This is summer, I got the chance to visit the rebel headquarters of independent media, The Young Turks. We were out in southern California for my Abuela's 80th birthday party. We planned to do a beach day or two, a trip to the Central Valley to visit my best gal and her munchkin, plenty of family time—while I was planning all of this I knew I had to find a way to make a trip to visit and thank The Young Turks for their work. So, I did.

What is there to say about these guys...

I discovered them in 2015, early on in the Democratic primary season as a related video listed in the sidebar while I was trying to learn more about Senator Bernie Sanders in a Thom Hartman video. I loved the balance of candor, the thoughtfulness, the context, and the wit of the hosts. It was like all the news that I love from Democracy Now, plus some serious and hard-hitting commentary. I started watching their LIVE show every weekday. After a few months I became a paying member. I realized that it was something I cared about tremendously, and appreciated the impact that watching their show had on me, so I knew I had to support them with what I could. I can't recommend their news show highly enough, but they actually have a whole network of shows which are equally powerful and fun.

TYT on Fusion Campus Tour

In the Fall of 2016, in the full swing of the general election, TYT and Fusion teamed up to do a tour across the country to ask millennials about the election, the candidates, and the issues that they found most important. I was glued to their website when they were announcing the details for their stop in Chicago. I got our names on the list, and we went to the October 24th event at the University of Chicago, Institute of Politics. It was thrilling—the guest was David Axelrod, the conversation revolved around the character and the presentation of Hillary Clinton. We got a chance to meet and greet a little bit after the LIVE show.

Visiting Rebel Headquarters

I arranged a visit to The Young Turks studio for our last full day in California, but I forgot to ask about parking. Oops! So our visit started a little crazy, we searched for parking anywhere, found a lot but didn't have cash, tried to find an ATM to no avail. It was an adventure. We finally made it into the studio and our wonderful guide, Norma, got us hooked up with the right parking situation. While my sugar was re-parking, I got to chat with Grace Baldridge—from Pop Trigger and of course, Murder with Friends. We talked about traveling and long distance driving. I got a chance to chat briefly with Francis Maxwell, but no picture because he was in a rush; he's so delightful. I ran into Brett Erlich—from...well, everything. We chatted about traveling and about the awesome landscapes across the country.

Then it was time for the LIVE show. We got to sit in the studio while they filmed, got the meet the big guy, the one and only, Cenk Uygur. Before I actually became a member, I watched the film, Mad As Hell, about Cenk and the formation of TYT. It gave me a look into the work and the passion and the compassion that has gone into building every bit of the TYT Network, the Too Strong TYT Army, the momentum behind the call for a constitutional amendment to eradicate the influence of money in politics through Wolf-PAC. This man IS hard work and dedication. It was an honor to meet and to thank him for that hard work, dedication, and tremendous passion in the fight for justice. We sat through taping the main show, the Post-Game, and TYT Classics. David and joked that we would've loved to stay until they kicked us out. On our way out we had to snap a picture with our wonderful tour guide, Norma. It was the best way to close the California leg of our cross-country road trip.

My goodness, I LOVE the KL Polish line, and this summer line is no exception. Since launching in Fall 2016, Youtuber KathleenLights, has released four seasonal lines and one limited edition special birthday polish. The Summer 2017 line consists of six beautiful, super summery shades. I bought four...as has been my pattern with each of the previous releases.

Packaging

The KL Polish line features a smooth, easy grip, matte black handle. The bottle itself is squared off, making the base really solid, and less likely to knock over while in use. The brush is flat, with a medium width, which I LOVE. My nails are flat-ish but still have clear C-curve, and this brush is wide enough to limit the number of strokes I have to do to cover the nail, but maneuverable enough to get around the curves of my nail bed.

*Note. I will only be commenting on the following characteristics for the four colors I purchased from this line.

South Peach. This was the color I was honestly most excited about when Kathleen & KL Polish started releasing pictures of the new line. Actually, I think I remember seeing her wearing this color in a video and thinking, "OMG, what is that color? It's gorgeous!" Anyhoo, it's a great color. As with all of her polishes, this is a two coater, although it's similar to the Coconut Milk one in the way that it covers. If you want a full opacity, you'll need three coats. If it were a dark color this would bother me more, but it, like Coconut Milk is really light and not very bright so it looks nice with that almost natural tinted...but not, because it's clearly polished. I tested all of the colors without a base or top coat, and honestly, this color held up the best in terms of longevity.

MIA. This is probably my least favorite color of the ones I bought. It's actually a nice pink, I'm just not a very pink person. It's kind of like an almost metallic Barbie or Lisa Frank kind of pink. It's a two-coater for full opacity, and covers a lot smoother than South Peach. This one took longer to wear down, but even once it did, the chipping is smooth. I would give it an average rating for longevity.

Porter Miami. This blue is GORGEOUS. I was very surprised how much I love this color, I'm not usually the biggest fan of blue polishes. It's a perfect combination of cobalt and indigo. Applied beautifully, super smooth, and I probably could've gotten away with just one coat of this. It wore at the end rather quickly, but it was also on my two most used fingers on my dominant hand. I'm sure with a good base and top coat, this would last fine thought, KL polishes usually do. I'm in the middle of a hunt for good base and top coats, so that would've been too many variables to juggle. Overall, I love this color.

Ocean Drive. This one was the biggest surprise of the bunch. I'm not usually one for sparkly polishes, and am picky about what kinds of greens I like to wear. But this one...ooooo baby! It took my breath away with the first stroke! It covers well in one coat, but with two coats you get a LOT of dimension that really highlights the oceany-mermaidy vibes that you see in the official pictures. My lighting is a little off so you don't get the full effect here, but let me just say, this is my favorite of the collection. The longevity of this one was actually right up there with South Peach, in a tie at first place in the collection.

Overall, like I said, I love this collection. I was happy to be surprised at how my expectations were basically flipped on which colors I loved the most. I'm so happy to add them to my gorgeous Color Clutch polish organizers on my sweet little art shelf I just set-up. Let me know in the comments what nail polishes you're rocking recently.