Essence Rock My World

Hello my lovelies! I feel like I say this every week, but I have no idea where the time went. It was a busy one but a great one at the same time so I can't complain. Today's post is a swatch of a pretty unusual polish. The last posts have been about some kind of nail art, so it was time for a nice swatch. After all, I really love to just talk about polish. Let's see what we're looking at today, shall we?

Essence Rock My World indoors, artificial light

First Snow

Hello my lovelies! Can you believe this week is almost over? Christmas went by so fast! I'm looking forward to the new year and a fresh start. Today was a good day because when I woke up this morning everything was covered in snow. It was the first proper snow of this year and even though it started to melt immediately there is still some left as I'm writing this. To go with that I'm gonna show you a manicure I wore last week. It was actually a recreation of my snowflake sandwich using a nude jelly. Here's how it looks.

Monday Blues: Dreaming of Snow

Hello my lovelies! It's almost dinner time in my neck of the woods so I think this is the latest I've ever posted the Monday Blues post. Better late than never is what I always say! I've been at work today and then I did some Christmas shopping and then here we are. I hear that there won't be any snow this Christmas in my town, which makes me a little sad because it's the only time of the year when I love snow. And that's because I can stay at home and don't have to shovel it around or anything like that. I'm trying to make myself feel better by looking at these nails. They totally remind me of snow and give me that winter feeling.

Milky Jelly Sandwich

Hello my lovelies! I'm still away and this is another scheduled post that will hopefully go up when it's supposed to. If you haven't already noticed, one of my biggest obsessions as of late are jelly sandwiches. They are so easy to create and give such a nice look to the nails! The sandwich I'm showing you today was created with the help of a couple of nude polishes and a very interesting glitter. Here's what I'm talking about.

Monday Blues: Essence Glorious Blue Sky

Hello my lovelies! Welcome to the Monday Blues of 2014! Today is the first Monday of the year, which means that it's the first Monday Blues post and my first day at work as a doctor. I'm sure most of you are also going back to work or school today, so I have a lovely shade of blue to brighten your mood. 

Essence Glorious Blue Sky indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Essence Blue Addicted

Hello my lovelies! Today is the start of my last week of studying. I will probably not post as much as I usually do so the blog will be a little quieter this week. Please bare with me until this passes! Today's Monday Blues is another happy story. This polish has been on my wishlist for ages, but it's been discontinued a long time ago. I was sure it would never fall into my hands, but then through an immense luck and through Chiro's blog sale it did. Oh happy day!

Essence Blue Addicted indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Waking Up At Midnight

Hello my lovelies! It's time for me to take your Monday blues away with a beautiful polish. Last week's post wasn't a very positive one because I talked about a polish that was a fail for me. To make up for that, I have a very happy story to tell today. A while ago I saw this beautiful franken called Waking Up At Midnight on Chiro's nails. If you don't know what a franken is, it's a custom polish created by mixing different polishes together. This particular one has been designed by Jeanette aka The Swatchaholic (you can go to the original post containing the recipe by clicking on the link). I didn't have some of the ingredients needed back then, so Chiro was sweet enough to send me a bottle. Here's how this beauty looks on the nails. 

Waking Up At Midnight over Essence Hard to Resist indoors, artificial light

Essence Life Is A Freeride

Hello my lovelies! The theme for today's untried challenge was "cool", which is perfect for me because most of the polishes I use are in the cool spectrum. This particular one comes from the Snow Jam collection from Essence and it's the only one in this collection that I haven't shown you yet. Of course in the meantime this collection got pretty hard to find but I hope you will still enjoy the beautiful polish. 

Essence Life Is A Freeride indoors, artificial light

Born Pretty Store Nail Studs Review

Hello my lovelies! Excited about the weekend? It's mostly gonna be just work for me this week, but I'm throwing in some fun cause there's a beauty expo in town. Hope I don't spend too much! Today I want to talk to you about studs. You probably know by now that I'm a big fan of studs on the nails. I've shown you a stud wheel from Born Pretty Store before (review here), so this time I'm showing you the other stud wheel they have available in the store. I had to have these too!

Born Pretty Store studs*

Polish Days: To Boldly Go

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are doing better than me today. I'm overly stressed with graduation stuff and exams coming up, so blogging is pretty hard since I can't really concentrate on anything. Another month went by and the time has come for another Polish Days event. I wouldn't miss it for the world! This month's theme is sci-fi and space related, so I decided to go exactly where the name takes me. "To boldly go where no man has gone before": Star Trek. 

Colorful Stripes

Hello lovelies! I hope your day is full of sun! Over here it's raining like it's fall and I have no idea where summer went. Oh well. Today's post comes from the untried challenge I started a few weeks ago. The theme for today was "Three Colors" and here's what I came up with. 

