Not Your Housekeeper

Bleugh. Things did not go as planned and I was not able to swatch the rest of the collection before I left. So I took a risk and brought the last four polishes with me.

This one is based off of Mrs. Hudson and it's called Not Your Housekeeper

It's a purple creme. I've been wearing it the past couple of days. I really love it. This was one of the easier colors to come up with and name.

The polish came out fine and was fine the first couple times I used it. However it got really thick when I redid it for the pictures today. I need to fix whatever issue it is that makes the polishes all super thick if I even want to entertain the idea of selling them. Of course I fixed it with some polish thinner but the rate in which you have to add thinner to the all polish frankens ins concerning.

For the manicure I just got a little lazy and layered Nfu Oh 51 over the polish. I do likeNfu Oh. I believe it was was the first polish I ever ordered online. So there are some interesting facts that are irrelevant to everything.

In case if it wasn't apparent I had to change picture taking methods since I am visiting family. My mother doesn't own a single non-softwhite light bulb so I had to wait until it was the right time of day to take pictures by the window. I like the natural light loads better than I like the light that I usually use, however my dorm window doesn't seem to hit the light lottery. Even though it faces east it never seems to get any light coming in. It confuses and perplexes me.

Next are the episode polishes. The first one is  A Study in Pink. I've worn it multiple times so I'm a little excited to talk about. I have no idea what I'm going to do after the Sherlock frankens. I thought about the 30 day challenge but I don't think I packed that many corresponding colors. I do have all of the Hunger Game polishes so I might play with those.

It Suits You

I like Molly Hooper. I like her a lot. I liked her a lot more during series two than in series one, but it's mostly because she is seen a great deal more in series two, or at least it feels that way. I guess I like Molly because I find her really relatable and sweet. I would hate to admit it but I'm very much like Molly personality-wise.

The polish is called It Suits You.

It's a light pink shimmer that is supposed to have hints of glitter. The glitter doesn't show up very much at all. You can see a very very small hint here and there. I applied the polish, took the pictures, and then got upset and added more glitter to the polish, which I didn't photo because I really didn't want to repaint my nails.

The name was also a pain in the neck to figure out. Not much is said to or about or by Molly that would have made a good polish name. Everyone else seemed so much easier. But she is the very first one I came up with a name for Series two, you can probably guess what it is going to be already.

I really do like the color though. It's a very opaque light pink, which is nice because pinks tend to be very sheer. As much as I like the color I don't like wearing it. It seems off on me and I can't place why. My skin tone is a complicated place. I'm very very pale but I have olive undertones, which mess everything up. However, this pink is very cute and very girly. I will probably wear it regardless, BECAUSE WHO ELSE WILL WEAR IT?

The manicure is even girly than the color. I did a gradient with OPI's Teenage Dream. Teenage Dream is my favorite favorite nail polish but I find that I wear it so little. This manicure actually reminds me of a manicure I did around the same time last year, before I got into nail art. I saw some nail tutorial and wanted to try it. I actually had to go to the store and buy the right color nail polish because I only had like two bottles. That seems like ages ago. LOOK HOW FAR WE'VE COME.

I actually really don't like the manicure. It is done fine and everything but it just looks so dreadfully immature on me. I usually wear darker warmer tones. The Sherlock frankens have fit more with what I tend to wear usually. Now that I think about it the rest of the polishes from this point on are a lot more garish. Well, the next few days should be fun.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I shall be swatching Mrs. Hudson's color, then after that it's the episodes and then after that NOTHING. I have to swatch two a day somewhere because I leave for home Thursday morning and I don't really want to take the Sherlock polishes with me, I fear losing them.

I was trying to figure out what I would do for the three some weeks manicure wise and I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to do the 30 day challenge! I know I said I don't enjoy having my mani's planed out but since I have to plan what polishes I'm taking anyway I might as well do it. And then when I get back I will do the frankens for Sherlock series two! Get excited.

A Drugs Bust

Lestrade is one of my favorite characters on the show. I think he deserves more attention than he gets. Of course I adore John and Watson, but Lestrade is so fantastic.

The Lestrade polish is called A Drugs Bust.

When I was making the polish I didn't plan on making it so glittery. Again this was another one of those instances where I was totally unaware of the shine until I got it into the light. However I loved it. It's got so much sass just like our dear friend Greg.

