Shorty Post--A England Dragon

A England has an excellent reputation for their polish; pigmented, excellent formula, exquisite beauty. I recently tried my first polish from them, Dragon. It is a green-lover's dream with a scattered holo. (I'm learning to use a new camera and a new photo editing program, so please bear with me.)
*I purchased this polish myself and have received no samples or compensation for this post.*

A England definitely lived up to its reputation with Dragon. The photo shows two coats over a base coat and one coat of Poshe top coat and is after housecleaning, so it wore well. (I believe that the top coat may have dulled the holo a little, because the top coat was getting a little cloudy.) The formula was great and easy to apply. If you have short nails, you can get away with one coat of Dragon if you paint evenly.

If you live in the UK you can order from A England directly: http://a-england.co.uk/. Otherwise, they have a long list of international stockists here: http://a-england.co.uk/where-to-buy/. I bought mine from Llarowe; regular price is $10.00. 

Review and Swatches--Essie First Timer

What, another creme nail polish? Yup, that's my spring mood so far, and recent collections in stores have been very accommodating. 
*I purchased this product with my own money and I am not affiliated with nor compensated by any of the brands mentioned in this post.*

Essie makes some of my favorite creme polishes, so I have been on a little kick with them lately. This beauty is call First Timer and is from their Resort 2013 collection (the same collection as In the Cab-ana).

The consistency was thin, but fortunately it didn't make the coverage poor or streaky. All photos show two coats Essie First Timer and one coat Poshe top coat. 

Inside the house under natural light, First Timer pulled a lot more blue. Most of the time, it was the vibrant green that you see in my sunny photos. 

I was very happy with this polish. I am a big fan of green and kept looking at my nails while wearing it. It chipped sooner than I would have liked, which isn't a big deal for me since I change my polish so often, but maybe something to keep in mind if you want your manicure to be long-lasting. 

Essie nail polish usually retails for $8.00 and can be purchased at stores like WalMart, CVS, and Target as well as on their Web site. 

*I purchased this product with my own money and I am not affiliated with nor compensated by any of the brands mentioned in this post.*

Mint Candy Apple In the Spotlight

Essie Mint Candy Apple is a beautiful polish. I still wanted to dress it up, but without detracting from it. I decided glittery accent nails would do the trick.
*I purchased this product with my own money and I am not affiliated with or compensated by any of the brands mentioned in this post.*

The glitter accent nails are painted with two coats of Sinful Colors In the Spotlight over my original Essie Mint Candy Apple mani, which I posted about here.

I was happy with the contrast between the finishes; the metallic aqua color of In the Spotlight with its rainbow glitter and the soft green creme of Mint Candy Apple.

Look at all the different shades of glitter that In the Spotlight has to offer:

I used one coat of Seche Vite over the accent nails to smooth out the glitter, although the glitter was not overly rough. 

It seems like you could build up In the Spotlight to be opaque and wear it on its own. The aqua base seems to have a foil finish.

I purchased Sinful Colors In the Spotlight at my local Walgreen's. I believe that they usually retail for $1.99, but I combined a coupon and my loyalty card and got three Sinful Colors polishes for only 99 cents each.

You can also purchase Sinful Colors polish in the U.S. at Target, Rite Aid, and WalMart. They are available at other retailers, too, according to their Web site, which has the complete list of where to buy.

Application was very nice and easy, but the polish chipped quickly. But for the price, I still got my money's worth, as I had a full day of staring at the sparklies. 

I have several other shades by Sinful Colors, as they are constantly putting out different ones that call to me. A similar brand, to me, is Spoiled. These are made by Wet 'n' Wild at the same price point as Sinful Colors. I buy them at CVS. I don't see as much variety in the Spoiled line as I do in the Sinful Colors line, but I really like their shades. Several of them are dupes of expensive polishes.

What do you think? Do you have any inexpensive polishes that you like to use?

*I purchased this product with my own money and I am not affiliated with or compensated by any of the brands mentioned in this post.*

Nail Fail--Smoosh!

Or, the day one bit of vanity devoured another...

Sometimes a look at another person's foibles can make us laugh or sympathize (or both) and can make a bad day better because you are not alone. That is why I'm sharing this Fail with you, just in case anyone needs it.

I was getting dressed up to go out for the evening, and my dress included the fabric shown below. The colors are somewhat reminiscent of peacock plumage. I was already wearing Essence Colour & Go nail polish in the shade 'Date in the Moonlight', a dark blue with an almost hidden royal blue shimmer. 

That day, I had just received in the mail from a blog sale Essence Nail Art Special Effects Glitter topper in 'Mrs. and Mr. Glitter'--perfect! Blue, green and black medium hex glitter, flashy fun. Then I added two coats of Gelous to make it glossy and glassy. I was happy, staring at my hands, rather proud of the manicure. I put a quick-dry top coat on and the polish was rapidly dry to the touch. 

