Essie Geranium

I feel like I can breathe again! I've gotten all of my papers and major projects finished for this semester and now the only big things I have left are my exams in December. That means I have time to paint my nails again! In the past three weeks I've only changed my polish 3 times. My nails have looked so sad and chipped.
Once I finish this post, I'm going to go paint them something fun! I've got some polishes from Polish Revolution that I need to swatch and take pictures of. They've been sitting on my desk since Friday and I can't wait to try them out!

Today I'll be showing you Essie Geranium. I think this was the first red polish that I purchased. It's not a true red, it leans slightly orange (although my picture makes it look a bit more orange than it really is) and that's why I love it so much. I'm not really someone who wears red polishes but I was drawn to this one when I saw it. Even better is that it is slightly jelly.

Shown is two coats. Application was fantastic. Dry time was normal.

Essie Lady Like

Happy Sunday! I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!
The other day I wore Essie Lady Like from Essie's Fall 2011 collection. The collection overall didn't really get much love but I think that Lady Like is a must have from that collection. It's a great neutral and it's very soft and well, lady like.
I think this color gave me slight lobster fingers but I dealt with it because I really didn't want to take it off!
I used two coats in these swatches and application was very easy. Dry time was average.

Little Devils

I've been searching for my perfect orange for a while. Essie Orange It's Obvious is everything I've been looking for! Shown is two coats. Dry time was normal. The formula was great! It was very easy to handle. I barely needed any cleanup.

And since I'm trying to theme most of my manis for October in a Halloween theme, I decided to do this simple stamping (BM-305 with Finger Paints Black Expressionism). They look like little devil tails on my nails! I really like how it looks. It was my first attempt with small images, normally I only do full nail images. The only thing I disliked about this image was that there wasn't a design for my right and left hand so the tails face the same way on my right hand as it does on my left.

Essence Date In The Moonlight Dotticure

Can you believe it's already October?! Where has the year gone?
I had a great birthday weekend. I went home to see my family which was really nice. I hadn't seen them in a month and I missed them. I got to see my cute little furball too! My parents and I went down to a bike ride near the coast for the Wounded Warrior foundation. That's the second year that we've attended that ride and it was really nice. The weather couldn't have been any better and we had an awesome tail wind on the last few miles! Woo!

I went to an Ulta the other day (there's none close to me) and I finally was able to pick up some of the new Essence polishes. I don't really care for the new bottle shape but I'm glad that it has a few more mLs in it!
I got four of the new ones: Date In The Moonlight, Off To Miami, Oh My Glitter!, and Grey-t To Be Here. And then I also picked up a bottle of Essie Orange, It's Obvious because I've been searching for a good orange for a while now and that one seemed to fit the bill pretty well. Plus it was on clearance.

So today I've got Date In The Moonlight to show you.
It is a dark navy with blue and green shimmers in it. The shimmers are very pretty but they're only visible in certain lights. Bummer. But I was expecting it so it's not really a negative. I used two coats for full opacity. The brush sucked pretty hard. I'm hoping it was just a one off and the other brushes won't be as bad.

Then, since it's October and I wanted to be a little festive, I decided to add some orange dots. I used Essie Orange, It's Obvious. Then to add just a little bit more contrast I added a few smaller grey dots. I used Essence Grey-t To Be Here.

Crowstoes Halloween 2012 Collection

Lauri sent me these polishes to swatch for her and so I thought I would do a review of them for you guys as well.
Sorry if some of these color combos don't strike you as particularly "Halloween-y". I'm at school right now and only bring a few polishes with me at a time.

I've got seven polishes to show you today so it's going to be a pretty long post. Enjoy!

Hell Hath No Fury over Barry M Coral

Red, orange, and iridescent glitters in a clear base. This also has some really nice golden shimmer to it. 

Purple People Eater over Essie Boxer Shorts

Gorgeous! One of my favorites from the collection! Small purple, blue, and green glitters in a clear base.

