Essie Matte about You vs. Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love matte top coats

I wanted to test these on light and darker colors. The orange is Sephora by OPI How Cute is That and the green is Revlon Scented polish in Ocean Breeze. The pointer finger is without any top coat, the middle finger has the Essie matte top coat and the ring finger has the Hard Candy.

Overall, there is not much of a difference.. Though I will say a few times the Hard Candy has left a milky film on my polish. I've never had any problems with the Essie matteifier.

Sorry I messed up the green with the Hard Candy getting impatient moving some nail polish into my new storage system. :(

Pure Ice - French Kiss

Until now my nail collection has been pretty much anything in the pink family. If it's glittery, even better. If it's not, I have several glitter top coats I can put over it.

I have been out of work after surgery so I don't have a huge budget right now. Once I do I will be getting new shades from new various collections to review. But for now I am doing what I can on a budget to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things.

The first thing I learned is that taking pictures of certain polish colors is not easy!

And here is the picture on the nails...2 coats. It's obviously blue in this picture, but in real life you have to look closely to see that it really is a dark blue.

Next I'm going to jazz it  up with some of what I have in my collection right now, including my oldest bottle of polish, which, interestingly is one that is in the best shape. I've tried to find out when this line was released but haven't been able to, so if anyone happens to read this and knows, please tell me.

One disasrous nail day.

First, today was just a bad mani day at my house. First I used For Audrey by China Glaze. I don't know if it's always like this but it was so hard to deal will. I could not get it smooth, even smooth-ish to save my life. It was streaking everywhere, globbing everywhere else. I love the color and thought it would be really cute with some Konad stamps. But I got so frustrated I took it all off in a fit.

Then comes the next attempt. I was using Essie cote azure from the Essie collection at Walmart. I've never been a huge Essie lover, I don't hate her stuff and I have a few pinks that I really like but this stuff was a nightmare.

This is the best I could get my left had even after starting over a second time. Yes, I look like an even worse manicurist than I am. In these pictures my frustration was so built up, but if it turned into what I wanted it would have been great and I'd have cleaned up everything around a little more.

Now the pinkie and pointer finger weren't terrible, but the middle and ring were soooo bumpy!! Adding to my frustration you might notice that I spilled my bottle all over the floor and the bottle itself. Ugh. But I am coming along learning how to Konad so that's cool. I just have plates 2 and 3 and I am about to order 4 more and some more special polish.

Then I feel asleep for a while and woke up a punk Papa Smurf with a Mohawk who either made his beard a goatee and died it blue or is throwing up blueberry rum.

 

Happy Nail Days to All!!

New Years Eve mani

For NYE I had to work but I thought I'd add a little sparkle to my manicure for the day. I used Revlon's Not So Blueberry (which smells like delicious blueberries when it dries!) on the nails, and then sprinkled L.A. Splash glitter in Onyx over it, trying to concentrate more on the tips and have it lighter at the base. I really like how it turned out. Put a coat of Seche Vite over it and it didn't budge a bit.

Sally Girl #10 Glitter Pink

I have been collecting the Sally Girl mini nail polishes. I think they are a great way to test colors that I might not normally buy for under $1. The only problem with them is that most of them don't have the name on the bottle, just the sku. Of the ones I have I'd say 85% do not have a name on the bottle. #10 Glitter Pink is sku 812112,. If you go to the Sally Beauty site you can type that in the search bar and it will come up.

This color is full of glitter and definitely has a satiny finish to it. It feels a little rough without a top coat on it. It dries really fast, that's always a plus for me!

Sorry for the poor application, I was running late to work and showed up with different colors on different nails. I had to quickly apply this while I was in the breakroom on break.

Essie now available at Walmart

It's $7.75 at my store. I don't know if the colors are different or the same as the old line that they sell at salons. I picked up a few colors: French Affair, Merino Cool and Muchi, Muchi. French Affair is definitely my favorite. It's nice and opaque but can be a little streaky going on. Merino Cool is also very nice, it's a purplish gray and goes on like a dream. Muchi, Muchi is definitely a sheer color. 3 coats and it's pretty nice though. No streaking and builds nicely. I'll post up some swatches soon!

Right now they only have the color polishes, but there is a sign saying the nail treatments, top coats etc.. will be coming in February.

Zoya Ultra Glitters

Zoya Ultra glitters are some of the best polishes I have ever used. The best thing about them is that they are super easy to touch up. If you get a chip you can just dab a little on and put top coat over it and it looks as good as new.

Asta is the reddish one. In my picture you can't really tell a whole lot of difference between Astra and Nova, but in real life Astra is reddish and Nova is purplish.

As I said I love these because of their fixability factor and the fact that it's so glittery it's saving a step of putting a glitter over regular polish. Love it!