Orly Wandering Vine

Christmas is almost here!  Yay!  Except I work in retail and the holidays make me kinda miserable.  But 'tis the season.

I did some very simple nail art in honor of Christmas being only 2 days away, even though I wore this manicure at the end of last week.  I used Orly Wandering Vine, which is a very dark pine green cream polish and Essie Size Matters with Nicole by OPI Orna-meant For Each Other for some sparkle.

Wandering Vine had a very watery formula, which I'm not exactly used to.  I used three coats of it just to get full coverage.  From what I had gathered in my own research of reading other blogs and fashion magazines, earthy greens were a very big trend for the fall.  I had gotten this shade with the intention of doing a green fall manicure, but never got around to it.  I thought this one was more of a winter because it reminded me of Christmas trees.

I used Essie Size Matters with a dotting tool to make something that kind of looked like clusters of holly berries on opposite corners of my ring fingers and thumbs and then put Orna-meant for Each Other on top to make it sparkle.  Before I put the glitter polish on the red dots they kind of blended in with the green (if you can imagine that, since they're on opposite sides of the color wheel) because they were both so dark.

Over all, I was very pleased with the results and it lasted for a good 3 days.  This was almost impossible to get off of my nails though.  Took almost an entire jumbo sized cotton ball per nail.  Such a waste.

I got my mini bottle of Orly Wandering Vine for $3.50 US, Nicole by OPI Orna-meant for Each Other for $7 US, and Essie Size Matters full sized bottle for $8 US.

Cocktail Bling

Ok, I totally lied, THIS will be the last of my Essie holiday collection posts.  I completely forgot about Cocktail Bling!

It's the gray in the collection, but it has some very faint blue undertones to it.  Very pretty, almost like light rain clouds type of color.  I have a yellow undertone to my skin, so it would probably look very fetching on someone with a darker skin tone than me.  I loved it either way.

I decided that I wanted to play around with my mani after I did my two coats of Cocktail Bling.  Neutrals with a bright color are fun and it's nice to spice things up every now and then.  I used a dotting tool with Essie Your Hut or Mine.  When I showed the finished product off to people, I got a lot of compliments, but I also got a "It looks like your nails are bleeding," from my mom.  Thanks a lot, Mom. =p

Maybe you will like it.

Both pictures were taken  indoors with flash.

This mani actually lasted me almost a full week.  I only changed it because a couple nails decided to break and look like freaks of nature on my hands.

Full sized bottles of Essie Cocktail Bling and Your Hut or Mine retail for $8 US.  Essie also has cubes available with four colors from each collection (which is where both of those colors came from, except separate cubes) retailing for around $17 US.

Bobbing for Baubles

Hello lovely people!  Today will be the last of my Essie holiday collection posts!  Sad face.  I love Essie so much.

Here is Bobbing for Baubles, a lovely dark teal.  In the bottle it looks distinctly more blue, and to me teal has more green in it.  But I've noticed that Essie colors dry a shade or two darker than what you see in the bottle.  Once it dried, I thought about it for a minute and came to the conclusion that Sonia Kashuk's Taunting Teal was exactly the same color.  Obviously, there are differences in formula and maybe a hair's difference in actual shad,. but to my eye it looked the same.

Bobbing for Baubles did last a good long while tho.  Nails actually broke and there was no damage to the polish aside from looking a little jagged.  There were no chips or fading, I actually got bored with it before it started to show signs of wear.  I did use a liquid quick dry oil on it and I've noticed that when I use it, there are what appears to be scratches on the surface of the top coat, like when your phone or eye glasses get scratches.  It was very distracting.  So I might refrain from using it unless I'm in a huge hurry.

Indoors

In the shade

In direct sunlight

Full sized bottles of Essie Bobbing for Baubles retail for $8 US

Bangle Jangle

Hello hello all!  I hope everyone is having a great weekend, mine is almost here.  Tomorrow is my Friday, since I have Monday and Tuesday off this coming week.

I tried out another of Essie's Winter 2011 collection and this time it was Bangle Jangle, a very pale purple.  It was more periwinkle, in my opinion, and could probably see this in a spring collection a little easier than a winter.  I've noticed a trend this year that the winter lines could almost double as springs, a lot of the colors are very pale pastels most of the time.  Winter to me has more dark reds, pine greens, more jewel tones than anything else.  But a lot of theses colors could be called a frosted look.

