Essence - 03 Mauvellous Fairy (Hidden Stories Trend Edition, january 2015)

Most of the time I'm not very impressed with the trend collections by Essence...but this time I couldn't pass the display without taking Mauve-llous Fairy with me!
It is a lovely....mauve.....with lilac, pink and blue micro glitter: the whole thing looks quite fairy like or you could say I dipped me fingers in sparkly berry yogurt ;-)

Essence Mauve-llous Fairy

The formula was OK, not as glue like as Essence can get; I needed three coats to get to opacity.
The hold was not very good, after one day I had some chipping so that's a bummer. Perhaps it would stay on longer if I layered it over a nice creme base?

Essie - All Eyes on Nudes (Cashmere Matte Collection, spring 2015)

Wow, it took me quite a while to get to my blog again......
There is a lot going on in my life at the moment and there are just not enough hours in a day to do all the things I would like to do! I need to find a time and place in my schedule to make a blogpost once in a while.

On with the blogging then:
Essie Cashmere Matte Collection was a much anticipated collection for me: I found the matte-shimmer combination very intriguing. Why did I start with All Eyes on Nudes you will ask, which contains no shimmer what so ever; I was in need of a very neutral neutral I guess.
All Eyes on nudes is a camel-hued neutral tone that, according to Essie, reveals nothing but the effortless chic of a classic trench. That trench coat I can see that.....the camel has a hint of khaki in it somewhere that makes the café au lait a bit less soft.

The formula was very hard to handle, it is thick and dries lightning fast so I needed three coats to get it leveled out and even then I was not happy with the result and I added Matte About You to make the surface a bit more smooth (kind of ridiculous to add a matte topcoat to a matte polish).

Essie - All Eyes on Nudes

After a day or two the hazy softness of the matte had worn off and was replaced with a kind of greasy shine (not nice. That is when I decided to slap a layer of shine on it: I choose China Glaze II (X Anniversary, autumn 2007) for the job. I really loved the result. II has a lovely subtle rose gold shimmer and is fairly translucent so it complimented AEON beautifully.

Essie - All Eyes on Nudes & China Glaze - II

I did also a little comparison between Orly Dare to Bare, Essie All Eyes on Nudes, Zoya Avery and China Glaze II. The Orly has a bit more pink in the base, Zoya does not have that hint of khaki (but is very close in colour) and the China Glaze is way more yellow (and has the shimmer and the translucency).

Orly - Dare to Bare, Essie - All Eyes on Nudes, Zoya - Avery & China Glaze - II

All in all I think if you have the Zoya then don't bother with the Essie just put some matte top coat over Avery and you're done (no frustrating formulas and probably a much smoother result)!

Comparison Essie - Take it Outside, Chinchilly & Berlin There Done That + bonus mani

Essie Take it Outside is by no means a extremely unique colour (lovely but not unique), so I needed to compare it with the greige polishes I have in my possession: Essie Chinchilly and (a favourite) OPI Berlin There Done That. I thought I would have more close calls....but they were all too brown.
The two Essie's are definitely family: TIO is a lighter version of Chinchilly. BTDT is a touch more brown and is again a step darker then Chinchilly.

Essie Take it Outside, Chinchilly & OPI Berlin There Done That

In my search for family and friends of Take it Outside I found Elevation Polish Aguja St. Exupery to be a very handsome friend. It is a light holo topper with a dusting of old gold and steel grey flakes and it is from the Patagonia Collection 2014. The flakes make the polish interesting in the shade and the holo does it's trick in the sun! Because of the combination of old gold and steel gray flakes it matches the greige of Take it Outside perfectly.

Elevation Polish - Aguja St. Exupery

Still very work appropriate but with a nice twist. Formula was outstanding: just one coat with an even flake distribution.

Aguja St. Exupery (the name keeps reminding me of the writer of the famous book "Le Petit Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. That is not without reason as Wikipedia explanes: "The Aguja Saint Exupery is a mountain spear ('aguja') located near the Cerro Chaltén in the Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, Argentina. The mountain is named in memory of Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the French writer and aviator who was director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline and pioneered postal flights in the Patagonia region between 1929 and 1931.") is still available at Elevation Polish.

Formula: 5/5

Durability: 4/5

Shine:4/5

Colour: 5/5

Overall: 5/5

Essie - Take it Outside (Dress to Kilt Collection, autumn 2014)

Long time no see.....
But I'm back again with yet another beauty from the Dress to Kilt collection: Take it Outside.
TIO is a Pantone warm grey, or greige, or beige with strong grey undertones or grey with a hint of beige (or a lighter version of Chinchilly). The formula was lovely, two easy coats and you're done!

Essie - Take it Outside

It's a very lovely neutral without being stark and washed out or giving you mannequin nails.
I'm loving the neutrals these days, there are these periods when you just needs specific colours and the last few weeks it is neutrals for me: I'll show you some more in the coming days!

Formula: 4/5

Durability: 3/5

Shine:4/5

Colour: 5/5

Overall: 4/5

Comparison Essie No More Film, Style Cartel & After School Boy Blazer and a Cirque gradient

To stay a bit with my last post and Essie Style Cartel.....I did a comparison between Essie No More Film, Style Cartel and After School Boy Blazer.

Essie After School Boy Blazer, Style Cartel & No More Film

As you can see ASBB is the darkest of the three, this one appears black in most cases. No More Film has more of a grey-purple thing going on, it is still dark but definately more blue than ASBB. And Style Cartel is most blue of the trio and it stays blue in most lights! They are all beautiful and no dupes for sure (I need them all!).

Then I had some tipp wear...
So I did a gradient with Cirque Fascination Street and Ophelia!

Gradient Essie Style Cartel, Cirque Fascination Street & Ophelia

The holo in Fascination Street really lifts up the whole colour, it adds light and sparkle. Ophelia drifts happily along in the holoness of Fascination Street and melts into the colour at times and in some lights it pops up and gives it a nice hydrangea twist!
In hindsight I might have added a microglitter to this gradient, like China Glaze All Wrapped Up or Feeling Twinkly, just to give it a bit more sparkle in low light.

Essie - Style Cartel (Dress To Kilt Collection, autumn 2014)

Man, I needed a deep blue in my life! And I had my eye on Essie Style Cartel for a while already. Once I ordered it I received a mail that the last bottle the seller had was leaking and that they couldn't send it to me.
So back to Ebay and reorder somewhere else, weeks later I finally was the proud owner of this fabulous blue polish called Style Cartel.
It is a very deep blue, but not so dark that it becomes black, it stays blue (on the teal side of blue).
I used two easy coats here and it shines like crazy!

Essie - Style Cartel

It did not stain my nails BUT I got smurf fingers when I removed it! Oh well, never mind I love this blue anyway!!!

OPI - Baby Please Come Home (Mariah Carey Holiday Collection 2013)

Before the New Year I posted a mani with OPI I Pulled Out a Plum, todays mani is an extention of that one. I added a layer of OPI Baby PLease Come Home Liquid Sand and used some chevron stickers from the Born Pretty Shop. The colours go very nicely together and the design worked very well to cover up my slight tip wear!
I just recently bought BPCH, initially I had the feeling it would be too cool toned for me. But ever since they decided to stop producing the Liquid Sands, I am on the hunt for all that are not yet in my possession....
BPCH is such a lovely shade, I am so happy to have bought it and I don't find that it is too cool for my skin tone at all.

OPI - Pulled Out a Plum & OPI - Baby Please Come Home

Baby Please Come Home covers very, very well in one coat: I am impressed.
The chevrons are nice but I would have liked them more when the points would have been sharp instead of rounded.