NOTD: Essie Super Bossa Nova

I had $3.50 off at CVS so I decided to get another Essie polish since I have recently decided I love their formula...there were some lip glosses I wanted to try too but I am really trying hard here to stick to my "no drugstore cosmetics so I can get more high-end stuff" rule! Nail polish is not included in that rule though, since many great nail polishes can be found in drug stores, and being high-end doesn't necessarily mean the quality or formula is better!

Anyway, although coral has taken over as my favorite summer color I am still in a fuchsia mood...well, Super Bossa Nova in my opinion is more of a bright raspberry but it still fits the bill for reddish shades I am into! Also I've been getting kind of sick of cremes lately...I love the colors and it's great the first day or 2 but then I get majorly antsy to remove it! One of the things that made me get Super Bossa Nova over another Essie color I really wanted (well, several...all coraly/peachy colors) was because of it's pretty pink shimmer! It's just what I needed to keep my interest and possibly have this color on for more than a couple days!

As expected the formula on Super Bossa Nova was amazing, possibly the best yet! It was very easy to control although it looks a bit messy in the picture, but that's because it's my right hand, meaning I applied with my left hand...so it couldn't be helped!

Top: Direct sunlight. Bottom: Shade under a tree.

Don't mind my cuticles, they are terrible right now...this is actually my good hand, my other hand has 2 band-aids over my cuticles :(

NOTD: Essie Smooth Sailing & Essie Coat Azure

I put off getting Essie Smooth Sailing since I thought it would be too similar to Coat Azure but I am glad I got over it (a $5 coupon helped too) and got Smooth Sailing since other than being blue they are nothing alike. I have Smooth Sailing on all nails other than the accent nail which has Coat Azure which as you can see is not as shimmery and much lighter/brighter than Smooth Sailing. All in all I prefer Smooth Sailing, but if you were on the fence like I was rest assured these colors are nothing alike (like I was told when I was still waffling over it), hopefully this helps. The formula on both is amazing, makes me wonder why I don't have way more of Essie in my collections.

Sorry about my terrible cuticles, yikes!

Essie French Affair Accent Nail Fix

So I ended up painting over the pink on the accent nail last night with Essie French Affair like I was thinking about. It looks much better now even though it's twice as thick, but I just didn't feel like removing the polish before fixing it so meh, next time I'll just plan out what color I want to use a little better ahead of time... I kinda want to do pastel "skittles" but I don't have a lavender or a light blue (both of which I REALLY want right now) and it'd be nice if I had a yellow (well I do have one yellow, but it's not pastel at all).

Also, I don't know if it's Poshe or what, but even after going to bed like 3 hours later I woke up with dents from my pillow/blanket...wtf? I did 3 coats, yes they were a bit thick but what's the point of a quick dry top coat that doesn't help hours later? Once I am done with this bottle of Poshe I am going back to Seche Vite for sure, and getting some Restore as well...but I will probably pour it into the Poshe bottle since it's a lot better.

NOTD: Essie Coat Azure & Maybelline Denim

After my super busy 80's/early 90's nails I decided to do a palate cleanser in my favorite nail color--blue. This time I kept the accent nail (of course...it's like I HAVE to do it...) but just made it a darker shade of blue in a similar finish (shimmer).

Sorry it's really messy, I wasn't able to do it until like midnight last night and by then my patience was really dropping off and I was getting pretty sleepy as well. Thank goodness for Seche Vite, without it I wouldn't have had time to do my nails! Not too shabby either, since I did 3 coats of both colors.

I've worn Essie Coat Azure before, but only as an accent. It's a really lovely color so I've been wanting to wear it as the main color for a while. I love the dusty blue shade and the subtle silvery shimmer that adds some good dimension to it. I'll get cremes if I really love the colors, but I really prefer something a little more fun like a shimmer since it's still pretty chill, but also a little more fun and pretty than a creme. When I wear a creme 1/2 the time I have an urge to add a shatter/flakie/glitter to it even if I like it how it is, just because it's so stark.

Maybelline Denim is actually not it's whole name, there is another word but I forgot it. I got this one on clearance at Target for a couple bucks and it was the nicest clearance color there so I figured 'why not?'. It is actually a really pretty navy blue shimmer that is a surprisingly deep color. The shimmer is a similar blue so it's pretty subtle but when the light hits it you can really see the depth.

In direct bathroom light.

Flash to show the shimmer.

NOTD: Nails Like An Egyptian~

I started out on this one just with Essie Shift Power and Hard Candy Frenzy topped with Nubar 2010 on the accent nails. I think if Shift Power was brighter it would have worked a lot better like that, but I thought it needed a little something to even out the focus a bit so I added China Glaze Crushed Candy on top of the nails with Shift Power.

Unlike my last effort to spice up a my nails a bit with a crackle this one turned out much prettier than I was expecting. I think it kind of looks a bit ancient Egyptian. Not so much the accent nails but it still works alright with it. Maybe the accent nails can represent the Nile or something like that.

I don't know what happened with the crackle on the pinky, maybe I just didn't do it all the way to the tip, or it shrunk more on that nail.

Army Nails? (Essie Sew Psyched + ChG Cracked Concrete)

Here is my NOTD, and it really is the "TD" part...as in I am only going to keep it on today because I went to the trouble of doing it, but I am not going to "suffer" through it longer than that. I'm redoing it tonight.

I was itching to try Essie Sew Psyched, but I just can't leave well enough alone with cremes so I decided to try for an army/camo kind of look to spice it up a little bit with some China Glaze Crackle Glaze in Cracked Concrete...which fell flat. The gray is just too light to really be noticed unless light is shining right on it and to make matters worse I did one hand completely at a time (usually I go paint all 10 fingers at a time) and then did all my fingers at once with the crackle.

The problem of course is that one hand was MUCH more dry than the other, that hand crackled perfectly but the less dry (it had Seche Vite on it so it was still somewhat dry) hand was just all funky...it crackled more chunky and thick(?) so it just didn't look right. Being as much of a spaz about that kind of thing as I am I just can't leave it with one weird hand, it'll just drive me crazy. I am trying not to pay too much attention to it, but overall I just have to redo my nails tonight.

The good news though is that I LOVE both polishes on their own and they both applied wonderfully and with minimal cleanup but they were my mistakes.

What do you think?:

Of course, this is the hand that came out correctly.