Actual NOTD: Magically Delicious

Today is one of those infrequent times when I am posting about my actual nails of the day. This is due mostly to the fact that I got too busy celebrating my birthday over the weekend to take off my St. Patrick's Day manicure last night as I'd intended, so I am still sporting bright green and glittery nails on this post-holiday Monday. (Being sick in the run up to my birthday is my excuse for not posting anything on Friday, in case you were wondering where I was. Not that I'm 100% reliable about posting every weekday even when I'm well.)



To achieve this look, I started with base of Barielle Nail Rebuilding Protein (which they sent for review, and which I will review once I've used it for a little while) followed by Salon Sciences Instant Artificials. Then came two coats of China Glaze Gaga for Green (part of the recent Electropop collection) and two of Girly Bits Magically Delicious (which I bought from my friend Pam, the creative genius behind the Girly Bits hand mixed nail polish line). A layer of Sally Hansen Insta Dri top coat finished it off.



I pretty much had to have Magically Delicious once I heard about it because it's the March polish in Pam's Calendar Girl series, and March is my birth month, and because as a child, I'd eat as much Lucky Charms cereal as my mom would let me (a little more, actually, because I'd sneak into the box and pick out the marshmallows when I didn't think she was looking). As a birthday treat this year, I got myself a box of it even though all the crazy new marshmallow shapes confuse me—that's the super excited high Lucky Charms leprechaun in the the first photo up there.





Magically Delicious has a clear base with lots of very small green holo glitter, some gold hex glitter, and a scattering of gold big square glitter. I didn't have much luck coaxing the squares out of the bottle this time; here's one of the ones I did get out, which landed on my thumb and got it an appearance here when usually my thumbs get left out.



In regular room light, the small glitter shows mostly its green face, with just a few pops of other colors. In lower light, though, so many multi colored sparkles dance across this that I found myself doing things like making extra trips to the recycling bin in the garage just so I could admire my nails in the light of the single bare bulb out there.



As part of my birthday celebration, I did a pedicure inspired by the "birthday sammich" that Nightly Nails did last year. Like her, I use Confetti Happy Birthday as the "bread" in my jelly sandwich. I used Lippmann Happy Birthday as my filling and Essie As Gold As It Gets as my garnish on top, because it was the golden anniversary of my birth. Yep, I turned 50. I'm still waiting to feel freaked out about this; so far I'm fine with it. If anything, I wish I were older and therefore closer to retirement, when I hope to have plenty of time to change my polish every day if I want to. Here's a peek at my pedi (smaller size in deference to those of you with foot phobias, though of course as usual it's clickable to see full size).



So, onward into a new decade of life. I'm now eligible to join the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) but unless I hear about them offering nail polish discounts, I think I'll wait a while on that.