Wheel L8: Glitters from Lynnderella and Girly Bits

It's the triumphant return of Nail Wheel Wednesday after over a year! Well, the return, anyway. Today it's glitter polishes from Lynnderella and Girly Bits. Lynnderella was one of the early indie nail polish brands, and one that had a fair bit of drama surrounding it for a while. That drama, and the way the maker was personally awful to a friend of mine, put me off the brand. With so many other options around, I never bought any more Lynns and started selling off the ones I had, though not before painting them on wheels—I think this the the third of four that had some Lynns on it. (The friend I felt bad for ended up disappointing a fair few folks later herself, so I don't even know.) All that said—and I suspect I've said it before but am dealing with a wonky internet connection today so can't look it up—the polishes are still interesting; enough time has passed that I might start wearing the ones I have left. The other brand on this wheel, Girly Bits, is another fairly early indie brand, one about which I've never heard any major drama. I haven't bought many from her recently but not for lack of wanting to, just from guilt over having so many polishes I haven't touched and my much smaller hobby budget in retirement. I'm glad I have some of these early Girly Bits, back when she was using paper labels and bottles with gems on them.



(Lynns three coats plus topcoat; Girly Bits are two coats plus topcoat)

1. Lynnderella Ghost of a Chance
2. Lynnderella Shape Shifter
3. Lynnderella The Stars in Her Eyes [this might be my favorite Lynn; so pretty and delicate]
4. Lynnderella Early Halloween
5. Lynnderella Witch Cauldron Was It
6. Lynnderella UnDead Red
7. Lynnderella Love Potion No. 99.9
8. Lynnderella VamPink
9. Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire
10. Lynnderella Evermore
11. Lynnderella Night Shade
12. Lynnderella Once in a Blue Rune
13. Lynnderella The Bride Turned Blue [the camera shows some of the glitters as yellow when the eye does not perceive them that way]
14. Lynnderella She Lived in a Swamp
15. Girly Bits Magically Delicious
16. Girly Bits Hippity Hop [my favorite of these Girly Bits, though Magically Delicious comes a close second]
17. Girly Bits Promise Me
18. Girly Bits Canadian Eh
19. Girly Bits Vive la Revolution
20. Girly Bits Star Spangled

Bottles 1 through 7:



8 through 14:


15 through 20:



















Destash notes: I'm not entirely sure which of the Lynnderellas I've already gotten rid of. The Girly Bits I pretty much want to keep all of, though I could be persuaded to part with 19 and 20 because I have so many other red, white, and blue glitters.

Wet 'n' Wild Candy Gloss Nail Tints

Thanks to all of you who left kind comments on my last post. I'm back home in Idaho now for at least few weeks. My brother and I have more work to do to get Mom's house ready for sale, and of course there's stuff to do related to financial matters, so we'll be spending some time in Illinois doing that. Emotionally, I'm doing okay, as well as could be expected, I suppose. I'm trying to get back into some sort of normal routine, and blogging is part of that, so today I have swatches and comparisons of the Candy Gloss Nail Tints (their term for jellies) from Wet 'n' Wild that are in the Pop! Back to School display that showed up in June (it's still in stores now; apparently I'm not the only one that wasn't ready for back to school back then). The four shades here are Floral Support, Edie in Pink, One Grape or Another, and A Case of Blue. Unlike the regular black handles for the Meglast line, these have white ones with a Boom! design on them (which, if you've been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack as much as I have, will give you an earworm. Boom! Goes the cannon...)



Unlike the regular black handles for the Meglast line, these have white ones with a Boom! design on them (which, if you've been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack as much as I have, will give you an earworm. Boom! Goes the cannon...)



Floral Support is a red orange buildable jelly. Below, starting at top, is one thin coat, two coats, three coats, then four. There is some phantom dirt line (as always, thanks to Lizzy for that term), which didn't please me, but I did like the formula; one coat was only very slightly streaky, and it self-leveled perfectly at two coats.



Of course I tried it over different bases. Top to bottom below: two coats of Floral Support alone, over skintone (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Cafe au Lait), over white creme, over silver metallic. I was surprised how Halloween orange it looked over white.



Could I resist doing comparisons? I could not. Left to right: OPI Chromatic Orange, Wet 'n' Wild Floral Support, Essie Art New-Beau, Wet Paint Orange Julia's.



On the nail over white below, in same order as bottles above. Floral Support is a pretty good match for OPI Chromatic Orange, for a price that's 80% less. It's less yellow than either the Essie or the Wet Paint.



Edie in Pink is, unsurprisingly, a pink jelly. Below, top to bottom, two coats of it alone, over skintone, over white, and over silver. The surprise here was how it looked over silver, taking on a much more purple-toned hue.



For comparison's sake: OPI Pen & Pink, Wet 'n' Wild Edie in Pink, Essie Love Sheen, L'Oreal Jolly Lolly.



Layered these over white; below they're in the same order as the bottles above. As with the oranges, the Wet 'n' Wild is a close match for the OPI. It's not too far off the L'Oreal, just a touch darker. It's more than a touch darker than the Essie.



One Grape or Another is a purple jelly. You know the drill by now: top to bottom, two coats of it alone, over skintone, over white, and over silver. I liked it best over silver, though over white it's certainly nice and bright and cheerful.



