How It All Began... Nail Polish

Although I've enjoyed cosmetics (playing with eyeshadow colors especially) for many years, I had never really "collected" nail polishes until recently. Before I moved from California to Colorado three years ago, I had a tiny basket of colors I'd collected over the past ten or so years-- cheap drugstore polishes, small brands found on boutique counters, and mostly just pinks and sheers. Regrettably, I threw nearly them all away before I left, save my prized Paul & Joe, thinking they must have "expired" by now. Little did I know how easy it is to reconstitute a seemingly unusable polish! I kept all of my MAC eye shadows & lipsticks though, as well as a hodgepodge of others. Eventually I bought a few new polishes: a couple of reds and crimsons, a sheer nail strengthener, but rarely wore them and when I did, wore until the color chipped off.

Then I picked up a magazine; there are a few fashion and design magazines I enjoy, though most of them display items way out of my budget, but are still fun to get ideas from. It was the September issue of Vanity Fair featuring Lady Gaga on the cover. She looked amazing! I loved her greyed out blonde hair, nude lips, and gorgeous nails. What color was on her nails? I began searching everywhere.

I went to all of my local drugstores and found a plethora of this popular greige/taupe. But none of these were the one. I picked up a bottle of Rimmel's Steel Grey, which had a similar tone, and later Revlon's Gray Suede, more of a nude, and loved the look of both. I picked up other colors to compliment my Autumn mood-- dusty lavender, metallic scarlet, deep sparkly plum, and others. But what really brought my experience to a new level was searching online: I discovered the world of makeup bloggers.

Since then I have discovered so many more resources, brands, flakies, and fellow moderately-obsessed lacquer lovers. And I even know what color was on Gaga's nails:

Deborah Lippmann - Waking Up In Vegas

Right now I really enjoy nail polish as a sort of hobby. There are many days I don't feel up to messing around with eye makeup, especially as a contact lens-wearer where I always seem to get some kind of makeup gunk on my lenses! My nails are much healthier now that I've discovered the amazing benefits of using a top and base coat, and I just love to use my nail color as an "accessory" to match with the tone and colors of what I'm wearing. Now if only I could get the hubby to support this small obsession...

Thanks for reading! ♥