Hello, my darling geeks, and Happy Halloween!

One of the main reasons I began this blog was to have a space to tell the stories of how colors were born, so welcome to the first installment of "Behind The Bottle." Today, I want to tell you all about the colors in my very first Halloween Countdown Box - which, coincidentally, is the very first box of any kind I have released here at Geeky Bee's. Before we begin, I want to take a quick moment to shout out a couple of people who helped to make it a success, both in my heart and in the shop: Tea of @lacquerlove75 and Paul of @naileditguys, who both made lovely unboxing videos; Ashley of @polishedmess, who bought the first box and spilled awesome spoilers everywhere; my spouse, who shares all my posts and is a great cheerleader; and Mikey of @revenge_of_mr.nevermore, who drew the most perfect artwork of Bee for the occassion, which really made my spooky season sparkle. Thank you to each of you!

Now, let's dive into this box!

Here's a quick look at every color in the countdown as well as that art I was telling you about. 

I spent a lot of time curating the playlist before I began mixing, which is truly what dictated which color was which day. I didn't set them all down in order until I began packing, and I was a little surprised at how nice the full collection looked when laid out together!

While I do think my inspiration lends itself well to the season, I was still pleasantly suprised at how fall/Halloween-y the collection actually looked when taken in all together.

So, let's break them down, from the top:

Day 1. 'Wanna Go For a Ride?"

I knew very far in advance that "Wanna Go For a Ride?" had to be the most quintessential "Pumpkins" polish. At least for me. I had almost launched this color standalone repeatedly, but last year when sharing my favorite tunes on my personal social media (31 SP songs of the day for the month of October was the plan), the idea of the box came to me, and I decided to hold it for that. For those of you who don't know, this color is inspired by BC's iconic "zero" shirt with the silver star. He wears it in the video for "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," which is not one of the songs that I put in this box, but it's clearly fairly synonymous with the song I named this color for, as well. Black crelly, silver sparkle, alt-rock, BC. Check.  "Zero."

Day 2. "Get There Faster."

I wanted to be sure to include something off of the fairly underrated first album. The cover art has a purple filter laid over it on some of the reissues, and that's the starting point of the direction I tried to go with this one. I wanted something in a dark indigo, suggesting the lights of a small club bathing the crowd in errie hues. Add in those greenish sparkles to hint at the up-and-coming "magic" of this killer guitar riff. "Siva."

3. "Fool Enough To Almost Be It."

I was torn on choosing the 13th song to round out my playlist, I had about 15  possibilities in my head, and it was far too difficult for me to choose, so I polled my friends on their favorite SP songs not already on my list. This one and "Jellybelly" were the top two answers, so I put them head to head both with my friends and on @the.Geeky.Bee's Instagram. This song came out victorious. I wanted to make something kind of flowy and dreamy like the way this song moves, nostalgic and kind of sad-happy, and I also wanted to visually make a hint at the reissue foil art of the Siamese Dream album cover that hangs in my workspace, courtesy of my cousin when he worked at a record store. And that's why you have a lovely, soft, light, bright-toned, sparkly shimmer pink leaning violet in the midst of your fall colors. I think it works. "Mayonnaise."

Day 4. "Can't Wait For Tomorrow."

The sun is so bright in the video for this song that it almost hurts. The desert setting is all yellows and golds. The song itself sounds cheery and bright. Nevermind the melancholy, choose for once that the key to being happy, is to simply be happy, if only for a moment. This song is double-edged, and in ways is more about the projection than the reality, and maybe about one’s ability to manipulate them both. This shimmery, blindingly sparkly and sheer yellow summed it up for me. “Today.”

Day 5. “I Wanna Love You When You’re Sad.”

I was torn for a while about how best to convey this song’s feeling, and which direction to go, but I’ll tell you the truth: my husband gave me this idea. Make it the color of the titular spider. I said, “I think maybe it’s named for the dance,” he said, “brown is a good color either way.” I sat down and started mixing with the thought of that, as well as the memories of the alternative colors I had in my nail polish box when I was a teenager. The album this song is from was the “reunion” record after the band had been broken up for several years, into the late aughts, and I remember feeling when hearing it that it sounded a bit like older Pumpkins, an almost 90’s feel, and it made me nostalgic at the time. So this autumnal reddish brown pearl polish became a celebration of that. “Tarantula.”

Day 6. “Is It Any Wonder I Can’t Sleep?”

This is one of my favorite songs, and it was one of the reasons so many of us that didn’t care for the film, or hadn’t even seen the film, bought the “Lost Highway” soundtrack. It’s strange and hypnotic and romantic. It always puts me in a very specific mood and transports me to a certain place in time. I started with a greeny brown base color and suddenly knew EXACTLY which aurora shimmers it needed. When I mixed them in, the only word that came to my mind was “hazel.” I topped it off with a bit more magic for the poetic violet twinge. “Eye.”

Day 7. “We Must Never Be Apart.”

Fun trivia that Mikey the artist reminded me of: the reason this video is so strange and so cool, is that it’s filmed in reverse. Go watch it if you don’t know what I mean. I’ll wait. Alright. Got it? Cool. 

