Essie Lilacism

Essie Lilacism

Lilacism, a lilac creme that dries with a nice gloss, is opaque in 2 coats, though I did 3 to cover up cuticle drag and unevenness. Lilacism is another polish that I have had for around 2 years now, but, surprisingly, the formula is much better than when I first bought it. It was originally a bit sheer and thin, but now it's thick enough to become opaque in 2 coats and is much easier to apply. However, the increased thickness made the dry time a bit longer. The color is most accurate in the last two pictures, though they are blurry. (The blue in Lilacism really trolled me when I was taking pictures!)

Do any of you guys have that weird polish that just gets better and better as time goes by? (That sounds like I'm describing wine... ~__~ )

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Essence You Belong To Me

In direct light:

Essence You Belong To Me

You Belong To Me is a powder blue creme, is opaque in 2 coats, and dries with a nice gloss. Many bloggers have described this as a mint with a hint of blue, but for the life of me, I only see powder blue. The formula was thick and almost gooey (almost!) and did not level out well, but was still alright to work with. Dry time was slow because it was thick. Please keep in mind that I had You Belong To Me for several months now and, if you remember from my first Essence polish swatches and reviews, I find that many of my Essence polishes tend to thicken over time. 

If you like You Belong To Me, act fast!  Essence has a tendency to discontinue shades (like Irreplaceable, one of my favorite polishes... still trying to find a dupe). But as of right now, it is still on Ulta's website (not sure about in-stores). The glimmer of hope is that I generally find a larger selection of Essence polishes in-stores than online.

By the way, did anyone else think of Taylor Swift's hit song, "You Belong To Me"? XD

What color would you say You Belong To Me is?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Dainty Flowers Manicure

Dainty Flowers Manicure

I decided to do another floral manicure. It was really good practice as I used a bobby pin as a dotting tool for the first time and another one of my Migi nail art pens (review will come when I'm more comfortable using them). I, perhaps, gotten ahead of myself. I was inspired by one of Forever21's sandals' detailing. I couldn't capture the flowers prettiness and simplicity, but I'm still learning! I think I'll revisit this idea in the future.

What I used:

From left to right:

Essence You Belong To Me (2 coats)

Migi Nail Art Pen White

Essence Gold Rush

Bobby pin (not pictured)

What do you think of this mani?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Orly Fowl Play

In direct light:

Shade:

Orly Fowl Play

Fowl Play is a very complex polish. It is a reddish-eggplant jelly loaded with silver shimmer, blue glitter, and flakies that flash red, orange, yellow, and green. It takes 3 coats to become opaque and dries with a nice gloss and smooth, albeit a little bumpy, finish. Formula was good, though it dried a bit slowly and was a little thick. This, however, keeps Fowl Play from being another Androgynie because the thickness keeps the flakies and blue glitter well suspended in the bottle and well dispersed on the nail. I'll let the bottle close-up pictures do most of the talking. Fowl Play is one polish you definitely need in your collection!

The blue glitter is more dense, though not packed, than pictured here.

Get ready for some nail art Saturday! See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

L'Oreal Walk on the Beach

Without flash:

L'Oreal Walk on the Beach

Walk on the Beach is a greyish-beige creme. However, I am convinced that it may be a very light taupe because it is either a warm beige (in direct sunlight) or a cool grey (in indirect sunlight and shade) whenever I look at it. It is opaque in 3 coats. I don't know why, but I did a very thin first coat. I guess it's just because I just woke up and my brain was not functioning properly yet... Walk on the Beach dried with a nice shine and had a very nice formula, not too thin or too thick. I really liked the brush too. It was around half the size of OPI's brush and did not have a fan shape either. Walk on the Beach was a great introduction to L'Oreal polishes.

The first two pictures show how Walk on the Beach looks like in direct sunlight, while the last two show how it is most of the time. I apologize that I didn't use flash on those last pictures. If I had, though, it would not have been very color-accurate.

