While weight loss is always a welcome thing, this blog is about more than that – it’s about embracing my feminine side while maintaining my here-to-fore ‘dorky’ qualities.

In that vein, I’ve discovered an easy fix: Accessories! Earrings, hairclips…the sheer variety of colors and shapes and designs makes for a wonderful mood changer, and so far I’ve gotten positive responses. “Those are so cute! Where did you get those?” “Sorry for staring, I LOVE your earrings!”

More on that some other time, though. My chosen topic today is another accessory that’s even more personalized and customizable to your mood and look: NAIL POLISH.

Mind you, I’d dabbled in occasional bouts of polish before, back in high school and my first go-around in college. This pic is of the color range that was typical of the colors I’d buy whenever I was in the rare mood for pretty nails.

Left to right: Sinful Colors Nail Junkie, OPI Red-y for Anything, OPI I'm Not Really a Waitress, China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Sinful Colors Under 18

See that? 4 bottles of similar shades of red, and the one random non-red color; all except the Under 18 were pulled from my old plastic bin of nail polishes (the rest were dried beyond repair, and had to be tossed). I kid you not, my old bin of nail polish had 6 reds, 2 blue glitters, and one golden polish that I loved and only dared to use twice. There was also a small bottle of a Japanese multichrome that I bought in high school that I literally never, ever tried because it was a shimmery purple that shifted to greens and blues at the proper angles. It was a beautifully fun bottle – and entirely ‘inappropriate’ for a girl to wear, in my eyes. Proper feminine nail attire allowed for certain brighter shades of red for special occasions, pale pinks for classy events, and, if I wanted to go a little color crazy, glittery, bright pink.

But of course, this strict code meant I would avoid wearing nail polish altogether. The pale, proper pinks….were boring. And at odds with my tshirt and jeans daily attire. The reds…too vampy, too sexy. I wanted to be cute, not sexy. (Ah, my perpetual, unattainable goal!) Sexy was totally not okay for class and work, so no reds. Everytime I looked at a bright, sparkly pink to purchase for ‘fun’, it didn’t appeal to me at all. The other colors were too bold, so…they allsat in a bin, waiting for the rare time when I’d guiltily pull them out and hold the bottles in my hands, trying to gather up the courage to brush them onto my fingernails, only to sigh with resignation and put them right back in their dusty bin.

Now, as with most things in life, there was a gradual build up of events that climaxed in a catalyst of a moment that led me to change. I’d been browsing nail polish blogs with longing for two years now, eyeing the colorful nails with envy and cursing my own inability to ‘pull off’ those looks. The key moment: I saw my best friend over the winter holidays and was amazed at her bold, colorful, glittery nails…and their effect on other people. Complete strangers would come up to her to inquire where she’d gotten them done, and, upon learning she’d done them herself, wanted to know what she used. It was amazing. Her nails looked like those in the blogs I read, only even better because she was mixing different layers of different brands of polishes to get the look she wanted – how taboo! (To me, this seemed a sacrilege – what if the chemicals mixed badly?) When we went out shopping, I found myself picking up bottles of polish in colors I was drawn to without worrying about their appropriateness.

Once she left, though, I looked at the new collection of nail polishes, so bright and dark and glittery and shimmery and not anything remotely ‘appropriate’ – at my friend’s suggestion, I’d even bought a BLACK nail polish to layer glittery ones over so they could really ‘pop’.

I didn’t dare dream of doing anything so daring, and with some haplessness retrieved the salvageable polishes from my bin and returned to school for the new semester, new and old polishes with me, both equally consigned to a dusty drawer. But then I started thinking… wait, that’s the point of this blog, and my theme for the year, isn’t it? DARE.

After a particularly rough day capping a rough week, I decided one Saturday night…YES. I dare.

But safely. I tried to mimic my friend’s mesmerizing nail look, since it was my first time trying to layer different colors. I even swatched everything I had – on index cards labeled with my fountain pens and sealed with clear packing tape to provide a smooth surface for the polish. I didn’t have her colors, or anything really that close to them, but I was pretty happy with the result.

A section of the swatch index card and my nailsAnother shot of my nails.Seche Ridge Filling Base, 2 layers China Glaze Holly-Day, Sinful Colors San Francisco, 2 layers Color Club Holiday Splendor, Essie Shine of the Times, Color Club Holiday Splendor, and Sally Hansen 30 second Top Coat

Another shot of my nails. Blurry, but the only way I could get the holographic glitter to show.

I felt so giddy – my finger nails were so shiny! So GREEN! So….not proper! So fun, so different! They made my bad day go completely away – I was thrilled with how they looked. I used Seche Ridge Filling Base, 2 layers of China Glaze Holly-Day, Sinful Colors San Francisco, 2 layers of Color Club Holiday Splendor, Essie Shine of the Times, another layer of Color Club Holiday Splendor when Shine of the Times was too overwhelming, and Sally Hansen 30 second Top Coat – it’s an old bottle, and not very good, but it did the job.

Sadly, they only lasted a couple days before chipping and peeling off badly.

The upside…I got to try again…

But that’s another post. ;)