I recently bought some nail polish because I decided to maybe try my hand at performing again, and try to recapture some of the magnificence that was Horseboy. And to be Horseboy or a slightly shifty somewhat genderless 80’s alter ego, one needs nail polish. A day later Vegan Cuts made a video about their summer nail polish box. In it they discussed a bottle by Black Sheep Nail Lacquer. I checked out all of the brands in the video, but as soon as I found Black Sheep, I knew I’d found my kind of polish. So I emailed Erin (who owns Black Sheep and makes all of the polishes) to ask about the colors of her chemical-light completely vegan product! We both love Zelda. I saw she also has tiny bottles (I don’t use enough nail polish for the performances to ever finish a big bottle), and she was able to send me some along with a base coat and super shiny topcoat. There’s also a matte topcoat, a holographic one and a thermal one. But I’d definitely recommend the super shiny, it is well and truly super shiny and beautiful. Anyway, Erin informed me that she could send 6 bottles for 10 dollars shipping, so I asked for 3 colors I liked, a base coat, a top coat, and a surprise. Isn’t that the nicest thing? That you know the person who makes your nail polish and she will send you a surprise? I asked her to send something that wasn’t red or more pink, because I am not a big fan of the classics, and Horseboy is a boy, so he needs masculine polish.
Ok, on to the review of the actual lacquer. Otherwise this post will just be me raving about Erin, and even though that’s fun, it might not be very helpful to you, 12 readers who probably don’t care about nail polish. Don’t judge a book by my swatches. I tried to capture it on camera, but the picture doesn’t do it justice. The Jaw Breaker is a bit pink when you use it by itself, but still absolutely delightful. I used it with every other lacquer on the left of each nail as you can see, and it is gorgeous combined with the deep purple (and the other ones, but especially the purple). Suddenly it’s not just pink, but the green glitter pops out :). As for the Black Sheep color, it’s a deep black with a hint of silver, but still quite subtle. The orange-purple duo chrome Dark Knight might be the loveliest nail polish I have ever seen, and Erin included an almost grey purple-silver polish with tiny jade glitter in there as the surprise. It’s only because I love the purple one so much that this isn’t the prettiest nail polish I’ve ever seen, but OMG those green glitters in there! It matches perfectly with the other three. For those of you not trying to be Adam Ant: Erin has all of the colors, from the most girly pink and vampy 50’s red to the scariest Star Trek purple-green. And more if you ask her nicely, really, just contact her and she has stuff you couldn’t dream up in your wildest dreams.
Now you guys know I’m a fan of the hyperbole, but I can’t begin to tell you how nice it is to buy stuff from a person with a vision and a passion for making peoples nails shiny instead of just some faceless company called China Glaze. They are cool too, but they’re no Black Sheep. Also, you will need to find some (vegan) polish remover, and so far I have not been successful, but I still have some Zoya (some of their stuff is vegan) left from last year and at least it smells good? So I will keep using that. Ok, to wrap this up: the polish is relatively affordable, especially compared to Zoya! I think the price is super reasonable, especially when you consider the handmade part. And I think it’s so much nicer to have tiny bottles with more different colors, instead of big ones that you can never finish. You need about two or three thin coats to make it work, and it goes on quite well. It’s a little bit fiddly, but putting paint on your nails with a tiny brush is always fiddly. The smell is ok, just like the China Glaze and Zoya polishes. It just smells like nail polish, and will stop smelling after about a day. You’d smell better without it on your hands, but then your nails would not be gorgeous and sparkly, and you know you want to be gorgeous and sparkly and wearing red fake leather pants with a crop top. You know you do!
PS. I went to see the Pet Shop Boys last week. It was repulsively expensive, but it’s also some of the best money I’ve ever spent. What it lacked in spontaneity it more than made up for in excellence, joy and stage design. I have never seen such amazing lighting design, nor such striking costumes! Both the dancers and the almost theatrical use of music with images deserve a mention as well. Did I mention they are excellent live? And the audience was also super nice and enthusiastic, it was no problem at all to be there by myself and I actually met an acquaintance there and that was fun. I usually feel a bit awkward at concerts, but a very tall woman and her equally tall boyfriend actually made sure my 5 ft could stand in front of them and watch as well as dance! So if you ever get the chance: go see them IRL. They are every bit as good as you’d expect from their reputation. The only concert I’ve seen that was better so far, was Iggy Pop on Lowlands, with Thomas Azier as a close third. And oh, those cow-skull-80’s-hair-band-masks, they are a brilliant work of art, even better live :). Also, they played Rent, Thursday, It’s a Sin and Miracles. The only way they could’ve made it better, is if they’d have played Flamboyant. But I’m not complaining. I am still on a cattle-skull-induced high! Just as I left I heard a guy remarking to his boyfriend: “They played our song, just like nine years ago when we met”. That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say at a concert!