Essie Fall 2013 Vested Interest and Cashmere Bathrobe

It's been a busy summer, but I won't bore you with excuses about where I've been.

I bought two new nail polishes this weekend, which is pretty significant considering my last nail polish purchase was in early March (O_O)!

I was in the city for some wedding dress appointments, and decided to check out a beauty supply shop that sold Essie and OPI. Essies were $5.99 and OPI were $6.99. Not great deals, but any discount is a good discount! Here's the store I went to, in case you are in NYC: Nicka K.

I picked up two green-grey shades, as apparently they are my weakness. I went with Vested Interest and Cashmere Bathrobe from the Fall 2013 collection.

My line-up of Essies in this colour family:


Essie Vested Interest (2 coats) - Very nice formula.



Comparison: Essie Vested Interest and Misa Dirty Sexy Money (2 coats each) - I could have sworn I had a shade similar to Vested Interest, but the closest thing I could find was this Misa. Obviously not dupes :p

Edit: someone reminded me about Essie School of Hard Rocks, which I had at some point but looks like I purged already. Here's my post with that swatched from a couple years ago: Essie School of Hard Rocks


Essie Cashmere Bathrobe (2 coats) - Also a fantastic formula. The flash makes the shimmer stand-out, but in normal indoor lighting, it is not really apparent. Still, I like it.




Comparison: Essie Armed & Ready, Cashmere Bathrobe, Power Clutch (2 coats each) - Again, the flash shows shimmer much better, but in normal lighting, all three of these look very similar on the nail. Power Clutch and Armed & Ready are more similar to each other, in terms of base colour, though. Cashmere Bathrobe is decidedly cool-toned on me.


I'm glad I picked these up!

I hope you are all having a great summer so far! Until next time :)

Reswatch: Essie Lapis of Luxury

My move across the hall went well this weekend. It actually took a lot less time than I thought. Cleaning my old apartment, on the other hand, took a really long time. I'm sore in places I didn't know could be sore. Does this mean I don't use my cleaning muscles enough?! (Probably.) Next time I move out of an apartment, I'm just going to pay the fee to have it professionally cleaned. Cleaning the mini-blinds on all our windows was just the worst thing ever.

Anyways, I have another reswatch post today:

I remember getting this Resort collection in one of those cubes of minis and then pretty much buying them all full size. Of course, with my purging policy, Lapis of Luxury is the only one I still own.

Essie Lapis of Luxury - 3 coats. I remember finding the formula from this collection to be a little difficult to work with, but the finish is very beautiful. Kind of like a squishy-creme (not quite jelly).


Comparison: Essie Lapis of Luxury and Essence Forget Me Not - I don't think I have posted a swatch of this Essence by itself, have I? Anyways, these are almost too close to own both (for me), but I haven't been able to purge one just yet.


Happy Canada Day for my Canucks (sorry I'm late! no internets during my move on the weekend) and Happy Independence Day for my American readers :)

I'm spending my day off tomorrow at the mall :)

Essie Swatches from various 2012 Collections

It feels like I have not posted a "normal" nail polish in a long time, LOL! Indie polishes are so hot right now, it's easy to forget about ye olde faithful, Essie.

I don't even know what collections each of these are from (I guess some combination of Spring, Resort and Wedding) and I have an even harder time remembering the names!

Left to Right: Who is the Boss, She's Picture Perfect, Navigate Her, Armed & Ready, No More Film

Essie Who is the Boss - I used to love Who's the Boss! I wonder if re-watching would destroy my fond memories of it... Anyways, 2 coats, formula not terrible for a pastel. Not as bad as last year's Borrowed and Blue! This is way more flattering on my skintone than that one. If B&B looked horrible on you, definitely try this one. It's instant love for me!


Comparison: Essie Who is the Boss and Essie Sag Harbour - 2 coats of each. They're similar in base colour, eh? Keeping both.



Essie She's Picture Perfect - 2 coats. I don't even remember asking for this, but it is kick ass. It sort of reminds me of that NARS Pokerface colour but much much cooler (and hence, more flattering on my skintone... at least I think so). I totally dig the finish of this (it's more like a pearl finish in normal lighting).




Comparison: OPI Planks a Lot (also looking for a dupe of this, ya'll), Essie Bangle Jangle, and Essie She's Picture Perfect - 2 coats of each. My stash is so anemic, I don't have a dupe for this! \o/ Keeper!



Essie Navigate Her - 2 coats. I'm not sure if I love this shade. The formula is quite nice, though.


Comparison: Essie Navigate Her and Illamasqua MILF (one of my favs, although people tell me to purge it all the time LOL) - 2 coats each. I'm not sure about the Essie. I'll need to wear it as a full mani and give it a good think.



Essie Armed & Ready - 2 coats. This is an awesome shade. The shimmer is overly represented here because of the flash I use, but it's still super gorgeous. The formula is perfect, too.




Comparison: Essie Armed & Ready and Essie Power Clutch - both 2 coats, and I love both. The second picture shows how the polishes look in normal indoor lighting (notice the shimmer in A&R is not as in your face, but still nice). Definitely keeping both.




Essie No More Film - 2 coats. I actually said "OH YEAH, BABY" outloud when I unwrapped this one. Perfect formula.


Comparison: Essie No More Film and Zoya Pinta- 2 coats each. This is going to be hard for me. I will probably purge the Zoya, but I'm going to need some time to think about that.


