Sally Hansen Sea and Vintage Wet n Wild Glitter

I had plans this morning to take off my Nail French, which was starting to chip on a few nails, and put on my new Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect #07 "Sea" and some glitter top coat. I ran into trouble, however, when I couldn't remove the shimmery white. I know glitters are notoriously tough to take off, but this was just a shimmer... Ah well. I've had trouble with my current nail polish remover in the past. It may be time to upgrade. I decided to make the most of it and apply Sea anyway.

Sea is a translucent pale green that appears almost white when applied in only one coat, as I like to do with my solids (cremes). The brush is thicker and wider than most brushes, for easier application, perhaps. It was originally $6.50, which is more than I normally spend on polish, but Sally Hansen must be phasing this set out. I found it on sale for $2.50.

Over it I layered a vintage Wet n Wild (which, I guess, is what we call anything that hasn't been sold in the past three or four years?) whose sticker has been lost. It says "460C," but I couldn't find any information about it online. It's a clear base with blue and purple medium glitters and small silver glitters. I received it as a hand-me-down, and my bottle has an almost unnoticeable amount of small red glitters that don't really match, which tells me that it was probably frankened before it was given to me.

So, that's how I roll, a half-removed Japanese commercial, one coat of a translucent, and a franken glitter I didn't make, all piled on top of one another in kind of a crazy mix. I was disappointed with the results at first, but it's started to grow on me.

I've discovered part of my problem with the pictures. I live in a western-facing apartment, so in the morning, which I thought would give me the best light, the sun is actually on the other side of the building, and I'm only shooting in ambient light. But even when I go outside, my pictures just suck. I don't know what to do. How do those fancy nail-bloggers get their pictures to be so great?

Also, I'm starting to wonder if "Just embrace it," was really the best advice to give myself concerning my polish hobby. I've wasted plenty of hours searching the internet, lost a lot of sleep because my brain won't stop thinking about polish, and I've already spent $20 on polish this week and am planning to spend more. I actually consider myself to be a minimalist, but it seems that minimalism went right out the window when I told myself, "Just embrace it." Eh. Life.

Edit: Aha. I think I found a dupe for my vintage Wet n Wild--Sally Hansen's Ice Queen.