Julep Maven It Girl Mystery Box August 2012

With August ending, I'm glad I finally got my mystery box just in time a couple days ago. It had actually shipped on August 8 and I've been anxiously awaiting its appearance in my mailbox. Now, I was pretty excited about this one because: a) I chose an option/profile that I've never tried before, and b) August is the Julep birthday month. I'm not entirely sure if I had my hopes way too high owing to my really good luck with mystery boxes thus far, but this one didn't really blow me away. I'll leave you to make your own judgement after seeing the box, so for now, let's have the photos do the talking:

A strangely smaller than usual box...

Nail Art Wednedsay: Falling Leaves Nails

September is right around the corner (how'd that happen?!). Holiday collections are being revealed as early as late August. There's a definite chill in the air at night. But I'm still in denial. I'm not quite ready for summer to end yet! I haven't even had the chance to sport more of my newly acquired neons! But there's not much sense fighting the changing seasons. I was just out the other day running errands when I realized that some of the trees are already changing colors. Simply put, it's as inevitable as taxes. But please don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like autumn (because I do). Rather, I'm averse to the fact that I'm running out of time to sport my brights. Yes, I'm one of those people who tend to wear certain colors only during certain seasons. I suppose you can say that this is my version of matchy-matchy. Now, fall isn't official till September 22, but like those holiday collections trickling in, let's jump the gun with these falling leaves nails:

I'm thinking that sporting these puts me somewhere between denial and acceptance.

Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream

My earliest memory of mermaids have had to do with a certain red-haired, half-fish girl who had an adorable blue and yellow fish friend, and sang of whatsits and gizmos aplenty. So when I heard about a nail polish called 'mermaid's dream', it had me thinking: what do mermaids dream about? Do they dream of causing shipwrecks and sending sailors to their watery deaths? Maybe of songs to sing to lure the unsuspecting? Or maybe they dreamt like Disney says they did, of walking on land and learning about fire. Seeing as there are no documented living mermaids, there's no one to ask. Famed celebrity manicurist Deborah Lippmann dreamed up her own version of mermaid dreams and it looks like the sand in the shallow waters of a green-blue sea:

Perhaps mermaids don't dream in technicolor, they do one better: in sparkles!

Nail Art Wednesday: Inverse Subtle Tone on Tone Stamping

I wasn't planning on posting about this particular design, but I turned out liking it so much that the thought of changing it tonight is loathsome to me right now. So I thought, "what better way to keep a record of it than to write about it?" Makes sense, right? To give you a little insight on how this particular design came about, you'll have to understand that I was rushing all weekend. I already had a mani on that I'd worn for 3-4 days prior that was definitely showing some wear and tear. I probably could've gotten away with one more day out of it (seeing as it was a croc effect one and the chips looked like it was part of the design) but I was meeting a nail stamping master and I wasn't about to go with grubby nails. I've already been thinking about doing this metallic swirls design but I later incorporated the inverse stamping, thinking it would make the design look more contrived than something I rushed through. (Quick tip: I've found that adding a layer of fast dry top coat helps the base colors dry faster and lets you remove the stamped on design if you messed up without ruining the base.) The design evolved as I went through the motions and I'm really proud of how the final product ended up:

Dainty and subtle, but interesting enough without being boring.

Hammie visits Stephanie at Sincerely Stephanie Nails with some Dotty Scarf-Inspired Nail Art!

As the designated Polished Indulgence mascot, Hammie recently got invited to do a guest stint over at Stephanie's bit of the interwebs. It's always a thrill for us to be asked to do a guest post; it never gets old! Hammie had a blast with this one so do hop over to Sincerely Stephanie Nails to see more photos and a quick "how we did it" of this dotty mani. I'm sure Hammie would appreciate it (he only really ever gets the limelight in these sort of posts, after all).

What do you think of Hammie's light bulb moment?

We hope your Tuesday is treating you well! The craziness of the weekend technically starts tomorrow so we're gearing up for that. Dreading it, somewhat, to be completely honest. But hey, tomorrow means just two more days to another R&R filled weekend for you! Yay you!!

Spa Ritual Running with Wolves

With the seemingly unending onslaught of the new fall collections, I've been trying to stem the uncontrollable need to own them all (in true Pokemon 'gotta catch them all' fashion) by pulling out season appropriate shades that I already have. Today's nail polish fits the bill exactly. This one came out last fall as part of the Spa Ritual Wilde collection. I've been wanting this pretty copper along with a couple other shades but I just never got around to getting any of them. At least not until my birthday earlier this year when I got a surprise package from the sweet Mary of Swatch and Learn. This was one of the nail polishes that she kindly (and most generously) sent my way. Even without the emotional significance, I am happy to say that this is definitely one special polish. Just take a look for yourself:

Fiery copper shimmer!

Orly Preamp

While fall is slowly creeping up on us, the fall nail polish collections are doing the opposite: lots of fantastic colors and finishes coming out already! Orly recently came out with a relatively tiny fall collection comprised of only four shades after that massive collection of glitters called Glam FX (22 glitters to, at least I think, rival the offerings of the indie nail polish movement). To be fair, they covered the usual fall colors, including a cobalt blue jelly and a medium grey. Now, if my fashion sources are to be believed, both are going to be huge colors in fall. That was a good call on their part. There was also a duochrome shade that I thought I wanted. But when I saw the display at my local Sally Beauty, there was really just one stand out shade: a shimmery pink. Yep, I passed on the blue (*gasp!*), grey and duochrome (which turned out looking horrible, really; sorry, Orly) to get a pink. I doubt that's ever happened before. This one's a special one for sure, just take a look:

The best part is that I have absolutely nothing like it!

Nail Art Wednesday: Dried Flowers in Nail Art

Lately, a trend seems to be emerging: placing just about everything on your nails. (Have you seen the parody Kelly did on Vampy Varnish? Such a riot! *grins*) After fimo slices, water decals, stickers, glitter, gems, gold leaf, feathers, microbeads, flocking powder and studs (did I forget anything?), here's another one I've been wanting to try: dried flowers. Now, we're not talking about taking some of that potpourri you have handy and sticking those on to your nails! You can get these small dried flowers at your favorite nail art retailer. I got a set from Sally Beauty last month when they had it on sale, buy one, get one free. I've been wanting to bust it out since. So after all the elaborate stamping I've done recently, I wanted to tone it back down and go back to the basics. At least, the basics that have made me fall in love with nail polish to begin with: blue and flakies. Using two pretties still (shockingly!) sitting in my untried bin, I wanted to stick to my usual minimalist aesthetic and came up with this:

And wore it for a good four straight days!