Welcome back! Well, I suppose, welcome back to me... It has been a long time since my last blog post. I guess, there hasn't been much that I wanted to share with the world. I have recently been thinking about blogging about my nail journey. I won't be changing the name of the blog, as I do believe that this life is a journey. My nail polish/nail art has been quite the journey as well. I am amazed at how differently I look at how I take care of my nails as opposed to a little bit over three years ago, when I started this journey. Here is a link to my first real attempt at nail art, it was a watermarble, that I had seen on Pinterest. I didn't really think that "real" people could accomplish something that amazing, and (seemingly) easy. After I successfully tackled that, I began looking for more seemingly impossible nail art tutorials, just to see if a non artistic, horrible nail polisher like myself would be successful. Surprisingly, I found that with the right tools, I was able to accomplish much more than I thought would be possible.
Then, I began to buy more and more polish. Mostly from Avon when it went on sale, or less expensive brands like Sinful Colors. I eventually began going to Sally's and buying some more name brand polishes, if they were on sale! Then my Aunt Beckie (Polished by Beckie, she is pretty amazing, check her out!) introduced me to the world of indie polish, to which I said, I would NEVER spend more than $6.00 on a bottle of NAIL POLISH!!!! She showed me some Loaded Lacquer polish, and it was all over (after a couple of months). Thus began my love affair with indie polishes! I still prefer to not spend over $6.00 on a bottle of polish, however, I have raised that to $10.00 for an indie! Unless there is a special reason as to why I must spend a bit more. This is just such an occasion my friends!!! My very first "swatching" post is dedicated to a polish named Lyndsay! My intention was for it to be my very first actual "swatching gig" from Jess Lacquer, but that one will have to wait for a week or so. More on that later!
LYNDSAY!!!
As you probably know, my name is Lyndsay. My parents, lovely people, thought that I was going to be a boy. They were not prepared for a girl, so they didn't have a name for me. They decided to name me after Lindsey Buckingham, a boy, from Fleetwood Mac. They changed the spelling to Lindsay though, because it was more feminine. My Mommy, in all of her drugged up glory, (the drug could just have been the euphoria of having met her favorite child for the first time) spelled my name two different ways on my birth certificate. She spelled it Lindsay (which is what they were going with) as well as Lyndsay. Her middle name is Lynn, and she had just written it. When the nurse asked my mom which way she wanted to spell it, she loved it with a y. I love that she did. It just looks so much more feminine to me, considering that I was named after a boy, maybe it's just the fact that both vowels were changed, I don't know. The only problem was that never, in my 33 years have I found a key chain, or necklace, or magnet, or ANYTHING with my name on it. (Yes, I am fully aware that grammatically speaking that sentence is not correct, I'm ok with that, this time.) Not to mention the fact that I often either have to correct the spelling, or ignore the mistake all together.
Nadia, from Ouish (pronounced wish) had asked in a group of indie lovers if anyone wanted to have a polish named after them and why. I gave a shortened version of the explanation above. She actually chose my name, and it was even a purple, and holo (holographic) polish. Purple is my favorite color, and holo makes my polished world go 'round! I was on a "no-buy" (no buying any polish) for the summer, but I had to break that for a polish that was named after me! Plus, she was having a 20% off discount for the 4th of July! Yay for sales! I am a sucker for sales, in case you hadn't picked that up!
I decided that I would take some photos of it, and instead of having my first (real) swatching experience be my first blog of this type, that I would have my first ever item with my name (spelled correctly) on it be my first blog. Disclaimer: I am not a professional nail tech, swatcher, writer, blogger, or photographer, so this is not going to be a professional blog post. If you don't like them, that is fine, this is a journey, not a finish line, I might get better at all of them. I might not.
Side note, I tent to be slightly sarcastic, that will probably show up here and there.
Once I finally got my hands on that beautiful polish, I was amazed. On the website, I saw that it was a purple, holo polish, but I didn't realize just how much holo this tiny little bottle contained! I almost couldn't tell that this was a purple polish! Look at all of that sparkle!
This polish, in true holo form, was rather difficult to capture, so I took the photos in several different types of light, and on both of my hands. I don't have a Cinderella hand. I'm not sure why it is called that, but from what I gather, the Cinderella, or Cindy for short, hand is your dominant, non swatching hand. Typically the hand that you don't swatch on, or don't do as intricate nail art on. Typically if I do it to my right, I do it to my left. I am left handed. I know that it is weird, but normally, I actually prefer my left hand to my right. I have a few theories as to why that is. One is that my right index finger has a weird shape at the cuticle. I also probably slow down more, and am more careful on my left hand, knowing that it isn't going to be as easy. Lastly, I think it might be because the world is predominately right handed, and most of the swatches that I see are on the left hand. It is quite possible, that it is not any of those reasons, or possibly a combination of the three.
As for the polish, I decided that I wanted to try it in a couple of different ways. My ring finger I began with a white base, my thumb had a black base, and the rest were just on top of my base coat. The polish was more sheer than I had expected. It took 2 coats to reach opacity over black, and 3 coats to reach opacity over the remaining fingers. Yes even over white. I didn't like it over white, the first couple of coats, it almost changed the color. I love it over black, the black somehow brings out more of the shimmer. In the future though, I would probably not do any base color at all, as it still takes just as many coats with a base, as it does without. It goes on smoothly, and mostly evenly. That came as a surprise to me, because many sheer, or shimmery polishes that I have tried show at least minor streaking in the first coat. That is quite possibly just me though.
All of these photos were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S4. I tried to use a macro lens on it, but I can't figure out how to make that work!
Prepare yourselves for photo overload! Some blurry pictures were added intentionally to show the holo.
Inside with flash:
Inside without the flash:
Outside in full sun:
Outside, full shade with the flash. The flash was an accident, but I liked how they looked!
On my screen they are pretty color accurate, but they are not once I previewed it. The other screen seems to add a bit of a reddish tint to the polish. That is probably partly due to the holo, and partly due to the red background maybe.
Thank you for continuing to the very end! You are a very patient reader!
Until next time,
Lyndsay
Edit:I took a few others, trying to get more color accurate photos! These are all slightly different, however, they all pretty accurately show the different colors that I have seen depending on the type of light that I am in.
