When I first started collecting nail polish, China Glaze was one of the first brands that I focused on. I knew that it would be hard to get some of the more sought after shades like those from the OMG Collection, so I searched out other colors that I came across on makeupalley. Do you guys remember when Sephora by OPI put out Metro Chic? It was pretty much impossible to get for a while, and then I saw people talking about how similar it was to China Glaze Channelesque. Well, that is when it went on my list, and I started looking for it at my beauty supply stores. Imagine my surprise when one day I found multiple bottles in some forgotten corner at one of my favorite beauty supply stores. Let me show you some swatches because I talk more about this polish. Continue reading “China Glaze Channelesque – #vintagepolishfriday”
Tag: Essie
Favorite Nail Care Products
As a nail swatcher and all-around nail polish enthusiast, I have to be on top of taking care of my hands and nails. I feel that I am lucky in that I have naturally strong nails, but I do tend to have very dry skin which obviously affects my cuticles. Many years ago, I used to bite my nails and cuticles to the point of making them bleed which is why I started wearing acrylics. Lucky, this helped me kick the biting habit but I also have to stay on top of avoiding hangnails and such because it will tempt me to bite them. Gross, I know! Well, today I have some of my favorite nail care products to share with you; these are items I use often to help keep my hands and cuticles well hydrated and soft. Continue reading “Favorite Nail Care Products”
Essie Dressed To The Nineties
Hey, how’s it going today? I’ve been having a pretty uneventful time lately which can either be good or bad depending on the person. Since my idea of fun is having a quiet time to lounge, read and read a good book, I’m quite happy right now. Today I have an Essie polish that I had high hopes for when I first saw it at my local beauty supply: Essie Dressed To The Nineties. Let me show you some swatches before I tell you what I thought of it. Continue reading “Essie Dressed To The Nineties”
Essie Social-lights
I feel like it has been Indie-Central around here these last couple of weeks, so I figured I should throw in a mainstream or two. After all, mainstream polishes are the ones that started this obsession…right?! I know that most people in the nail polish know barely pay attention to mainstream releases unless they get a lot chatter on social media. Although I do find indie nail polishes vastly more interesting, I have to admit that I still follow mainstream brands closely. Essie Social-lights is a beautiful polish from their Winter 2017 collection. I have a soft spot for Essie even though they don’t always come through and the brush is terribly skinny for my wide nail beds. Anyway, when I saw this one at my local beauty supply, I had to get it. Let me show you some swatches of Essie Social-lights. Continue reading “Essie Social-lights”
Essie Starry Starry Night 2.0
I bet you can still remember the excitement you felt when Essie announced the return of one of their most unique and beloved shades: Starry Starry Night. I bet that you can also remember the bitter disappointment when you realized that the new version was nothing like the one we all coveted. Well, let me tell you that it took me a long time to buy Essie Starry Starry Night precisely because of all the bad reviews. Despite this, I decided to get it just because I know I’ll never get my hands on the original. Let me show you my swatches before I tell you what I think about it.
No one is saying that this isn’t a pretty polish. No one is saying that at all. What we are saying is that this is not worthy of the Starry Starry Night name. This polish seems flat compared to the glorious depth of the original Starry Starry Night. I don’t know what the formula is like on the original one, but this one is a difficult and goopy mess. I found that the polish dries super fast so it tends to get goopy incredibly fast which, as you can imagine, doesn’t help to achieve an even application. Due to the sheer jelly base, you will need at least 3 coats to make this look even. I do like how it looks, but I’d much rather wear my KBShimmer Carpe Denim if I’m in the mood for a blue jelly glitter. I hope your week is going well–I’m looking forward to the long weekend for sure. Thanks for checking in today, and I will talk to you soon.
Winner Announced – Ooh La Lacquer Giveway
Happy Sunday everyone! Just a quick note to announce the winner of the gorgeous bottle of Ooh La Lacquer Indigo-go Dancer…
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Congrats, Nicole! Thank you all for entering and I hope to bring you another giveaway soon.