Glitter is my style

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! I hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather today. I plan to do so because it's my last day of holiday. I'm already dreading tomorrow. But back to happy thoughts, I have some older pictures to show you today. I wore this manicure before Easter and before I shortened my nails, so you will see that my nails look very long in these pictures. This was the point where I couldn't take it anymore and had to take them down. I started with a base of Essence Lilac Is My Style. 

Essence Lilac Is My Style indoors, artificial light

Fancy Glitter Pants

Hello my loves and happy Sunday! I'm going all out with the crazy names for my posts lately. Again I was inspired by the name of the polish that I used for today's manicure. It's my second pick from the China Glaze Avant Garden collection. Frankly, I'm really surprised that I only got 2 polishes from this collection. I guess I liked the older China Glaze spring collections better. Or maybe I'm getting more and more picky. Anyway, let's get to the nails! 

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

Fancy Pants is a really awesome polish but it's impossible to photograph, so I had to alter it a bit to show the true color. It's quite funny that the name reminds me of American Dad. The polish is blurple, which means it's somewhere between blue and purple. I see it more as a purple than as a blue, so it sits together with my purple swatch sticks. There's also a lovely pink shimmer in there that is quite visible, even though it is subtle. It's definitely an original polish and I love that about it. 

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

I found the formula of this polish a little thick, but I still managed to work with it pretty easily. I did 2 coats to make it opaque. Then I felt it needed a little something extra and so I did some multicolored glitter tips using Essence Circus Confetti. It looked a lot better in reality but this kind of glitter is hard to photograph. It totally freaked my camera out and I could barely find a few photos that were properly focused. 

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

These nails were fun to wear even though the glitter was a pain to remove. That's why I avoid using glitter that often. Otherwise I would probably use glitter for every single manicure because it's truly amazing. Do you agree?

Essence Colour3 Boys Are Back In Town

Hello my lovelies! I'm almost done with my exams and I have more free time than last week, but I'm still feeling quite uninspired. I decided to post something from the vault today because these pictures have been sitting on my computer for too long and it might be your last chance to get this polish. Essence has discontinued the Colour3 polishes, but they are still available here and there, so maybe you can find them on clearance somewhere. The one I'm showing you today is more of a neutral combo. Let's start with the base polish. 

Essence Boys Are Back In Town indoors, artificial direct light

Boys Are Back In Town is quite an interesting creme. It's somewhere between grey and purple, very elegant and less boring than other neutral shades. Of course it didn't photograph accurately like most of these colors. It's more grey in reality but it also depends on the light. The formula was nice and I managed to get it opaque in 2 coats. What you see above is 2 coats without any top coat. It's definitely shiny so please excuse the reflection. However, the best part about this duo is the shimmer top coat. 

Essence It's Just A Little Crush over Boys Are Back In Town indoors, artificial light

If the base color doesn't convince you to get this duo, the top coat will. It's a beautiful and dense shimmer in a clear base. There are multiple colors of shimmer in there, like purple and blue, even though they don't show up right in photos. I really did my best to capture the effect. 

Essence It's Just A Little Crush over Boys Are Back In Town indoors, artificial light

What I love about this is the density of the shimmer. It only took one coat to get this result. I haven't tried layering it over other colors but I'm sure it would look great over anything. 

Essence It's Just A Little Crush over Boys Are Back In Town indoors, artificial direct light

I hope you enjoyed looking at this beauty. If you can still find it and don't have it I really think you should get it. It's hard to find such a good layering shimmer, especially for an affordable price. 

Monday Blues: Essence Goofy Blue

Hello my lovelies! On top of it being Monday, today it's supposed to snow. I'm so over this weather! We all need a cool blue to take out Monday Blues away and remind us that spring is almost here. I've got the perfect fix for you. Enjoy! 

Essence Goofy Blue indoors, artificial light

Isn't this amazing? Goofy Blue is one of the Snow Jam polishes and in my opinion it's the best in this collection. It's a cornflower blue with tiny silver flecks. Color-wise, this is very similar to Orly Snowcone, and the finish reminds me of Essie Smooth Sailing. If these two polishes made a baby, it would totally look like Goofy Blue. The polish photographed a lot more saturated than in real life, so I did some color correcting in order to make the pictures look accurate. 

Essence Goofy Blue indoors, artificial light

The formula of this polish was also amazing. It's really pigmented and it could be opaque in just one coat, but I did 2 because I had a few bald spots to cover. It applied like a dream and almost no cleanup was necessary. I applied a coat of Seche Vite on top even though it dried very very shiny. 