What do you think of this polish? Would you say it is a light taupe?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Sinful Colors Easy Going

In direct light:

Sinful Colors Easy Going

Easy Going is a pale pink creme and takes 3 coats to become opaque. The first coat was rather streaky, but was more opaque with a second. The third was to cover up patches. It dries rather slowly, but with a nice gloss. The formula is a bit thick and runny, but wasn't too difficult to work with. However, please keep in mind that I had Easy Going for around 1-2 years already and I never have any luck choosing Sinfuls with good formula. :( The color in the pictures is almost spot on, just a tinge pinker in real life. Easy Going looks really nice and dainty on the nail. It's perfect if you want to look classy and lady-like, but don't want to use a sheer nude.

I realize that I have loooots of cremes... I can't help it! It's my favorite finish. What's your favorite finish?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Love & Beauty Green (Creme)

In direct light:

Love & Beauty Green

Green is a rich green creme with a splash of blue to it. It takes 2 coats to become opaque and dries fairly quick, with a weird gloss-matte finish. The formula is good as always, good pigmentation and thick enough to be opaque in under two coats. Unlike the last Love & Beauty polish, this one definitely has neon pigments. I tried to capture the pretty color, but I couldn't. These pictures make Green seem really flat, but it is actually very vibrant! It's so much more of a stunner in real life. I curse the neon pigments, which also didn't show up in the pictures. Y U NO COME OUT TO PLAY?! Argh! >:(

Anyways, I'm really happy with this polish. :D It's soooo vivid and pretty! I'm getting into neons lately (I admit, I at first did not like Color Club's Poptastic Collection - even though I still bought it - because the polishes were all neons). If you are also trying to get into neons, I think Green would be great for you!

By the way, those white lines you see near Green is my base coat (NYC New York Color Long Wearing top coat) flaking. This is the first time it is flaking. I used to use it for my manis until I realized it was making them crack and fall off. Does anyone else have these problems (regardless of using it as a base coat and/or top coat)?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Love & Beauty Pink

In direct light:

Love & Beauty Pink

Pink is a blue-based pink/lavender pink that is best described as a Pepto-Bismol pink. It is opaque in 2 coats and dries with a gloss, though somewhat matte, which makes me think there is a little neon pigment in the polish. In shady areas, Pink really pops out, another indicator that it may have those pigments. The formula was a bit thick (the polish separated a little, but I bought it anyway), but I didn't have any issues applying it. The color isn't as light as seen in the photos; you can definitely see the blue-base/lavender tint. I think the neon pigments fooled my camera. :( 

Love & Beauty polishes are from Forever21. From my experiences, they're pretty good quality! And cheap too! However, they never really name their polishes (some even have the same "names" even though they are clearly different polishes), which makes me really sad. Great polishes should have great names, I say! Another thing I don't really like is that in-store selection varies. Oh well, you can't have it all.

On another note, how are the watermarks? Are they too distracting? Please let me know what you think! :)

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Orly Androgynie

Orly Androgynie

Androgynie is a black jelly loaded with silver, gold, and multicolored hexagonal glitter. It takes 3 coats to become opaque and dries quickly with a nice gloss, but feels a little gritty when touched. Formula was great and was easy to apply. Though I find it BEAUTIFUL in the bottle, Androgynie has three major problems: the hexagonal glitter is hard to get out and onto the nail, some of them are covered up as you apply multiple coats, and all the glitter tends to settle near the bottom of the polish bottle. You can solve this problem by placing Androgynie one day (for best results) upside-down; the glitters settle towards the top of the bottle and are easier to get out. A bonus is that you also get more of the hexagonal glitters than when you just vigorously shake the bottle and hope for the best. I used this trick for these swatches. Still, Androgynie really needs a suspension base, a thicker base, or something else to "stabilize" the glitter. The other problem is probably due to the base color; the black covers up all that pretty hexagonal glitter (but not the finer gold and silver glitter). I feel Androgynie would probably be best layered over a black creme base. I'm going to try that next time I wear Androgynie in hope of achieving its appearance in the bottle.

On another depressing note, it seems that I will be posting on Fridays and the weekends since my online class really does take the whole week to study for. :( Some summer! Hopefully, though, I'll be able to swatch a lot and take pictures to save time during the next school year.