Hope you enjoyed that!

The next post is going to be another Indie polish brand, LOL. If you like those colour-shifting pigment topcoats, you're going to like that post!

Have a great weekend, and thanks to everyone who purchased from my blog sale! Ya'll are helping me keep my sanity by curbing a bloating stash!

China Glaze Skyscraper and Essie SSN-franken

Hi guys, it's been busy couple of weeks! I just filed my income taxes the other day, and am super busy planning my April trip to Australia/NZ/Tokyo! It'll be a 2 week trip, and I'm dying for the time off!

I have a couple of blue glitter polishes to show you today; both were RAOKs from two lovely ladies :)

China Glaze Skyscraper - I was lemming this for a long time, but never got around to picking it up. Beautiful and super glittery-looking!




Franken of Essie Starry Starry Nights - I long gave up the idea of ever finding myself a bottle of SSN, so put a SSN-franken on my wishlist! It is made with Essie Silver Bullions so it even comes in an Essie bottle :)




Here's a bottle shot of the franken and the bottom label of what was used to create it. I believe the glitter in Silver Bullions is the same glitter that is used in Starry Starry Nights, but I don't know for sure. The recipe is below. BTW, I am wearing American Apparel Office in these pictures :)



Recipe: "And it is indeed about 3/4 Essie Silver Boullions, then enough WnW Nocturnal to get it the right color, probably 4-5 or so drops of black, and then I finished filling it up with the remaining Silver Boullions (it was SUCH an exact science ) I just added the black a little at a time, until it looked right!"

Essie Bonded

A few months ago, I heard about this gorgeous polish being the red-version of Starry Starry Nights, and luckily found it on Ebay for around $5 shipped. I'm not sure if it's still available at a decent price, but it's definitely worth a look :)

This polish is a bright red jelly-ish base with silver microglitter. It's so gorgeous!

Essie Bonded - 3 coats, lovely formula!

Essie Power Clutch

This is the only polish from the Fall collection that interested me. And it's awesome.

Essie Power Clutch - gorgeous formula. 2 coats.

I didn't have anything even remotely close in my stash. Any suggestions for comparisons?

Essie Raise Awareness

You may have noticed in my stash-carpet picture I don't own many baby pinks. That's because, frankly, I hate them on myself. LOL. DBF is in love with baby pink on me, for some insane reason, so he flipped when I bought this polish "for him". I also got him Essie French Affair, though I hate it on myself.

Anyway, I had read that the formula on Raise Awareness was good and it looked a little warmer in swatches, so I decided to give it a try.

Essie Raise Awareness - the formula is much better. It's almost jelly-ish, and not chalky at all. I think I used 2 coats here.

Comparison: Essie Raise Awareness and Essie French Affair - It's a tiny bit warmer than Essie French Affair. I like it better!

So what did DBF say when I showed him the two swatched side by side?

"I can't tell the difference... But you have to keep them both."

!!! MEN! Hahaha :)

I will probably purge French Affair later this year. He didn't notice when I purged OPI Panda-monium Pink or Mod About You, and he looooved those ones too :p

Essie Mint Candy Apple

I actually picked this up in my last Aveyou.com haul. I had picked it up and put it down a million times before. I guess I heard the formula was bad so kept my distance, but actually I didn't find it bad at all. Not to say it was fabulous, but it wasn't hard to deal with :p

Essie Mint Candy Apple - the name is really cute too. I think I used 3 coats.

And since I have a few mints even after purging... comparisons! Honestly, you only need one mint polish, but once you get them in your hands, it is so hard to let them go!!!

Comparison: Essie Mint Candy Apple and American Apparel Office

Comparison: Essie Mint Candy Apple and Illamasqua Milf

Comparison: Essie Mint Candy Apple and Orly Gumdrop

... they're different enough to own all four, right?

Essie Mesmerize

Here's another polish I got a while ago and forgot to post! I'm not sure I want to keep it, though. I'm not a huge fan of brights like this! I like my polishes to be a bit dusty, or complex... know what I mean?

Essie Mesmerize - surprisingly opaque, almost a 1 coater, but the formula is not thick like most 1 coaters.

Comparison: Essie Mesmerize and OPI Dating a Royal - sort of close, but Dating a Royal is hard to photograph (for me) since it's a jelly.

Essie Chinchilly

I purchased this polish a while ago, but realized I never posted the swatches! Oops! Actually, this may be the "theme" of my posts over the next couple of months... haha. Hope you guys don't mind!

I had picked up and put down this polish countless times at the store, and finally decided to just buy it. I'm so glad I did, because I flipping love this neutral polish!! If you have a similar skin tone to me, you definitely owe it to yourself to try this polish out. Mmmmk?

Essie Chinchilly - It's somewhere between a 2 and 3 coater.

Here are a couple comparisons to help you get an idea of the colour:

Comparison: Essie Chinchilly and Milani Bare to Wear

Comparison: Essie Chinchilly and Revlon Stormy

I played with my stash this weekend. Since I love seeing "nail polish collection on the carpet"-pictures, I thought I'd show you mine:

And sorted by brand...

Actually, after sorting by brand I realized I was missing two bottles of Zoya (found 'em under my coffee table) and that I had some polishes for swapping in my main drawer by accident. DBF also asked me, "What is the purpose of this activity?" to which I promptly ignored. :)

Hope you guys are doing well!