#NOTD: Essie After School Boy Blazer

Navy.

It seems to be a thing this season. Navy. Navy is everywhere. From my coolest new H&M premium collection handbag to my new Primark socks to the new hue to grace my nail polish drawer.

Here we have a navy cream called After School Boy Blazer from Essie's autumn collection.

I haven't really had a navy in my collection. I have a few pastel blues and a really amazing inkjet blue shimmer polish from Leighton Denny but i'd never been a one for just navy nails. Until now.

It really is the perfect navy colour. Really opaque with one coat I found but for a flawless look you might want to add two coats. Settles on the nails and gives a really nice dark with a twist finish. I love it, and i thought i'd gone more of a pink person. It seems the leaves on the ground and the nip in the air has muted my personal colour palette and i'm kind of okay with the navy.

It's easy to apply with the brilliant Essie wide brush. I go on about this all the time but the brush can really make or break my decision to apply a polish. I have to really steady my hands with a thin brush which can then take ages to do. I like the wide brush for a quick and smooth application. A couple of strokes on each nail and you're done.

Good stuff.

Angela

Greige #NOTD

Models Own  Utopia

I wasn't really a fan of the greige nail trend when it came out. I avoided it for far brighter or completely dark colours. However, there is a colour that falls somewhere in between greige and very pale lilac. That colour (above) is Utopia from Models Own.

Having pale freckly skin, I don't think certain colours suit me. Like proper full on beige colours, they wash me out. Utopia is the perfect beige but not really beige pale alternative. It lay at the back of my nail polish drawer, unloved and unopened since a first wearing some time last year. At that time I paired it with a glitter polish from OPI - Rainbow Collection. It was lovely.

Top - Models Own Utopia after 4 days wear (decent); Bottom Barry M Lychee

This time I've left it alone. I've had two coats on for 4 days now and there's only starting to be a little bit of wear on the edges (top photo above). You definitely need two coats, three for a fully opaque coverage. The application is nice but can be patchy. I suggest a thin first coat then a slightly thicker second one.

Whilst in town I browsed the nail section in Superdrug and completely off the cuff bought Barry M Lychee gel polish (bottom photo above) and Rimmel Mary Mary Quite Contrary. I wanted to compare the three. 

Rimmel Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Models Own Utopia, Barry M Lychee - Flash on

Rimmel Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Models Own Utopia, Barry M Lychee - Flash off

I've already tried the grey Rimmel polish and I love it. It will be a good autumn colour with the pale simple colour palettes that are gracing the windows of my favourite shops. It's almost exactly like Utopia except it's grey instead of very pale lilac. You'd hardly notice the difference, though there is a slight one. Lychee is an obviously more beige colour. I'll give it a try but it may not suit me.

What's on your nails?

Angela x

NOTD: Essie DJ Play That Song

I've got a couple of purple nail polishes in my collection but every time i reached for them i was met with this pang of doubting niggles in my head. It's too dark, it's too lilac, it's too reddish. Until now.

This, my friends, is what i'd call the perfect bright true purple from Essie neon summer collection - which may not be released in the UK yet (if at all). It's called DJ Play That Song. I know, great name right! And it's bedfellows in the summer collection are all a little bit bright and neon. Perfect for summer (if we ever get one). But if not, perfect to cheer up these dreary grey showery days.

I got this from my trusty favourite eBay store in the USA so it has that thin brush. I was a bit wary of using it but the formula is good. I put a very thin first coat on (that looked almost jelly-like), then made it more opaque with a second coat. Lastly, and unusually for me, I put a coat of the famous Seche Vite top coat on. My first use and i'm impressed, although 2 days on and i have a little bit of tip wear where i have a ragged nail.

The colour is great on my light freckley skin tone. They call it 'jammiest neon plum'. I'd call it freaking delicious! It pops without being ultra neon bright. As I'm looking at it now it does in some ways have an almost jelly-like look about it. Perhaps that's the top coat though.

Really pleased I picked this colour purple, finally. I don't know what I was afraid of.

Angela x

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#NOTD OPI I Theadora You

Yes, as you can tell, OPI have again come up with another great quirky name for this polish. This pale, creamy, milky pink polish. This polish is from the recent Oz The Great and Powerful collection.

OPI I Theadora You

This is called I Theadora You after the nice witch (played by Michelle Williams). Is she from the East or the West? I can't remember. The film is pretty decent. James Franco perfect in that role.

Anyway. The polish. This is a great alternative to the bright fuchsia pinks that I've been unusually drawn to recently. It's also less boring than a beige. It feels clean and calming on my fingers.