Bone Daddy over Zoya Dove

A mix of white and iridescent glitters in a milky, grey base. This is the only polish in the collection that has a tinted base. Application was a bit difficult with this one because there are a lot of the large, white hexes. You need a bit of skill in applying polish to get an even look with this one but I think it's worth it in the end. 

Tangled Web over China Glaze Electric Beat

A mix of black and duochrome (blue to green) glitters in a clear base. This one is really fun! I love black glitters! 

I had a hard time capturing the color shift of the glitters in my picture but in real life they're much more obvious. When I was first looking at the bottle I thought it included blue and green glitters but then I realized that they were actually duochrome!

Last Call at the Crowbar over China Glaze Elephant Walk

Multicolored glitters in a clear base. The primary color is a gunmetal, silver glitter. It reminds me of a dark version of all the Happy Birthday dupes. The darker colors make it even more appropriate for fall. 

Voodoo over Sally Hansen Crushed
I know what you're thinking. Why am I showing you Voodoo again? It's because Lauri informed me that the version I showed you a few days ago was an earlier version and the one that was going to be for sale was slightly different. There are purple, shredded glitters in the updated version.
Purple, orange, and green glitters in a clear base. Since I already showed you what it looked like over a purple, I wanted to show a different combo today.

Frog's Breath over Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime

A mix of green and gold glitters in a clear base. This one was a surprise favorite. I'm not normally a green person (unless it's mint green, then I'm all over it) but Frog's Breath is really phenomenal! 

My overall impressions of this collection is that they're all really great! Application was very easy on all of them besides Bone Daddy, which was a bit trickier. I've done one coat of glitter over their base color in all of these pictures. 

What's nice about these polishes is that they all have a Halloween vibe to them but they don't scream Halloween so they'll still look nice all year long. I find that glitters generally dry very fast and these were no exception. 

It's really hard to pick a favorite but I think the most stand-out polishes from this collection are: Voodoo, Purple People Eater, and Frog's Breath. 

Polishes can be purchased from Llarowe and Overall Beauty.
For more information on Crowstoes polishes (including swatches of the rest of her Halloween polishes), check out Lauri's blog The Polished Crow.
For updates on stock regarding Crowstoes polishes, make sure to follow Llarowe's Facebook page.

Essie Boxer Shorts with Stamping

I apologize for not posting regularly lately. I promise to fix that.
Today I've got on Essie Boxer Shorts. Periwinkles have a special place in my heart. They're the perfect color. This one changes it's color depending on the lighting. In some lights it leans much more purple and in others it looks very blue.

The application was a struggle. I mean, I wanted to rip out my hair by the time I was done. I had to re-do my index finger three times and it bubbled like crazy (Pro-tip: If your polish has bubbles in it, put a drop or two of thinner on your nails and the bubbles should disappear). I should have thinned it a bit before I put it on but I didn't and that way my mistake. I thinned it after finishing my nails and then when I re-did my index finger the formula was much better, two easy coats.

Then I stamped with A-England Tristam. The image comes from the new Bundle Monster plates (BM-302). Look at how cute it is! Its got chicks, snails, and trees on it. It makes me so happy to look at!

Essie Mesmerized + Stamping

You know I have a thing for blue polishes. So of course when I was in Target the other day I had to take Essie Mesmerized home with me. It was the only one left and it looked so sad and lonely. How could I say no? 

These two first pictures aren't very color accurate (the last picture is fairly accurate). It's been so humid outside lately that I can't even take my camera outside without the lens fogging up. No bueno. 

Then I noticed my new Bundle Monster plates on the table next to me so I decided to do a quick stamping. The image is from BM-315 and I used Sephora Moody Woman to stamp.

This stamping is subtle in real life. Moody Woman is a duochrome and in certain angles, the image almost disappears.
You can see a bit of the color shift in these pictures.