Anyway, Bangle Jangle was not my favorite out of the bunch, mainly because the color just didn't look good against my skin tone.  It completely washed me out and I could only wear it for about a day and a half.    I think it only lasted that long because I was very proud of how nice the paint job turned out, haha!  It was completely opaque in two thick coats and there were no bald spots that I could see, and it was a very nice solid cream.  The formula was a dream to work with, I had no complaints.  But that's what I've come to expect from Essie.  =)

I've also noticed that I don't really favor sheer polishes.  If I wanted to be able to see my tips I'd probably use a very pale color to begin with or just do a French manicure.  That was not the problem with this polish.

The bottle of Bangle Jangle I have is a mini that came in a cube.  All of these pictures were taken under artificial light.

Tiny tiny bottle!

The Essie Winter 2011 cube retails for $17 US, and the full sized bottle of Essie Bangle Jangle retails for $8 US.  I found a great deal on Essie polishes at my local CVS Pharmacy for $7 US per bottle.

For Audrey

I am so excited to be posting the one today, you have no idea.  This one is China Glaze For Audrey.  This is an oldie, but new to me.  I couldn't tell you what year or collection this one came from to save my life, but I'm just happy that it is in my hoard now.

Now, this isn't just any Audrey this one is named after.  This is named after The Audrey.  Audrey Hepburn  was the classiest lady to every be classy in the history of modern cinema.  I idolize her and want to be like her in almost all ways.  I can't say enough good things about her.  And the color that China Glaze did for this polish isn't just blue.  You could call it sky blue, or baby blue, or robin's egg blue, but you would all of you be incorrect.  This shade is Tiffany blue (or as close as they could get since the color with the name is trademarked).  In my imaginary wedding, Tiffany blue is the main shade in my color pallet.

Since it is now winter and I'm completely in the holiday spirit, I decided to add a snowman to my manicure.  I didn't realize just how appropriate my manicure would be since it started snowing while I had this on my nails.

I used Sally Hansen and a dotting tool for the snowman and the snow, a black nail art pen for the arms and hat, and Essie Size Matters with an eye liner brush for the scarf.  To top it off and give just that extra oomph, I used a white glitter by Pixel to put over the "ground snow" so you could see where the snowman began.

This mani actually lasted me about four days with chips only starting on day three and no shrinkage.  Two coats got me complete coverage, and a top coat added extra shine.

Both pics were taken under artificial light, since it has been either raining or just gross outside and cold.

China Glaze For Audrey normally retails for $7 US plus sales tax.

Broach the Subject

Super Sunday posts!  Hope everyone has been enjoying the long holiday weekend, I know I've enjoyed my day off.

I'm starting off my holiday manicures with a lovely nude by Essie from the winter 2011 line.  This one is Broach the Subject, a wonderful cream nude.  I actually held it up to my work pants and it is a darker khaki color, not a camel like I originally thought.  I got complete coverage with no streaking or bald spots in two coats.  And then just to jazz things up and make it even more holiday-y, I did a white glitter fade on my ring finger as an accent nail.  I used Sally Hansen's Disco Ball.

All but the last picture were taken under artificial light.  The glitter fade was much more noticeable in person, but the whole point of it was to be subtle. Just not as subtle as the pictures made it.

Essie Broach the Subject retails for $8 US plus sales tax.  Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Disco Ball retails for $2.50 US plus sales tax.

Lav-ish

TGI-Saturday!  I survived Thanksgiving and Black Friday!  Yay! =D  I can't believe I actually had an alarm for 2:30 AM to wake me up on Friday to go to work.  That's just insane to me.

Also, now that it is past Thanksgiving, it is officially holiday season.  So I can start wearing my winter shades!  Excited!

This was my BF manicure, which was very muted since my work shirt was highlighter yellow and kind of blinding.  I used Ulta's Lav-ish, a gray/lavender, almost a mauve color with a gold micro shimmer in it.  If it had been just a plain creme, I'd say it was more of a fall color, but withe the gold shimmer I'd classify it as a winter shade.  I used three coats of this polish since it was a little thin.  Most of the time Ulta's formulas are kind of thick with the creams, but this one was almost watery so I used an extra coat.

This polish would have lasted me longer than two days if there hadn't been about an hour where there was nothing for me to do while at work on BF.  For some reason, we had about an hour where the entire mall was dead (I think it was because people had gone home to sleep after shopping since midnight).  My nails are actually really thin and have a bad habit of peeling, so once they get a certain length they will break off at the quick.  I ended up breaking six (that's right, 6) nails and destroying my pretty manicure.  But before that happened, someone did say it was a very pretty color.  =)

Both pictures were taken under artificial light, but at different levels of light.  The second one is more blurry that I thought it would have been.

Ulta's Lav-ish retails for $6 US plus sales tax.

*This color was supplied to me for review by my friend, Twin.  I did not spend any of my own personal money.