Football (Non)Friday: Alamo Bowl Edition

Hey football fans!! Tonight is the Valero Alamo Bowl, featuring the Washington Huskies against the Baylor Bears (and current Heisman winner, RG3). The game kicks off at 6pm Pacific time, so this is officially late. Whoops! Nothing like waiting until the last minute! This is Washington's first appearance in the Alamo (which just became a Pac-12 bowl last year when we were still the Pac-10) and also the first time Washington has ever played Baylor. UW faces an uphill battle as Baylor is on a five game winning streak and their quaterback, Robert Griffin III just won the Heisman trophy. The Dawgs are kind of in a lull-- they managed to win the Apple Cup fairly decisively, but otherwise had a very lackluster finish to the regular season. It should be a high scoring game if both offenses are firing on all cylinders. But enough football talk, let's get to the polish!

Tonight's football manicure features Rescue Beauty Lounge Mismas and Essie Luxeffect top coat As Gold As It Gets.

Mismas is seriously the be-all and end-all of purple creme polishes. Take from a purple polish lover, folks! While I don't own every single purple polish out there, I do own a lot of them, and Mismas is perfect. That's right, I said it. PERFECT. Mismas was created for RBL's Fall 2009 Blogger Collection for Michelle Mismas, whose blog All Lacquered Up could also be considered the be-all and end-all of nail polish blogs. Mismas is a deep purple grape polish and seriously, pretty much has the best formula on a polish I've ever encountered. It's insanely well pigmented and goes on super smooth and shiny, even without a top coat. Mismas is almost a one coater, though I did notice some balding with just one coat, so two is perfect. It dries quickly, so that's really not an issue at all. If you are looking for the one perfect purple creme polish for your collection, this is it. I'm not even joking. The price tag is a little steep at $18/bottle, but seriously, this polish is purple perfection and in my opinion, totally worth it. Mismas was sold out when I first became obsessed with nail polish, but has recently been re-released through one of the RBL Bring-It-Back votes and is still for sale on the RBL site.

Of course, my camera did not capture this totally accurately and the pictures all lean a little more blue than the polish actually is in real life. Also, I used my mom's Ottlite for a few of the artificial light pictures to see if I could get a slightly better picture of the true color of Mismas-- it wasn't entirely successful.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Gorgeous, right? I was a little loathe to change it, but I recently picked up one of Essie's new Luxeffect top coats-- As Gold As It Gets. This is a clear polish that is chock full of golden flakies in various sizes. The polish is a bit on the thick side, but not too unmanageable.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light:

The gold flakies give this an unusual finish and it's pretty cool looking. My camera makes them look more iridescent, but they're pretty much straight up gold in real life. I will have to try this over some other polishes, but I think it's really cool and I'm glad Essie has stepped up their game with some cool top options, similar to the other big name brands out there.

The score currently stands at 21-14 in Baylor's favor. LET'S GO DAWGS!!