It originally was very thick and kind of unworkable. I realized that seems to happen with the all polish frankens, it happened with The Sitting Down Type as well. The eyeshadow/pigment polish blends tend to be on the thinner side. Also the brushes in these bottles are kind of gross. There is just something wrong about them. They seem a little bushy for polish brushes. Anyway I just slapped some polish thinner in there and it fixed the application. Although it didn't fix the brushes. Nothing can fix the brushes, or my heart.

For the mani I did some sort of 80's geometric thing. Doing it was fun and when I did it I thought it was cute. Looking at it now I'm not so sure. Despite the fact it's sort of funky I actually fell like it's a little plain.

I do like the right hand a bit better. It was actually the test hand but it seemed to go a lot better than my left. I also wanted to add that the black crackle is really fucking fussy. It's Milani's black crackle. It only cracks if you use one coat and do the swipes perfectly. I'm thinking about giving up and just buying the black OPI crackle, but I'm hesitant since crackle is on the way out.

This entry in general seems bleh. I apologize. I really do like the polish but I've had a lot of work to do in the past few days and it's left me feeling tired and unenthusiastic. Next post I will do the Molly polish. Hopefully the post will be up tomorrow. BLEEEEH.

Childish Feud

I decided to wear the Mycroft polish. It's called Childish Feud.

It's a dark brown shimmer. I originally didn't have any idea what to do for Mycroft; I had tons of names though. The color came to me when I was re-watching the Great Game. Mycroft's whole office is just wood. Nothing but wood and books. Wood for days. Wood. Wood. Wood. Must resist urge to make boner joke.

I originally wanted it to be darker, but I swatched it and decided that I liked it as is. It is a bit of an odd color for my skin tone, though. Maybe it's my own delusions, but I can carry most browns better than I can carry this. I think maybe it's the shimmer that's throwing it off. But I still like it and will still wear it. I don't give a fuck. They're my nails. That's something I've never understood about other nail oriented ladies who are like "I like this color, but it looks bad with my skin tone." GURL WHO CARES. WEAR IT. THEY BE YOUR NAILS, HONEY. GIVE ZERO FUCKS. 

RIGHT HAND. DIVERSIFY. THIS BLOG IS TOP QUALITY.

For the mani I did a black water marble. It looks like wood! You could eat cake off of those nails! Sherlock references! This is my first successful attempt at a water marble. I think it helps a ton that it is all dark colors and a dark base. Any little mistakes, which there are a few, are relatively undetectable.

What disappoints me about this picture is that the pointer finger on my left hand missed out on the full marble experience. It is marbley, but the color is really light and only on one side. So the right side of the nail is cool, but you can't see it. But trust me, it's there, and it looks cool. 

Next post is Lestrade, and after that it's the ladies.

You are beautiful and wonderful. I love you. Thanks for reading!

No You Won't

Today I'll be showing you all the Moriarty polish. It's called No You Won't.

I am not entirely sure how to describe the color. I guess I would call it a subtle black glitter. It has appears black in most lights but move your hand around and glitter pops up. The most noticeable glitter is the big hexagonal peices but there actually is a lot more smaller glitter throughout.

At first I was upset because the glitter doesn't show up that much and I thought about adding more. However, after wearing it for a bit it grew on me. Moriarty is flashy and quirky (is that the right word for it?) but he is more of a mystery in the first series, so having a more subdued glitter makes sense, or at least it does to me.

I originally was going to name the polish "Burn the Heart Out of You" but the label was so big you couldn't see the polish from the front at all. I also don't think the name would have went with the polish all that well. Moriarty can be very dark but also can be very fun, and this polish just seemed more fun to me. I might pick something all together darker for next series but I'm unsure. I don't have very much planned out for the next series.

I added Metallic 4 Life  by OPI over the polish and then topped it off with Color Club's Diamond Drops. I adore Diamond Drops so much. I would put it over all dark colors forever. I think it gives manis this dark edge to them because it looks so much like broken glass. I just don't like it with light springy colors. Every time I see the collection it comes in I go "but whhhhhhhy?" but to each their own.

The major hang up I have with Diamond Drops is that it's gooey. It's so thick it's unbelievable. I have tons of glitters that come in the same thick jelly base but not ever seem to be so awful as Diamond Drops. I can never wear Diamond Drops out anywhere because since it's so thick that it never seems to fully dry so even with a quick dry topcoat I still snag my nail somewhere and it rips the polish off all gooey like. Gross, right?