The formula is nice. Not too thick or thin. However, I found that it did streak a bit and I had to apply 3 coats to be sure you couldn't see my ridges or the nail line. I wore this for 3 days and had no chipping and only a few little signs of wear and tear. (Perhaps because it's quite pale I couldn't see any?). I use OPI Nail Envy as my base coat and no top coat (lazy!) but I'll have to buff my ridges down on next wearing to get that perfected look.

I love this pale pink colour though. It reminds me of Nails Inc South Molton Street or Rimmel Pro French Rose, although i'm not sure if it's a direct dupe. It's pale, creamy looking and elegant. I'd say a good wedding day manicure colour if you don't want very sheer nails. It also reminded me of OPI Pink Friday but quite a bit shearer and less 'bright'.

Overall, I do like it a lot. Nice work OPI.

Angela x

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all pics were taken on iPhone 4S as you can probably tell, they're pretty grainy! oops.

Essie She's Pampered, with a bit of sparkle #NOTD

On New Years day I sat and watched a whole day of Kim and Kourtney in New York on Viva channel. It was great as I hadn't seen the episodes immediately after Kim's short marriage to Chris. The Kardashians of course. Anyway, I sat on my bed, blogged and watched this and in between times painted my nails.

For this, a new year, i decided to go for something bright with sparkle. I opted for Essie's She's Pampered and then Beyond Cozy on the ring fingers. Both polishes from the recently new winter collection.

Essie She's Pampered - true red creme

Beyond Cozy on the right. Looks a bit pewter here too

She's pampered is a bright red creme with a blue tone in it, not orange toned like Snap Happy from the same collection. I have She's Pampered in the normal sized bottle and Beyond Cozy in the mini size from the set i'd bought just before Christmas which you can read about here.

She's Pampered is what i call a true blue red. Not too dark, not too light, a true red. One of my favourite colours. As with the newer style Essie polishes this comes with the wide brush (even in the mini size bottles) which is just a dream to apply any polish with. The polish applied well and dries with a shine. 

Beyond Cozy is a strange fine glitter colour because in the bottle it looks like dull golden flecks but on the finger it can take on a silver tone. Strange, but nice all the same. I don't think I'd apply this by itself on all the fingers (it would be a pain to take off) but it certainly added that little bit of sparkle for the new year that i was looking for. 

Essie Beyond Cozy - in a mini bottle

An arty processed shot of my ageing fingers.
She's Pampered is darker here than in real life.

A truer colour representation

As always I applied my polish over a base coat of OPI Nail Envy Matt. Recently i've been wearing my nails bare to let them heal from using all the dark polishes. The Nail Envy has worked a treat to help prevent my nails from splitting since they are pretty ridged on my thumbs and index fingers. I find the OPI Nail Envy to be the only thing that helps me with that. At £18.50 per bottle it is pretty expensive but i bought a new set from QVC where they had both the matt and original versions in a set for £18.50 (2 for 1). Can't really grumble with that.

Overall a really great show-stopping red. What do you think?

Angela 

Essie Winter Collection 2012 - mini version

This collection sort of creeped up on me. I'd read about it back in October and it slipped my mind. The Anna from Viviannadoesmakeup mentioned on Twitter that she'd bought a mini set from ASOS and i went searching again. Found the swatches over on Polishaholic (best swatches in my opinion) and decided these would be mine. Thing was, all the information i could find suggested they wouldn't be available until January.

That was that.

I headed off to Glasgow on Sunday for the last of my Christmas shopping and went into Boots. I had £23 on my Boots card and decided i'd have new La roche-posay eye cream and maybe something else. Of course I always wander to the make up section and specifically the Essie stand and lo and behold look what i found!!

Essie Winter 2012 mini set

Another cute little Essie Winter mini set for a reasonable £9.99. This one has 3 as opposed to Anna's 4 set mini from ASOS, only the turquoise blue colour is missing here. I don't mind that because those types of colours don't suit my skin tone.

What we have in this set is Leading Lady - a cranberry jelly with small dainty ruby red glitter particles in it. It looks just like Dorothy's slippers. A beautiful Christmas red glitter. We also have Snap Happy - an orange based true red creme. It's not the kind of red i tend to go for but lovely all the same. And then we have Beyond Cozy - a sliver gold glitter polish. This isn't chunky glitter but fine glitter. It would need a topcoat if you like a smooth finish. Leading Lady would need one too.

The glitter one looks really silver in this picture, there is some gold in it though

This is a set of colours that would happily go nice on any Christmas day, party night nail. I was a bit disappointed that She's Pampered wasn't in this set but luckily there was one full size bottle left so i snapped that up too.

She's Pampered is what i like to call a true red. Darker and more blue toned than Snap Happy. I'd describe it as the red from a candy cane. That proper Christmassy red. I'll definitely have this on over the next few weeks too. I can see this whole set being rotated with Chanel Malice.

