Black light special

Sometimes, on work days, I like to go without any color on my nails – or without appearing to have any color. To the untrained and careless eye (and perhaps to the trained but careless eye, or the untrained yet careful eye, or whatever) they seem to be just plain nails. But like subtle makeup where you don’t appear to have any on, if it’s done right, it just looks like natural clean beauty. And sometimes, that’s just what I want.

Now, my nails aren’t terribly yellow, not in my opinion anyway, but they do have some yellowing going on. So I’ll turn to something like Orly’s Love Each Other or to Yello-Out.

The story of my bottle of Y-O (which, as you can see, has been through the wars) dates back to I believe the late Eighties. My mother wore acrylics back then (that was before my brief foray into acrylics), and so of course went and had her nails done with some regularity. Well, one day she came home and told me about a product her manicurist told her about. It seems that she wore this with her acrylics and it caused her nails to glow under the black light at Disneyland dark rides! That brief description was all I needed to determine that I MUST OWN THIS POLISH!!

So, being a wonderful Mom, she brought home a bottle after her next appointment, and the next several times I went to Disneyland this had to be on my nails. It truly did glow under the black light, too!

Well, when I got back into nail polish in late 2008, I came across this bottle along with many other long-forgotten polishes. Thanks to learning of the magic of polish thinner, I was able to get this to a good consistency, and I’ve worn it a few times since. Take a look:

Naked nails (cue Psycho scream):

(Yeah, they’re all different lengths – I don’t have the heart to file down any I can get to grow – and I don’t know who’d want to steal this photo – just humor me :)

A layer of base coat (in this case, Rock Hard):

And with one coat of Y-O:

Can you see the difference? Since I wasn’t sure it would be apparent, I took another shot outside:

I tried to take a shot of the ingredients, but well. . . .

It DOES appear that there was Toluene in this – once upon a time, anyway.

At any rate, not being sure if they even made this stuff anymore, I searched the ‘net for you. I found it in its new incarnation at Amazon and some place called Sleek Hair, among other hits.

They say wearing it under another color makes it pop more, but I couldn’t attest to that. But people are warned not to wear it over colored polish as a top coat. (Why would you do that, anyway? I mean, based on the name. “Gee, Sue, I like this green color, but it leans a little too much towards the yellow spectrum. If only there was some way to get that yellow out. Saaaay! I know what we can do!”)

Anyway, it seems to cost just over three dollars, and if you take it anywhere that has black light (the aforementioned dark rides, maybe Cosmic Bowling? Do they even have that anymore? Naughty sexcapades, perhaps?), your nails can look like this!

(found here)

(found here)

And my personal favorite:

(found here)

Yeah, they’re tats, but how cool are they?!?!?!?!?

And now I’m feeling all nostalgic for Disney, glowy stuff, and electro-synthemagnetic musical sounds! But where can a gal find that stuff all in one place? Aha!!

BONUS PICS!

I did this particular manicure at my aunt’s house, so I couldn’t resist getting some pictures of her six-month-old schnauzer, Greta

Stop with the nails – start with the pets!

You gotta pet this belly!

Hey – where ya goin’?!?!

Y’all come back now, ya hear?