.  So, I'd say the entire venture was a successful one.  I'll have to go back with my mom before I decide on which dress, and that will probably happen in January or February.  But, I'm excited.  I love frilly dresses.  There is also an Anthropologie next to this particular J.Crew.  It is a win on so many levels.

Okay, that's all.  Keep warm, New Yorkers.  This weather sucks.

Disclosure:  the polish in this post was provided to me for review.  The opinions expressed are my own.

Today Is An Important Day...

Hey, you.  Yes, you.  

If you have the means and the privilege then please vote.  I voted weeks ago, absentee in Ohio.  And Ohio people, it's particularly important that you get out there!  I'm not advancing one candidate over the other here (plus if you know me or you read carefully, you probably already know who I voted for), I'm just asking that you find time to get to the polls.  Cast your vote, and wear your sticker.

"Voting is the most precious right of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process."

--Hillary Clinton

"Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing--that's voting."

--Robert Frost

"Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting."

--Franklin D. Roosevelt