I also wanted to show you guys something in case you don’t follow my Instagram account. On Friday I went polish shopping and bought the Essie Resort and Spring Collections, but I also stumbled upon something:
This appears to be the Essie Shimmer Brights Collection for Summer 2016. I had not seen anything about this anywhere so I got super excited when I saw the swatch wheel. I don’t think that the beauty supply meant to leave this out, but it looked like they had gotten a big shipment and I just happened to see it out on the counter….bwahaha! What do you think of these shades? Honestly, all I can think of are jelly beans and those sticky ribbon candies that people put out on dishes. I wonder if these will replace the yearly “Neon” Collections that are never quite neon. Hmmm…I guess we will have to wait and see.
Anyway, I hope that I’ll have a slower April so I can start posting again regularly. I have to get through a few collections but I also just chopped off my nails. It wasn’t the best decision, but I just needed to start fresh. What are you looking forward to in polish releases? I am excited to see the new OPI Alice in Wonderland collection and I’m just going gaga over Cupcake Polish right now. I don’t want to buy anything because I know I will never stop once I do. I am also going hard on Vapid right now and can’t wait to try the Nail Sauce. I’ll keep you guys updated on that! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
Stamping Saturdays – Metallic Flowers
Hey, happy Saturday and welcome to another installment of Stamping Saturdays! This morning I woke up a little early, but I spent my time catching up on TV shows on Hulu. I am really obsessed with the new show 11.22.1963 which is an original show on Hulu with James Franco. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you have to…NAOW! Last night when I got home, I decided that I’d come up with something for Stamping Saturdays, and I was inspired by Frosso’s rose mani. I started off with this gorgeous base color.
I cannot get enough of shades like OPI Infinite Shine You Sustain Me (press sample). Not only do I love this type of color on my nails, but it’s my favorite lip color too. I live for chocolately pink mauve shades which is why I was dying to get my hands on Jeffree Star Adrogyny. Unfortunately, I missed out on it and I’m over it now. Ain’t nobody got time for restock drama.
I then used a flowery design from a Cheeky Plate with Essie Nothing Else Metals. I think this turned out really cute!
Well, I hope you are all doing well. Don’t forget to join the link up below to share your stamped manis. You can also join our facebook group here. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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Essie Virgin Snow Collection Winter 2015
Can you believe that in less than 4 weeks, 2015 will be behind us? It’s such a weird feeling to realize how quickly this year has blow by. I was thinking today, that if you have followed my blog for a while now, I feel like I’m in such a different mindset now than I was a couple of years ago and I hope you have noticed it and that you also think it’s something positive. I think that the biggest change in my life is that I now have a job that I actually like. If you guys can remember how much I used to complain about the job I had 2 years ago, I’m sure you can agree that it’s night and day. Anyway, I am just grateful for the positive changes in my life. Even though I still have my struggles, I just feel fortunate to be where I am now. Moving on to more important things like, ahem, POLISH! I’ve been totally lazy about my blogging lately only because…well, I’ll say the holidays is my excuse. I’ve had these swatches done for a few weeks, but I just haven’t had the energy to even put this post together. As you may know, I have this weird obsessions with purchasing all Essie collections hoping that they are awesome. I won’t tell you know many times I end up being disappointed, but let’s just say it’s a lot. Despite this, I just keep coming back for more. Currently I’m waiting with bated breath to see what the 6th polish for their anniversary collection will be. Rumor on the streets is that it’s Starry Starry Night but I’m just going to wait and not spaz out just yet. I think I am forgetting why we are here today. Oh yeah! I have swatches of the Essie Virgin Snow Collection for Winter 2015! Let me show you my swatches before I give you the rundown.
Essie Peak Show
Essie Virgin Snow
Essie Shall We Chalet?