I hope everyone has a good, well-rested weekend and awesome summer! (Well, it's summer right now for me at least...).

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Hawaiian Flowers Manicure

In my make-shift "light box" without natural light

With natural light

I was getting pretty bored of swatching lately and have been studying for an online lab exam this whole week (bleh!). I was looking at Chalkboard Nails (one of the many bloggers I follow) and found this awesome, super easy manicure! I also watched MrCandiipants' tutorial which was linked on that post. (MrCandiipants has looooads more cool manis on her tumblr. Check it out! ...And yes, I also follow her now too. ) I originally wanted to use only two colors for the flowers like the original and to save time, but I couldn't decide which pink to use so I used both! :D YEAH!

For my second time at nail art, I think this is actually pretty good! At first, I didn't think my mani looked so swell after doing it because of that humungous darker pink flower on my ring finger (a blob of paint fell off the brush :( ) and my messed-up leaves (have no idea how to shadow leaves). Or maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist... These pictures make me think I did a great job, though. *gives herself a pat on the back*

And sorry for the messy mani. I just couldn't wait to post it up!

What I used: 

Base:

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Strengthener (as a base coat) 1 coat

Sally Hansen White On 2 coats

Flowers, from left to right:

Color Club Poptastic

Color Club Warhol

Color Club Almost Famous

I will eventually do swatches of these Color Clubs. They are from the Poptastic Collection Summer 2010. As far as I know, you can purchase Color Club collections at Ross (if you're lucky enough to find them!) for a really cheap price (I think I paid $8 for this collection, but I'm not sure). A steal, huh?

Anthers (the dots on the flowers... Thank you, general bio!):

Migi Nail Art Pen Yellow Creme

Migi Nail Art Pen Red Creme

I will do a review on these soon. I just need to use them a bit more (which means more nail art! yay!) and see how the rest perform.

Leaves: 

Essence Lime Up!

Migi Nail Art Pen Green Creme

If you guys are wondering, these were taken with my dad's old digital camera. Maybe I can ask to have it and finally own a camera?! :D

By the way... If anyone is having trouble following new blogs that you've found because of Blogger's new format (like I did... :x), just go to your blogger homepage and look for the bar to the left of the area that shows followed-blog updates. There should be a button above "All Blogs" that says "Add". I just added some new blogs to my blog list and apparently you can add wordpress- and typepad-based blogs too! (I don't think Blogger had that option before.)

I hope you guys have an awesome weekend! See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M

Sally Hansen Creamy Olive

Sally Hansen Creamy Olive

Creamy Olive is a greyish-olive creme that takes 3 coats to become opaque and dried to a nice shine. The formula was great as the polish flowed on nicely, though I needed a third coat to cover some blotches and was a bit thick. The dry time was alright, nothing special. I loved the brush since it was able to pick up a good amount of polish so I didn't have to go back and again to pick up more as I was polishing. I bought this lemming on clearance and I could see a little separation in the polish. The slight thickness that I encountered was probably because the polish was a little old. However, I'm still very happy that I was able to get my hands on this little one! ^_^

*Creamy Olive is a dupe of OPI Stranger Tides, Essie Da Bush, and Sinful Colors Seaweed. I only have Seaweed of those three dupes and, I have to say, I prefer Creamy Olive because the formula is sooo much better. 

On another note, I'm really sorry about the lack of posts. I had finals and a little summer break. Now, I'm doing an online histology class in order to get ahead of a lot of people and get more credits. After that, I'm going to have another little summer break before I take ochem at a university. Then I make the long journey to my college, move in, and start another grueling school year. x__x Posts may become irregular as posting every day is sometimes a pain and I haven't been very inspired to write these posts lately. :( On the bright side, my dad got a new camera and I will be able to use it! The quality is very good, but I'm still learning how to take good pictures with it.

Please stay tuned because I bought some really nice polishes around two weeks ago! I'm sure you guys will be pleased!

See you guys on the other side of the day!

- M