Essie - She's Picture Perfect

Hi everyone! Here's another post as I try to get back on a good schedule. Yes, I have nubbins again. I broke off my left middle nail opening my car door.. I always break nails doing the silliest things. I think I need to invest in some Derma Nail, I read about it over on loodie loodie loodie's blog and it sounds like what I need. My nails are so brittle and peely and need a lot of moisture. :(

She's Picture Perfect is from Essie's new Resort collection for 2012. It has a lot of great colors and I picked up a few. SPP is, I think, my favorite light purple! It's a lovely shade of lilac with very faint pink shimmer. The biggest thing for me is that it's a light, almost pastel, purple that has NO application problems at all. This was 2 coats with no special care taken to smooth it out. I was bowled over by that. You know my contentious relationship with Essie's formula, so I think you can understand why I'm so pleased. I can't recommend this color enough. I don't have anything like it!

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Essie - Navigate Her

Hello there! Here's a quick post of a new color. Navigate Her is a recent release from Essie for Spring, and I think it's a great fit for the season. It's a slightly yellow dusty light green that makes me think of pistachios and mint milkshakes and fresh, tiny tree branches. It's fun and clean. :) I know I've complained about Essie's formula in the past and I still wouldn't say it's one of my favorites, but I've learned how to deal with it. This applied fairly easy for an Essie. The first coat was streaky but the second evened things out nicely. It will look uneven before you put on top coat but these Essie cremes seem to just need some time to settle down and get smooth.

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Essie - Van D'Go

Hello everyone! Whew, it's been a hectic week. Glad I finally found time to get a post together. This is a polish I recently received in a swap. Van D'Go is a peachy pink, not too orange to look odd on my pale skin but peachy enough to be different than a regular pink. This did take 3 coats with some streaking but, well.. it's a light pink. What else do you expect? I'm not the biggest fan of Essie's formula in general anyways, but it's tolerable for this. It's a nice, fresh, girly color that I think would look great with some stamping or other art on it. I was tempted to use my Hello Kitty stickers but I'll save those for another day. :)

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Essie - Turquoise & Caicos

Hi everyone! Back with another post. I recently did some more purging & reorganizing of my collection and while I was moving my Essies, I decided to give this a shot. T&C is, well.. turquoise! It's got a strong green hint to it but still has that nice greenish-blue mix to it. The color is great but the formula is lacking. Opacity took 4 coats for me and I can still see a little bit of my nails. I know that with long nails, I'll generally need an extra coat or two sometimes to fully cover VNL but 4 coats.. not a fan. Especially not since this reminds me a lot of China Glaze For Audrey which, if memory serves me right, will give me a pretty similar color in 2 or 3 coats. T&C also ended up with a few sheet marks and bubbles, which I'm not a fan of. Overall, I'd say it's not bad but not unique enough to merit putting up with the problems I encountered. I've always been on the fence about Essie because the formula can definitely be hit or miss and this was, unfortunately, a miss.

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Essie - Pretty Edgy

I'm back! How's everyone doing? Miss me? :) My swatch for today is a super-fun color and definitely one of my favorites. Pretty Edgy is green, green, green! It does pull ever so slightly blue on me but that may be my coloring. I think after putting on PE I've made my peace with the Essie jelly-creme formula. Sometimes it can be frustrating due to streaks, but on the whole it's smooth and is definitely the shiniest polish formula I've seen. My nails look like they're dipped in green glass. This covered nicely in 3 coats. I know it might seem a little out of place to have such a summery green in September but Summer doesn't end around here until late October, at least! Even then, I wear what I want to wear regardless of season. :)

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Essie - Smooth Sailing

Hello everyone! Sorry for the late update, there hasn't been much sun here the past few days so I couldn't take any photos. Florida went from the Sunshine State to the Torrential Downpour State this week. I finally got some sun while I was out running errands so here you go. This photo unfortunately doesn't show off the veeeery subtle pink and blue shimmer in Smooth Sailing but it does show the pretty, almost speckled finish it has. It kind of reminds me of light wash denim. This was a real joy to put on, it covered evenly and fully in 2 coats.