Essie Altitude Attitude
Essie Haute Tub
Essie Apres-Chic
Let me get this out of the way and just say that this collection gets a big fat MEH from me. Ok, so there is nothing really wrong with this collection, but it’s so boring. I was super deluxe looking forward to Haute Tub, but it ended up disappointing once on the nail–it’s like an Essie trademark: gorgeous in the bottle, fail on the nail. (Hey, I should coin that phrase!) Both of the reds have a great formula and the two lightest shades are kind of a PITA but they are so glacial and perfect–like Catherine Deneuve in a bottle. I won’t even bother to mention the silver because we all know how much I dislike the 5 million silvers that have come out this year. So all in all I can say it’s a very boring collection made up of nice polishes. Since I’m not in love with this collection, it’s going up on my blog sale. If you want a good price, you can buy this collection and the Luxeffects collection for a decent price. Anywho, check out my blog sale here if you’re interested. I’m interested to hear what you think of this collection so let me know in the comments below. Thanks so much for the visit, and I will talk to you soon.
Essie Luxeffects Collection 2015
Do you remember when Essie put out Shine of the Times and everyone lost their shit over it? I think that it might have been my first flaky polish back in 2011 when I was still a nuggle. That was the first time that I even heard of an Essie Luxeffects Collection, but they have steadily put out this collection every year since then. I don’t know about you, but when I saw the Luxeffects Collection for 2015, I thought I had suddenly entered a time vortex and had been transported back to 2012/2013 when bar glitter was all the rage. I hated it back then and I still hate it now, but you know me: MUST BUY EVERY COLLECTION, EVERY TIME. I wore each glitter over a shade from the Essie Winter Collection (swatches coming soon) and only applied 1 coat using a dabbing motion to distribute the glitter to my liking. Let me show you what they look like before I share my thoughts.
Essie Fashion Flares
Essie Frilling Me Softly
Essie Fringe Factor
Essie Tassel Shaker
I’m feeling a little weird saying this…I actually like some of these! I actually only like the first two: Fashion Flares and Frilling Me Softly because they are an interesting combination of bar and small dots which kind of reminds me of cracked pepper. Every time I see bar glitter I think of how irate I get when I see the sink covered in hairs after my brother shaves, so I guess I’m never going to love bar glitter. Overall, I don’t think these are worth the Essie price tag, but a couple of them are nice. I have put these babied up in my blog sale so check it out if you’re interested. What do you think about bar glitter? Yay or nay? I’m curious to hear what you think! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
Essie Leggy Legend Collection Fall 2015
So this post has been in the works for like 3 weeks, I think. I don’t really have an excuse except that I’ve just been feeling super blah about blogging. After close to 4 years, part of me thinks that I’m nearing the end of my blogging adventure. Lately I have felt almost resentful for the amount of time that I spend on this blog to the detriment of my personal life. When I don’t blog for a while, it’s almost like I have my life back and do much more for myself. I haven’t made a decision to just stop, so for now I will continue to blog when I feel like it without putting any pressure on myself. For today’s post, I have the Essie Leggy Legend Collection for Fall 2015. It’s a very typical fall collection so let me show you my swatches before I tell you what I thought about it overall.
Essie With The Band
Essie In The Lobby
Essie Color Binge
Essie Leggy Legend
Essie Frock ‘n Roll
Essie Bell-Bottom Blues
I really wanted to like this collection but nope. There is nothing wrong with it, but it just does not catch my attention nor does it excite me. One great thing about this collection is that the formulation on all of them is pretty great which we all know can be hit and miss when it comes to Esssie. The shade I was really looking forward to is Essie Bell-Bottom Blues because of the pink/purple flash that was apparent in the bottle, but sadly it disappears once it’s on the nail. If I had to recommend one polish from this collection, it would be Esssie Frock ‘n Roll because it’s interesting and very fall-appropriate. So what do you think about this collection? Have you picked up any of these shades? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
