Saturday, October 23, 2004


a little ot or maybe not

long-time readers know i am getting more and more serious (or, mr. right would say, crazed) about coffee tasting. i don't just mean the scaa flavor wheel, the jean le noir's nez du café, the whole sleeping-with-ted-lingle's (bow to the west!) coffee-cupper's-handbook-under-my-pillow-thing.

i also mean the living on roast chicken and plain steamed asparagus, the dialing back on the perfume, using toothpaste that doesn't contain sodium laurel sulfate, unscented soaps, hair stuff, etc. etc. all these things the pro coffee tasters have been doing for years and years.

also, mr. right is quite sensitive to certain things himself. and thus we come to the unlikely subject of: finger nail polish.

most people know that conventional finger nail polish is just nasty stuff, with formaldehyde, toluene, etc. the fumes are intense, and formaldehyde actually lessens your sense of smell, just as the sodium laurel sulfate alters your sense of taste.

they always bothered mr. right, and basically i couldn't cup coffee any day i needed a manicure. thus, i was extremely interested when i heard about acquarella, a non-smelling, water-based nail polish.

i immediately had to check this out, being both girly and a coffee lover. so i ordered the clear nail polish (they call it the "conditioner") and a bright red, called livid, along with the remover and hand lotion.

i tried out these products today, starting with the clear. the first thing: i whipped open the remover and stuck my nose into it.

guess what? it smelled like rubbing alcohol. that's not so great, but it's not as bad as regular removers.

honestly, i think this remover does in fact contain nothing but water, aloe vera, and rubbing alcohol. go figure.

so i filed, i shaped, i buffed, i washed my hands, i applied the clear. in the bottle the clear looks like goat's milk, but it goes on beautifully transparent and amazingly shiny.

i couldn't smell a thing. i went into mr. right and waved my fingers under his nose. "get out of my face," he said, "i'm trying to read."

he couldn't smell it either. with conventional products, he actually has to leave the room, they bother him so.

i wandered back out into the living room, by which time the polish was already completely dry. darn it! i had meant to test their claim that you could wash the stuff off with plain water in the first 60 seconds.

but alas, it was almost instantly completely dry! that's amazing. no more ridge fillers, primers, base coats, then the color, then the top coat, then the quick dry. . .

what's also fantastic about this clear polish is that something about it makes your finger nails much whiter. i look like i have a french manicure. that's exactly how much it has enhanced the natural white of the nail tip.

this stuff so far seem pretty darn magic. let's see how it wears and if it keeps its shine. if so, i'm a convert. . .

the only drawback so far: when filling my order, there was a slight bobble. they left out the hand lotion. but when i called they nicely took a message, apologized, and said fulfillment would get back to me on monday.

that's fairly decent for online service -- will update as the week goes on. but so far i'm loving this stuff already.

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