She's Pampered

I quickly painted a nail with each colour to see what they were like on and they don't disappoint. I didn't think the gold glitter one would suit me but it's really nice. Perhaps i'll wear it as a ring finger accent of colour... I'll decide later.

Snap Happy red on middle finger, She's Pampered red on pinky

The formulations were smooth and triple bonus is even these mini bottles have the great wider Essie brush. Thank goodness. I hate thin brushes. You could pretty much get away with one coat if you were in a rush. Two coats for totally opacity. I'll do a proper NOTD report soon.

So glad I found these!

Angela x

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#NOTD Ange does Chanel Malice

Chanel Malice. Part of the winter range this colour is everything I'd hoped OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest.

argh, flash!

You might think it's a bit like Essie Skirting The Issue from a previous post, and you might be right. But this is enough to be different and different enough that i forked out £18 for a bottle. I think the shimmer is the difference. It's red shimmer. It says 'christmas party' sparkle to me.

weird finger position shot

It's deep dark, plummy, red with the most gorgeous shimmer in it. The good thing about this is that in daylight it still leans dark plum/purple/wine and not the brownish tint that i feel OPI does.

I used to struggle with Chanel's thinner brush. Yes, I'm talking about you Chanel Mimosa! But the brush on both this bottle and my beloved Rouge Carat seem to work with ease. Perhaps I'm just getting better at application.

The formula on this was great. No runny mess, no gloopy thick stuff, just right. As ever my pictures are OPI nail envy base coat, two coats of polish and I don't bother with a top coat as i like to change my polish often. It lasted a good 3 days without the topcoat and only minor signs of wear of the ends. You can find more amazing swatches over at Temptalia

Perfect deep dark red party nails

hands look weird, don't they?!

I love this colour. It's a proper classy dark red/wine shimmer shade. It's like a darker version of my other love, Rouge Carat from last years winter collection. With a little black dress, I'll sure to be swapping between these two through this party season!

Angela x

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NOTD - Essie Fiji

It's taken me a while to post on Essie Fiji. I bought it about a month ago at the same time as Bahama Mama.

Essie Fiji is a pale pale pink. It's opaque in 2 coats but if like me you have ridged nails then you're probably going to need 3 coats if you like that perfected look. As ever 2 coats is my norm.

My nails have been a bit of a state ever since i got a shellac manicure done back in February. My thumbs and index fingers on both hands are badly ridged and no amount of buffing will ever get rid of it. Having run out of OPI Nail Envy i reordered a new bottle and set about my nails with it. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and it has helped the splitting that was happening on my right hand. I don't know if it's because of that too, but my nails seem to be growing at an alarming pace. That's sounds a bit dramatic eh. What i mean is that I need to cut and file them every week to keep them to the length i like. Actually, they're a bit longer than my new ideal just now.

Back to Fiji. For me this is the perfect pale pink, almost white tipped like colour. It's not sheer enough for a french manicure but this is a colour i like to wear when I'm fed up with brights. Although i do change my colour every few days so no doubt by tomorrow i'll be wearing something else.

excuse the little dent in the middle finger

I bought this from Boots for £7.99. It comes with the wider brush which i've said before i much prefer. I think Rimmel do the wide brushes and it makes application easier. I suspect if this had the way too thin Essie brush of old i'd have much less pleasure applying it. First coat is just laying down the colour for me. I leave it and then apply a second coat. As usual i never do a third coat because i really don't have time to sit and wait on it. And no, i don't have fast drying top coats either.

nice pale pink

The colour was easy to apply, with the wide brush. I like the opacity of two coats but i can still see the ridges on thumbs and index finger on one hand. Two coats have lasted me about 3 days and that's with me washing wall tiles and blinds with cleaning agents, dipping my hands in and out of water, washing dishes, washing my hair and showering.

Ridges on show, but nice colour

If I could sum this colour up it would be slightly lighter than the pink marshmallows that i love to buy from Tesco.

If you're after that perfect pale opaque creamy pink and can buy the wider brush bottle from Boots, then this is the colour for you. I really really like it.

Angela x

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NOTD - Essie Bahama Mama

I got Boots vouchers through the post. Those quarterly little tear off vouches you get with your Boots points statements. I've been spending more money in there lately so I've notched up quite a few points. Also,this time the vouchers they'd enclosed were more useful to me than the previous ones. So on my first day off in a few weeks (or a month at least), i took myself off to Glasgow to buy some things I'd read about online. Whilst in Boots i never intended to buy even more nail polish but this voucher I'd got was 2 x Essie nail polishes for £12. Only a £2.99 saving on buy 2 separate bottles but it was enough to get me to open my purse. I bought Fiji, the much talked about pastel pink shade and I got this lush colour that caught my eye! I give you Essie Bahama Mama. A lush cream mid maroon colour. Now, when i say maroon i really mean wine, or burgundy. Or juicy grape? You can decide for yourself. The pics below, although taken on my iPhone 4S, are pretty close to the exact colour you can achieve on the nails.