Essence Goofy Blue indoors, artificial light

I love this polish so much! I'm even thinking of getting a backup. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and please check out the links below for more blues! 

Polish Days: Vintage and France

Hello lovelies! It's Polish Days time again and this month the theme is "Vintage". Some of you know that I'm also doing the Where In The World challenge and the next country I have to visit is France. I don't usually do two challenges in one but this time I had a great idea that worked for both. I hope nobody will mind if I post both Inlinkz codes at the end. Here's the manicure I wanna show you today. 

The inspiration for this manicure comes from a photo I took while I was in France. This white and gold organ can be found at the Versailles palace in a room called Madame Adelaide’s Large Chamber. I thought it was very pretty and elegant and so I photographed it randomly when I was visiting the palace. 

I tried to recreate the feel of this piece of art on my nails. I started with a base of Essence Top of the Ice-stream from the Snow Jam collection. It's a very sheer white jelly with blue and purple shimmer. This polish is not for everyone as it needs a lot of coats to be opaque. I did 3 and there was still some visible nail line present. But I must admit that I love how pretty and subtle it looks, especially with the shimmer sparkling in the sun. 

Essence Top of the Ice-stream in the sun

I wanted to recreate the rich gold pattern on the nails, but of course I didn't have the proper plate. I ended up stamping an image from plate CH14 from Cheeky. It has flowers, so it's not perfect for this, but somehow I think it gives the vintage feel. I used Golden Rose Nail Art 108 for the stamping. 

Then I thought I should make it matte to give it even more of a vintage feel. I couldn't decide if I liked it better matte or glossy. What do you think? 

Please don't forget to check out the other Polish Days manicures! 

And the other France manicures! 

Thank you for stopping by! 

Essence Grey-t To Be Here

Hello my lovelies! It's Sunday again and I have another Essence polish to show you. This is one of the new Colour&Go shades and I had to try it because I have a thing for grey polish. Plus this one has a little something extra in it so it's definitely one of the interesting polishes from the collection. 

Essence Grey-t To Be Here indoors, artificial light

I actually wore this at the beginning of December and I'm only posting it now. Somehow it fell on the backlog because of the winter challenge. I tried to use it as a base for the first challenge and stamped some snowflakes over it with a Kleancolor polish which started to literally melt when I put top coat over it. So I had to take it off and used something else instead. But nonetheless, I wore this for a day and liked it a lot. 

Essence Grey-t To Be Here indoors, artificial light

Grey-t To Be Here is a light grey with tiny pink shimmer. The shimmer is not very evident, but it is pretty visible and it gives subtle beauty to this shade. It's one of those work appropriate polishes that are not boring at all.

Essence Grey-t To Be Here indoors, artificial light

I found the formula of this polish to be a little runny, which combined with the huge mop brush of this brand leads to flooding of the cuticles. So you definitely need to be careful with application. I managed to get it opaque in 2 coats, so the pigmentation is not bad at all in the end. It dries to a shiny finish, but I used some Seche Vite on top to make it dry faster. 

Essence Grey-t To Be Here indoors, artificial direct light

I'm a big fan of grey polishes and I don't have that many, so this one is a welcome addition to my collection. For me grey is the perfect neutral shade that I prefer over any nude. It's both elegant and classy while being stylish at the same time. 

My Picks From The Essence Twilight Breaking Dawn 2 TE

Hello lovelies and happy Sunday! Today I'm showing you half of the Twilight Breaking Dawn 2 Trend Edition by Essence. The collection has 4 polishes and I only got 2 of them because the other 2 (a yellow-toned gold foil and a black with silver shimmer) didn't appeal to me at all. I'm not sure if this collection is still available where you live, but I think it's still in stores over here. From the start I would like to point out that I'm not a Twilight fan, I have no idea what the names mean, but I love vampy polishes and the ones I got are beautiful, so I had to have them. 

Essence Jacob's Protection indoors, artificial light

First up we have Jacob's Protection. It's a really dense blue shimmer in an almost black base. I've also caught a glimpse of purple and even green in that shimmer, but it was impossible to capture it on camera. This polish photographs a lot more flat than it actually looks. It's a lot prettier in real life. 

Essence Jacob's Protection indoors, artificial light

The formula on this one was on the thicker side, but still manageable. I did 2 coats with no top coat for these pictures. These polishes have a ridiculously huge brush, which makes application hard from my point of view. I really don't know the size of the nail bed that would benefit from such a brush. 