I wanted to make something sexy and dark and gothy here. I thought about making the red deeper and brick-ier, but then I thought more about the vampire aesthetics of the late 90’s and BC’s red eye makeup, and went with a classic red instead. Packed it with black flakes for Adore and smeared eyeliner. Tossed in the iridescent glitter for the Sparkle Goths. Et voilà. Heartbreak, beauty, danger, pain, romance, and obsession. “Ava Adore.”

Day 8. “You Know I’m Not Dead.”

I. Loved. This. Video. It was so simple, just a performance video, but shot with all those early 2000’s fisheyes and angles and black leather and shiny bright colors and head banging cameramen and closeups on guitars. The backdrop is this neon green screen, so it was the obvious color palette to start with. I decided to soften it up a little bit in honor of the soaring, beautifully soft prechorus that comes at you out of nowhere on this metal-driven track. So here we go with lime shimmer and a tamped-down gold (instead of silver) holo. “The Everlasting Gaze.”

Day 9. “Faster Than We Thought We’d Go.”

The second song in the box that demanded a quintessential Pumpkin color. Here was where I wanted to drive home my double meaning of the word “pumpkins.” For the record, “smashing” is meant as an adjective. I feel like the British fans always knew and didn’t question that. Here in the US, I think a lot of us assumed it was a verb, but I always wondered if BC intended double meanings, too. The main color I used here is called “Pumpkinhead,” so it was sort of a no-brainer to me that it be included in this collection. I figured, get all the pearly 90’s nostalgia in there, add a touch of a pinkish red for the fun of the singalong, and drop the iridescence in for the live wire right up off the street where you and I should meet. “1979.”

Day 10. “Memories Unwind.”

If you weren’t aware, the video for this song is a sequel to the video for “1979,” and I think the songs go hand in hand as well. So it was a simple jump to make a complimentary topper to blur over “Faster Than We Thought We’d Go.” The golden-pink aurora to fuzz out the present’s noise, the orange-green to shift your focus in all directions, the gold for the memories of youth, the various purples to stand for all the various visions that pop in and out of your mind in those yearning, smiling, aching nostalgic moments. I poured the bottle and thought, yes, just as the man said: so far, I still know who you are. “Perfect.”

Day 11. “Lover, You’re Strange.”

The album this song comes from is the last SP album that I own a physical copy of. It was a birthday gift when it was new. Which is not to say that I don’t intend to eventually purchase the rest, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for it because it was basically the end of the buying-a-CD-when-it-was-still-a-brand-new-release era. The loud keys and marching beat of the opening and verses of this song are in direct contrast to the dreamy, floaty, pensive delivery of the chorus… which is pretty typical BC style, and I fall for it every time. I made this color intentionally strange; a little sheer, a little silver, kind of blue, but sort of rusted green. I added the glitter and illusion-inducing flakes because they just seemed to fit. This is for the people who like to walk a more unique path. “Monuments.”

Day 12. “The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.”

If you were on Paul’s livestream, you may have seen me tell the secret behind how this bright, super glittery, turquoise-leaning blue came to be. I was stuck on how to convey the giant sweeping emotion that this song doles out, and (as often happens), whining to my husband about not know what direction to take. He thought for a minute, and then said, “Whatever it is, it needs to knock their socks off. You need to go big with that one. ‘Disarm’ them, if you will.” I thought to myself, that will work perfectly. I always end up having one color in a (usually hard-rock driven) music collection that surprises people, something that seems “bright and out of place.” But if the music in question is in your soul, those colors probably make sense to some of you the way they do to me. I decided this would be the polish that was my favorite nail color. And if I could make a reference to BC’s eyes, and make it Piscean, as well as light everything up with goosebumps the way the strings and drums do in this song, I would be happy. And so that’s what I made. “Disarm.”

Day 13. “The Impossible is Possible.”

Anyone who knows me IRL had to know this was coming. That this song would be the grand finale, and that I’d style it after the MCIS album cover. I mean. It was a gimme, was it not? For those not in the know, this song is in my all-time top 5. To be honest, most days, it is very likely my number one song, not just from this band, but ever. And this is definitely my favorite album, front to back, ever. So of course it would be day 13. Save the best and all that.

I mixed it last, too. I don’t generally do that, but I knew from the jump what this one would be. So I dealt with the more difficult colors first and saved this for the last minute. I protoyped it in about 10 minutes. I needed something deep blue, I needed a starry sky. But it needed to be a distinctly different starry sky than my birthday color from earlier this year. It needed to speak to a different thought. It needed a little smudge of green and gold, and it needed to pull a paler shade in the middle than the edge, just like the album cover. It needed to be an alternative icon, but also a megahit. It needed to cue the strings. It needed to believe, and make you believe. I hope I did it justice. “Tonight, Tonight.”

And with this, we come to the end of our 13 Days of Pumpkins. I hope you enjoyed them. I absolutely adored every step of making this set; from the playlist to the final star sticker on the top of the box. 

You can listen to the playlist here.

Until next time, my dearest nerds, remember that nail polish is for everyone, to take care of yourself and one another, and that I love you. <3