Texture Week - Essence Here's My Number

Okay, this, simply put, is one awesome polish.This is probably my favourite sand polish I own. It is very beautiful, both when it is textured and with the top coat. Here's My Number is a charcoal grey polish that has small matte black glitter in it as well as slightly larger holographic glitter that flashes mainly blue, green and red. This was two coats.With the top coat on it looks kind of like OPI Midnight Blue Glitter on steroids.

 

Texture Week - Essence Me & My Lover

Well, this is one of the first sand-like polishes I tried (because I didn't want to spend money on OPI and not liking the textured trend at all) and it was quite a horrible miss for me. The polish itself is rather pretty, but after putting it on, it started to dry, which takes a long time on me. Thankfully it only needed two coats. To me this colour combined with texture just doesn't work :(

This polish looks great with a top coat, a kind of pink-red jelly with pink, yellow and gold irregular-shaped glitter.

Essence Fruity #4 One Kiwi A Day

I've given up a long time ago trying to understand how and when Essence trend editions appear around where I live. We certainly don't get all of them, more like every fifth if we're lucky. Plus they appear in the a chain of stores, and different shops might have different trend editions at the same time. It really is a mess.
So I try to just appreciate the nail polishes when see something I like. One Kiwi A Day is just such a polish. It is either a very yellow-leaning green, or vice versa, depending on the light source. The base has a subtle shimmer to it and bright green glitter in it which does make it look kiwi-like. I used 2 medium-thick coats.

NOTD: Essence Into The Dark

I have submitted my thesis on Tuesday. It feels so good!!!!! Now I have at least a week to procrastinate as well as meet all my friends I haven’t seen in ages, before I have to think of defending my work. Also, we’ve moved to a summer house, and it’s freezing. The only one who is truly happy is the cat, an opportunity to explore all the nooks and crannies, watching the birds, he’s loving it. And I’m enjoying sitting very close to the fire place trying to keep warm. I am awaiting the day when it is warm and not raining outside.

The nail polish I’m wearing today is Essence 02 Into The Dark, I’ve had it for a while and haven’t worn it before. It is really pretty, dark blue with silvery white shimmer/glitter. This was two coats.

Essence True Love

This is what I am currently wearing. Essence 03 True Love from the Vampire's Love trend edition. I always find it difficult in describing these sort of colours. It has a little bit of purple and a little bit pink in it, and looks like berries. This polish needed just two coats, dries quickly and lasts a good while on me.



I happen to live close to a Russian Orthodox church and they are celebrating Easter today. Now, my family is not religious at all, but in a weird way we do celebrate Easter - we paint eggs together. Me and my parents have been painting eggs together ever since I can remember and it is always a special occasion\bonding time. We sit for hours around the table and churn out pretty eggs. Surprisingly this year they didn't all look green (my favourite colour), like they do every single year. Oh and of course the cat helped as well, he was right in the centre of all the action. I think Felix secretly wants to be an Easter Bunny.

Essence Gold Old Buffy

Mmm... This is a rather awesome nail polish. Essence 01 Gold Old Buffy from the Vampire Love trend edition is like Wagon Trail on steroids. It just lights up from within thanks to all the flakies inside. And the formula is very, very nice indeed. Here I use just two coats, but I suppose you can get away with just one slightly thicker and accurate coat. I'm in love with this polish!

Essence #47 Red-y To Go

I've finally put up a Christmas tree! But unfortunately there is still no snow, at least no snow that would stay on the ground for more than 10 minutes. For me the Christmas or New Year celebrations are not complete without snow. These days it's just very, very murky around here.
So I use all the cheering up I can get in the form of bright and girly nail polish. At the moment I'm wearing Essence Red-y To Go. It's not exactly red, it has a lot of pink in it as well as an occasional hint of orange to it. The formula is really rather nice as well, it is opaque in two thin coats, or one thicker coat.