The fatal mistake was trying to flatten my stomach--vanity. I started to put on a...Spanx-like apparatus...very carefully so as to not dent my nail polish. Dry to the touch is apparently a lot different than dry to the smoosh. One wrong snap of the elastic and the glossy, glassy glitter goodness died a slow, painful death.

Every layer of nail polish crinkled up toward my cuticles, even my base color from the day before. Above is my right hand, which fared better than my left, below.

Quick-dry top coat can't make you smarter. :)

Sephora by OPI Leaf Him At The Altar

Just a quick post today to highlight a surprise winner (at least, for me) of a polish. 

Sephora by OPI Leaf Him At The Altar 

I received a mini bottle of this polish, Sephora by OPI Leaf Him At The Altar, in a trade through one of the members on makeuptalk.com. I am sure that it was originally part of a set. Sephora does have the full size (0.5 oz) available for $9.50 on their website: http://www.sephora.com/nail-colour-P217311?skuId=1391150 

Indoors with flash

Indoors without flash

I was not expecting much from this little polish, but I loved everything about it. Application was smooth and easy; I believe this was two coats. I cannot speak as to wear time, as I change my polish so often that I only notice bad wear time if the polish chips on the first day, which did not happen. I was bound to love the color, a lovely metallic green with a golden sheen. Metallic polishes often show a terrible amount of brush strokes, but Leaf Him At The Altar did not.

What do you think? Have you tried any of the Sephora by OPI polishes? Were they a hit, or a miss?

*I am not affiliated with any of the brands mentioned above, and I have not received any compensation for this post.*

Blue/green tape mani

Scotch tape is very useful. Through the wonders of the Internet, I found out that it is even useful for nail art. Some of the ladies online do tape manis that would blow your mind, like Erika from the seemingly-on-hiatus blog Chloe's Nails. I have started with a simple design, while I get used to the details like when to take off the tape, how hard to press down the tape, blah blah blah.

 

 

The lovely bright green creme is Courteney, by Julep, which is I used as my base color. (Julep nail colors retail for $14.00, but are $11.20 if you are part of their Maven program. My referral link to their subscription service: http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/25580/). I believe it was two coats. While Courteney is vibrant, there is a softness to the shade as well, so it is not neon.

 

After the base color dried, I put diagonal strips of tape over about half of each nail, and then painted on the blue shade. I removed each strip of tape after painting each nail.

 

The pop of blue for contrast is Mesmerized by Essie. (Essie nail polish typically retails for $8.00 and can be purchased on http://www.essie.com/shop/, or at retailers like CVS, Target, and I believe WalMart.) If you like blue, you kind of need this shade.

 

I adore both of these polishes. Yep, I used them again for a slightly different mani, shown below. This one was far less precise, since I didn't use any tape, just a blue brush stroke down the middle of my green polished nail.

 

 

 

I apologize for the older, grainy photos, but I enjoyed this color combination so much that I had to share it anyway.

 

What do you think? Have you ever tried a Scotch tape mani?

Yoshi Eggs Manicure

I was in the mood for some cartoon-ish nail art, simple but fun. The end result reminds me of the eggs associated with Yoshi in the Super Mario Bros. world.

 

 



I used a Seche base coat. The dark green is a shade called Hoch, from Julep's Trina Turk 2012 Fall Collection. (Julep is a company that offers a monthly nail polish subscription service: http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/25580/) I used my large dotting tool and White on the Spot by Milani for the dots. Next time, I would use a different white polish. White on the Spot is a quick-dry polish, so it tended to leave behind strings as I pulled away from making dots.

 

This is a cheerful manicure for me. I did like Hoch by itself, a gorgeous green creme, but I wanted something more fun today. Beware, though, that greens and blues are notorious for staining. Usually a good base coat prevents the staining from becoming a problem for me. 

I've been sick for a week and have had bare fingernails. BARE NAILS, NO POLISH! Oh, wait, that probably isn't worth all of those capital letters to most people. However, I am an obsessive compulsive person. As much as I love the look of nail polish, it also serves a practical purpose for me. When my nails are not painted, I have a terrible compulsion to pick at them. If I keep them painted, I let them grow out healthy and undisturbed. You will find that many current nail polish addicts used to be nailbiters, and nail polish helped them to break the habit or helps them to resist it. I don't have a nailbiting problem, but the principle is similar. So...it feels great to have polished nails again!

Also, Hoch was a shade of nail polish that was in my large section of "Untrieds". If you are an addict of any kind of beauty product, it can be quite helpful to separate the products that you have not tried yet from the others. This way you get a nice visual reminder to help you to buy a little less of whatever your addiction feeds upon.