Essence Jacob's Protection indoors, artificial direct light

As you can see in the picture above, it looks less flat in direct light. The color of the shimmer is still not visible in all its beauty. Both these polishes dried fast to a shiny finish. Unfortunately, like most of the Essence polishes, they tend to chip after just one day of wear. The chips are not big, just at the very tip of the nail, but they are enough for my obsessive compulsive eye to see. 

Essence Alice Had A Vision - Again indoors, artificial light

The second one is Alice Had A Vision - Again. If you ask me, the name is ridiculous. But of course I don't know the story behind it. This one photographed a bit better. It's a dense purple shimmer in a dark base. Like the other one, it has a few green shimmer pieces that are hardly visible to the naked eye. 

Essence Alice Had A Vision - Again indoors, artificial light

Application was a little better with this one, although the huge brush is still there. I did 2 coats without any top coat for these swatches. All in all, I like these polishes and I'm glad I got them, even though durability is not the best. They are still great, especially for winter and as bases for nail art. 

Essence Oh My Glitter!

Hello lovelies! How are you doing today? The end of the year is so near to us and I have a couple of 2012 favorites posts planned for you, but today I want to show you a polish from Essence that I haven't had the chance to post about, even though I wore it more than a month ago. I tell you, that swatch folder is so full of stuff, and I don't really know when I will post all of that. 

Essence Oh My Glitter! indoors, artificial light

Oh My Glitter! is one of the new Colour&Go polishes that came out this year, and I also think it's one of the popular ones. I totally understand that, because it's really beautiful. However, I don't understand the name. I really hope that the Essence people don't think that this is glitter, because there's absolutely no glitter in this polish. 

Essence Oh My Glitter! indoors, artificial light

What we have here is a light purple with pink iridescent shimmer. It looks more blue toned in my photos than it is in reality. The consistency is on the thinner side, and I did 2 coats to achieve this look. The 2nd coat was a little thicker though, to make it opaque. The new brush however, is a real pain. It's monstrously huge and thick like a mop. If it wasn't for the great formula of this polish, application would be a nightmare. Another good thing about this polish is that it dries to a high shine. 

Essence Oh My Glitter! indoors, artificial direct light

 I also stamped a cute Hello Kitty image on the ring finger using plate FUN1 and China Glaze Liquid Leather. Excuse the shrinkage that my Seche Vite produced. 

This polish is great, especially for warmer seasons, and I can't wait to wear it next spring. There are a lot of good colors in the new Colour&Go line. I just wish they didn't have that awful huge brush. 

Winter Holiday Challenge: New Year's Eve

Hello my lovelies! How fast does the time fly! I feel like just yesterday I was starting this challenge and now Christmas is over and we're so close to the end of the year. This is the final installment of the Winter Holiday Challenge. I'm so happy I finished this one and did every single one of the themes. And to think that I was almost going to give up before it even started! There were some bumps on the road, but in the end I managed to post each of the manicures in time. Yay! So today's theme is: New Year's Eve. 

Since this is a holiday where people usually dress up nicely and go to fancy parties, I had to include glitter in my design. Gold seemed also appropriate for the occasion. Most of the polishes I used come from Essence, except for the one I stamped with. The base is Essence Ticket To The Show from the Colour3 line. It was a Christmas gift from my sister, so I had to use it immediately. Here's a photo of Ticket To The Show by itself. 

Essence Ticket To The Show indoors, artificial light

Unfortunately, it did not photograph as pretty as it is in real life. The dark brown base is filled with tiny pink, green and gold shimmer. This shimmer doesn't stand out in the photo, but I assure you it looks better in real life. This was opaque in 2 easy coats and it dried to a nice shiny finish. The photo shows it without any top coat. 

I layered the other half of the Colour3 duo on the ring finger and thumb. It's called Front Row or Backstage? and is a very dense gold shimmer in a sheer brown base. You can't see it very well on the ring finger because I stamped over it with an image from plate CH9 from Cheeky and my trusty Golden Rose Nail Art 108 striper. The other nails have a glitter gradient which I did with Essence Make It Golden. I didn't use any sponges and just brushed the glitter on there, focusing more on the tip. 

Above you can see a better shot of the thumb, with Front Row or Backstage? peeking through. This is actually pretty opaque and does not show the base color, like other Colour3 layering ends do. Over it, I stamped an image from plate FUN2 with the same gold striper. Please forgive the awkward hand poses, but as I've told you before, my thumb is not very flexible and it's very hard to show it properly in pictures. 

Once again, I thank you for reading and looking at my pictures. Thank you for being by my side through this challenge. I really hope that you will visit me again to see my other challenges (Monday Blues, Where In The World or Polyvore Collage Day), as well as other swatches or nail art posts I will do in the future. Finally, don't forget to check out some amazing blogs below!