The purple comparison lineup: OPI Purple Perspective, Wet 'n' Wild One Grape or Another, Essie Highest Bidder, and Wet Paint Jazzberry Jam.



You know what's next: on the nail over white, same order as the bottles. Here, nothing is a close match for anything else. Yay, more purples!



A Case of Blue is the last in the quartet; it's a blue jelly, of course. Say it with me now: top to bottom, two coats of it alone, over skintone, over white, and over silver. I liked this one over both white and silver; alone or over skintone it looked a little muddy to me.



Blues for comparison purposes: L'Oreal Miss Pixie, Wet 'n' Wild A Case of Blue, Essie Point of Blue, and Wet Paint Waterfalling for You. (I didn't pull the OPI Color Paints blue, Indigo Motif, as I remembered from my jelly comparison post that it was more opaque than most jellies.)



The blues above on the nail over white below. Like the purples, no matches here. The Wet 'n' Wild come closest to the Wet Paint, but it's lighter. It's more warm-toned than either of the other two.



Before I put these away, I tried layering them with each other. Top to bottom, over white: Floral Support topped with Edie in Pink makes a pretty coral hue, Edie in Pink topped with One Grape or Another is not that different than One Grape alone over white, One Grape or Another topped with A Case of Blue yields a deep blurple, and A Case of Blue topped with Edie in Pink makes a slightly different blurple.



Overall, I'd say these jellies are a good buy. Inexpensive, decently behaved, and fun to play with. Sure, they're about a year behind the pricier brands, but they're not going to look dated like a crackle might (not that I let that stop me from wearing crack if I want).

My Nails Are a Mess and So Am I

The other day, Facebook was nagging me with a reminder that I hadn't updated my blog page in 33 days. "Shut up, Facebook; you track my movements and life events, you know why I haven't," was my response.

But now I am in a somewhat better headspace and able to pop in with a quick update. Since my last post here, I flew to Michigan, drove to Ohio for a weekend conference, drove back to Michigan to spend time with friends, then drove to Illinois and met Mr. Karen (who'd driven there from Idaho) for a family reunion, and event which I left early to go see my mom in a rehab facility, where she'd been moved afer a short hospital stay due to breathing troubles. After a few days in Illinois, Mr. Karen and I returned to Michigan to pick up a rental truck and pack up the stuff we'd left in storage there. On our way out of town, we'd planned to spend the weekend in northern Michigan, relaxing at a friend's place on a lake and picking up Mr. Karen's sailboat, which he'd left up there some months ago. I broke from the plan and decided to go back to Illinois on my own, sending Mr. Karen to the lake with the rental truck full of our stuff, since I wanted to take advantage of being so close to spend a bit more time with my mom. I had good visits with her at the rehab place on that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. She was on oxygen and weak, but was able to sit up on the side of her bed and walk to the bathroom without help, and perfectly able to talk and fuss about not wanting to be there.

I left that Monday expecting she'd be released in the next week or so to be at home with her beloved kitties and getting care there. I drove to Wisconsin and met up with Mr. Karen who took his own route there from northern Michigan. As we drove to Idaho over the next few days, I got updates from my brother and niece about mom and she was on track to be released. We arrived in Idaho midday on July 28 and started unloading the rental truck that afternoon, as I thought we had to turn in it in the next day. I didn't have my phone on me when I was wrangling boxes so missed a call from my niece that my mom had been taken back to the hospital due to dizziness and shortness of breath. The rest of the day into evening I got updates from her and my brother and while it wasn't looking great, it didn't seem any more serious than her other hospitalizations. The next day, July 29, we finished unloading the truck and turned it in—a day early, actually, which we realized when we double checked the paperwork, but that turned out to be a good thing, as it freed me up to start making arrangements to head back Illinois when Mom took a turn for the worse. I woke the next morning to a message from my niece; my mom had died early that day. Neither my brother nor I could quite believe it; we were both sure she'd hang on at least one or two more nights. He headed down from Wisconsin to be there with family; since there wasn't any rush to see Mom one last time, I decided to drive, too, as that's less stressful for me than flying and I could be more flexible with my return.

Since I got here to Illinois, I've been spending time with family and working on getting Mom's affairs in order. My nails have been an afterthought, as you'd expect. Here's how crappy they are; I was not taking care of them and ended up having to clip off splits and such.



The past several days I've had them covered up with Nailene So Natural Everyday French press on nails in Short Beige. They've at least protected my real nails as I've been going through boxes of stuff with my brother looking for important paperwork. Under the fakes, I'm wearing a coat of the Sally Hansen Hard as Nails treatment that I put on Mom's nails after I clipped and filed her finger and toes on that last weekend I had with her.



I did do a pedicure in Mom's honor. She loved bright colors and bold prints, so Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spring Fever seemed perfect.



And yeah, I'm wearing this pedicure to the memorial service, though probably not with these bright sandals, though she also would have loved those.



So yeah, that's where I've been. I'm sad but doing okay. She lived to be 86, which is not a bad run, especially for someone with as many health issues as she had. I wasn't expecting her to go quite so soon, yet I am grateful she was able to be her feisty independent self until very near the end, which is a gift not everyone gets. She felt joy in life until shortly before she left this life.

I am not sure when I'll get back to regular blogging. I'm not sure when I'll get back home. I'm not sure of a lot right now except I am lucky to be surrounded by the support of family and friends.