I'd been after a colour just like this since I'd bought OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and realised that it was in fact a bit too dark for my finger nails, great on the toes though. This doesn't have shimmer in it and was opaque in two coats. It's that sophisticated dark polish you can wear with jeans or a nice dress. Once again the wider brush on the Essie polishes from Boots is a dream to use. I LOVE a wide brush. The consistency of this polish is great. The right side of thick, and thin enough to move.

nice wide brush on the Essie polishes

Essie Bahama Mama (left), Essie Fiji (right)

I think this will be my go to 'dark' polish. It was a purchase on a whim and I'm glad that whim took my fancy. I've not tried Fiji yet but I'll let you know how that goes later...

Angela x

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NOTD: Essie Tour De Finance

This past weekend's nails took a turn towards the seaside. Well, not the actual seaside but like a stick of rock you'd buy from a seafront souvenir stall. Lovely bright fuchsia hot pink with a shot of tiny blue/purple toned shimmer. i know, that's some description hey. You can sort of see what I mean in the photos.

slight purple blue shimmer shot through hot pink

This, my friends, is the luscious Tour De Finance from Essie. Fast becoming a favourite nail polish brand. This is from the Essie Spring collection launched a few months back and is still available. I was immediately drawn to the pop of pink. But when it arrived i loved that fact that it had that shot of purple blue shimmer in it. It gives a real depth. I bought this from my favourite eBay shop so it doesn't come with the new wider brush that the current collection in Boots has. I do love a wide brush. In saying that, applying this slowly with the thinner brush was fine for me. I'm getting better at nail polish application.

The formula is good on these polishes. Not too thick or too runny either. As always I use 2 coats because i can't be bothered waiting on a third coat to dry. But if you want that perfect opaque then three coats is your friend. I don't talk away wear either as I get so impatient that i swap colours every few days. What can i say i like to change it up a bit.

close up using macro lens on iPhone 4S

This is a colour that make me smile when I look at it. Perfect for the summer months and sure to give any outfit a lift. I prefer these hot pinks to corals. They suit my paler skin tone better. But, I think i may have found a perfect coral pink shade too. More on that in another post...

For now, Essie Tour De Finance. Great colour. Good application. 

For info, all photos in this post were taken using the iOS camera app on my iPhone 4S. Close ups were taken using my macro lens. Pretty good.

Angela x

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NOTD Essie mint candy apple

This here is a post about my nails and how I paint them on occasion. I've done a couple of posts like these because I quite like painting my nails now, after years of never having anything more than the palest of pink nail polishes.

Thursday night I gave into the hype that surrounds Essie mint candy apple polish and bought it from Boots, who now stock Essie polishes. Before I'd have gotten them from my favourite shop on eBay. So here it is.

Ok so it looks more green here, but in real life for me it is blue-er

First off it's £7.99 from Boots which is a bit middle of the road (price wise) for nail polish. Some cost £3.99 and others can go as high as £16. Depends on the brand really. So although not really cheap, it was cheap enough for me to be interested enough to buy this colour that everyone and their granny raves about. Second of all, there's new brushes. A wider brush is the order of the day here. Well done Essie!! no more of those skinny minny brushes please. The wider brushes make applying nail polish a heck of a lot easier. I really love the Rimmel brushes for this fact. Anyway it applied okay. I used two coats for the picture. But honestly I can't ever be bothered to do three coats of polish. Too much time waiting for it to dry. I used a Seche Vite base coat too. The colour was a bit streaky but ended up fine.

In the bottle I'd say mint candy apple was leaning more darker than I expected. On my nails I think it leaned more blue than green, and if I'm really honest I don't think it suits my skin tone. I liked it, but only a tiny bit. I'm not sure I'll wear it again. I mean I will wear it but maybe not that often.

Essie As gold as it gets from the Luxe Effects range

I did end up trying a few glitters over the top and that was a much better way to wear it. I used the Essie luxeffects As Gold as it Gets shimmer polish and it made the mint candy apple a much more pleasing mint, leaning towards green. This was more like it. The gold shimmer brought it to life. This will be the way I wear it again. I also tried some OPI Rainbow Collection multi glitter over the top just as I was about to take it off. It rocked and I'd wear it this way too.

Overall a good enough formula, good wide brush and a nice colour. But it just doesn't suit me. Or does it, what do you think?

Angela x


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