I must admit, even though all the polishes from the line are from series one of Sherlock, I was thinking of series two Moriarty when I did this mani. I won't get too much into the inspiration but there was some broken glass in the Reichenbach Fall and Moriarty was flashy and spectacular as he always is.

I am at a loss of which one to do for tomorrow. I am caught between Mycroft and Lestrade, I wish I could say that sentence more often.

The Sitting Down Type

Good news, I finished the BBC Sherlock series one frankens. There are a total of ten. I will do a series two collection as well, which I'm pretty sure will have eleven which will include the main cast, the three episodes, and Irene Adler. I will hold off doing the series two franken until after it is done airing in the States. It's not because I'm afraid of spoilers or anything like that but because my spring break is coming very soon and I won't have all my polishes with me. I also need to re-watch Series two, and I need time to mentally prepare to re-watch The Reinchenbach Fall.

Moving on, I've been wearing the Watson polish. It's called the Sitting Down Type.

It's probably my favorite polish out of the bunch, if I were to be honest. This polish is actually why I started the line. I was re-watching Series 1 for the 800th time and I noticed that I always associated John with this sort of dark camo green. The name came pretty quickly as well.

The only way to describe the color is a dark camo green. I'm truly in love with the color. I'm always fan of dark colors and, especially greens. Unlike A Study in Pink and Consulting Detective, I haven't worn this color yet. It's actually because I was too in love with it and I didn't want to waste it.

For each of these colors I am trying to do a more complex mani to go with the blog post. I think it would be terribly boring to see just the plain manis. So this time I did a black, gold, and the Sitting Down Type chevron. I thought it had a sort of military feel about it.

I actually was going to do a double chevron sort of thing, similar to that of the Corporal symbol, but I decided against it since I've never done a tape mani and doing a chevron seemed hard enough.

It turned out okay for a first try. For some reason I find tape manis incredibly hard. I've done all sorts of crazy nail stuff but never touched tape manis. Also please excuse the tip shrinkage on the pointer and middle finger. I did wrap my tips but I literally used so much Seche that it still shrunk the polish right off the tip.

That's it for Watson, well until the Series Two collection. Next post I will do Moriarty. I'm actually already wearing the polish but I'm holding pictures off until tomorrow because I'm exhausted!

Thanks for reading. You are beautiful and wonderful, I love you.

Consulting Detective

So very recently I've gotten very into BBC's Sherlock.

I'm not very good at fan arting or things of that nature so I decided the best way to show my complete and utter adoration of the show that I would make a franken collection. I have made six polishes so far. I still need to make polishes for Lestrade, Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, and the Great Game. I have ideas for everything except the Great Game. It's so hard to get a color from that episode!

Anyway I thought I would start the blog off with a bang and show the swatches of the collection. I'll do one for each post, mostly to buy some time to make the polishes I haven't made yet.

The first polish is based off of Sherlock. It's called Consulting Detective.

It's an odd shade of blue. It looks pretty light in these pictures. It looks like an ocean blue but it's actually the same color as a dark wash blue jean.

I've actually been wearing this on and off for the past week or so. I alternate between it and A Study In Pink, which I will swatch in a few days, and when I do I'll edit this post to include a link.

It actually has this lovely shimmer about it that I didn't notice when making it. I only noticed when I went outside the one day where it wasn't disgusting and overcast.

The only compliant I've had with the polish I've had so far is that it cracks really quickly. I'll put it on in the morning and by the time I get home from classes I will notice that my pointer and thumb nails have big huge cracks. It doesn't chip, it cracks under the topcoat. I'm trying to figure out what exactly is causing the problem

I thought this color would look lovely in matte, and it does, but there is a problem.

"What are those gross white dots?" You might ask. Those gross white dots are a sign that I need to buy a better quality matte topcoat. Currently I have Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love which is actually pretty durable but has this weird glitter in it, which doesn't translate at all. It ends up like looking like I got dust on my nails and didn't clean them before putting the top coat on.

I've actually only used Matte-ly in Love once before. It did have those yucky white dots the first time but it wasn't as notciable. I used it on this mani, but it was busy enough that you can't see them in the photo.

I am going to purchase either Essie's Matte About You (so many matte puns) or Man-e-cure when I reorder some China Glazes. A lot of good China Glazes have been sacrificed for this franken line, but their sacrifice shall not be in vain.

Tomorrow I will post swatches for my Watson based polish. Boy am I excited!