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I have a question about my photos for you all. I see other bloggers taking their photos while holding the polish bottle in their hand to show you the bottle color and color on the nail simultaneously. What do you think of that? Would it benefit you if I took my photos in that manner? Please let me know!

Essie - Your Hut or Mine

When I was younger I hated pink, protested it with all I had. It was mostly because of the girly connotations but I also could never find a pink that looked good. Now that I'm older I wear pink on occasion. I generally prefer richer tones as opposed to powdery pinks. When it comes to my nails I've been on an absolute pink spree lately! Your Hut or Mine is definitely one of my new favorites. It's a yummy light color that reminds me of watermelon or guava and it has the prettiest pinkish gold-orange shimmer in it too. Best of all, it's not a fussy Essie like a lot of the others (ahem, Mint Candy Apple and Borrowed and Blue, looking at you), it went on nicely in 2 coats.

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Essie - Midnight Cami

I wanted to like this, I did! Midnight Cami is the blue cousin to Sexy Divide, both almost black. However, Sexy Divide did a better job at not hiding its true color. Midnight Cami looks nice in the sun but the rest of the time I may as well be wearing black polish. This is a no go for someone like me who spends a lot of time indoors and in dim light. It is wonderfully pigmented though, needing only 2 coats if I recall correctly. Best of all it didn't stain my skin one bit when I took it off!

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Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Here's a fun little spring manicure for you. Essie Mint Candy Apple is a nice mint green color but it suffers from the same watery streakiness that Borrowed & Blue does. You have to let it flow onto the nail, not paint it on. It did go on in two coats though, so that's always nice. I did have some dings and bald spots but it didn't matter too much since I was planning to decorate it anyways. These nail decals are from Sally Beauty Supply and are made by Cina. Really easy to put on.

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Have any spring plans? Looking forward to the Easter bunny's visit tomorrow?

Essie - Borrowed & Blue

This color makes me so very happy! Part of Essie's new bridal collection, Borrowed & Blue is the perfect pastel blue for me. I really wanted to love Hard Candy's Sky but it was a streaky, terrible mess. B&B has its own problems but with a careful hand and two coats, you get great results. This is a perfect color for spring and would be a great base for some spring or summer related nail art.

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Essie - Sexy Divide

Normally I choose my polish on a whim, eying colors until something pops out at me. But this was worn with intention. This beautiful blue-toned purple from Essie with pretty pink and blue shimmer went on my nails for a cause. My college club, the Feminist Student Alliance, just put on our annual charity production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. If you've never heard of TVM, it's a series of monologues that touch on female experience. Some are funny, some are sad, some are uplifting. We talk about the stories of all kinds of women and through these stories hope to help other women love themselves. For the performance, we wear all black with an accent color. This year's color was, you guessed it, purple. We chose it not only because it's pretty but also because it's the color generally used for domestic violence awareness. This matters because our primary beneficiary this year was The Spring of Tampa Bay, a wonderful volunteer-run local domestic violence shelter. Through the generosity and support of the community, we were able to raise about $3000 for The Spring. The remainder of the money goes to an organization called V-Day that acts as our parent organization for TVM. Their portion of the money will go towards global efforts to help women and girls. It was a tremendous, scary, and exciting process to direct and bring this year's production into fruition and I can't wait to do it again next year.

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Essie - Topless & Barefoot

Hello everyone! Today I have another current polish for you, this time a new release from Essie. It's called Topless & Barefoot. Essie was recently purchased by, I think, L'Oreal and so their distribution has widened to Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and other big chain stores. I picked this up at my local Walgreens. It's a nice beige that has a hint of pink in it to keep it from clashing with my skin. Many other beige colors are slightly yellow or brown and look gross on my nails. My only complaint with this polish is the formula. It's what I'd call a jelly-creme, meaning it has properties of both jelly and creme polishes. It's shiny like a jelly and has the pigmentation of a creme, which is good but can have its downsides. Some jelly-creme polishes, like this one, can go on a little streaky but then even out and settle down. They can also cling to the nail and show off ridges. Overall I'd say it's a nice enough shade if you can overlook those things. If you want to learn more about nail polish finishes, click here for a great reference.

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