11 Nov

When I'm upset or am in a terrible mood I either shop or bake and drown my mood in pies.
Yesterday I shopped. Surprisingly, Essence products appeared around here recently. Upon further investigation it turned out that there are only Colour & Go polishes, in fairly boring creme shades. Disappointment all around. Anyhow, I only wanted to get a top coat, but went home with a top coat, dry drops and 7 polishes. Also stopped by my usual shop and new to me China Glazes were there. I also included here OPI DS Original I got last week.
I have been going back and forth between wanting to get it and not for months now. On the one hand it is usually difficult to find, it is on the expensive side, on the other it's holo, and I keep thinking "what if I don't buy it and it'll be gone". So there, now I have it!

As there is currently no sun, I've swatched them on a nail wheel and here they are with a flash and in natural light.

Left to right the polishes are, all 2 coats:
China Glaze Midtown Magic
China Glaze Trendsetter
Essence 68 High Spirits
Essence 56 Got A Secret
Essence 05 Sweet As Candy
Essence 41 Very Berry
Essence 26 Break Through
OPI DS Original
Essence 53 You Belong To Me
Essence 76 Hard To Resist

Essence #43 Where Is The Party?

When I was on holiday in Holland and saw all the pretty Essence and Catrice polishes, I've decided to get all the more unusual polishes, and colours that I don't have in my stash. This is one of them #43 Where Is The Party?. This seems to be a relative of Iron Mermaiden, even though the base colours are different. This required only two coats, but you can see some brushstrokes. The thing I like is that when there is no direct sun, which is all the time now, the nails reflect the colour of objects around, which gives the duochrome effect.

Today's NOTD

Okay, this is definitely time to concede that I am utterly unable to do any sort of design on my nails and just admit defeat and move on.
The only positive thing that has come out of this is that this is day 3 photo and there is no chipping or tip wear. I used one coat of Misa On the Edge and some Essence Circus Confetti.

Essence #50 Irreplaceable

You know it's autumn when you only manage to take one decent picture a day and have to run around the house to catch any glimpse of sunlight and to be on stand by for when the rain stops. I am already starting to dread the next 5+ months when everything will be drained of colour and everything will look grey, the sky, the ground and even the air.
Today I have for you guys a really ordinary-looking polish, but it isn't. It is a sort of neutral beige with a hint of grey, but mixed in is a ton of tiny light gold flakies. This needed just two coats. It also wears surprisingly well for a polish that doesn't coast a whole lot - three or four days for me. Also I think this is one of those cases when my photos don't do the product justice, it looks so much better in real life.
Polishes like this make me earn for more Essence products, but unfortunately they are not available at all where I live :(

My Stash

Surprisingly I've never put all my polishes in one place and take a picture. It was actually an eye-opener for me. Who would have thought that my polishes divide fairly equally into pinks, nudes, dark colours and glitters. I know that I'm missing some 10 polishes that my friends have, some OPI, China Glaze and SpaRitual glitter and holographic ones.
It's not a surprise to me that OPI represents a big part of my stash. For the most part I really like their formula, I like the ProWide brush and most of the polishes last at least 3 days on my nails.

My China Glaze stash grew to it's current size in just a few months. Before that I was really reluctant to get them due to a bad first experience. But them I got OMG and DV8 holos in a sale and never looked back. I only have 2 full sized Orly polishes, crazy I know. But I never totally fell in love with them. But I do love their mini polishes a lot! It's like a quick colour fix.

Here is a box of different brands, polishes that I only have a few of each, and bottles I only got because of the colour.

Here is Essence and Catrice polishes that I got on my holiday in Amsterdam. I wish these brands were represented where I live! They are cheap and for the most part have a nice quality and cute colours. Also I do like both of their brushes.
Here are Misa, Barry M, American Apparel etc. I love the formula on these two AA polishes, you have to love a one coat polish. My only Zoya is here too. I mentioned before that buying Zoya polishes here is just prohibitively expensive, even if they have very pretty colours.

Here are my boxed goods :) I store them separately from other polishes because the boxes don't fit in the drawers where I have the rest of my stash. It's horrible, but I occasionally forget that I have these at all.


I do have another two boxes that didn't make it here. One is with all the base and top coats, cuticle stuff etc. And the second is a box with all the frankens and polishes I tried water marbling with, nothing interesting, Coloramas and such.