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)!

Zoya - Oswin (Ultra PixieDust Collection autumn 2014)

It's been a while that I showed (and wore) a PixieDust/liquid sand type of polish. So it was time to wear Oswin by Zoya, a deep red dust with big crimson (that how "they" call them and I guess that they are just that) hexes (hence the Ultra PixieDust). This is the only one I bought from this collection, because the other two (Noir and Arianna) seemed to be more translucent and less matte and that are just the two qualities I do not like in a PixieDust. Oswin is opaque and matte and thus a friend of mine!

Zoya Ultra PixieDust - Oswin

This could be a splendid polish for Christmas as well as for autumn!
I used two easy coats of Oswin; there was some colour loss (especially the big hexes) after just one day of wearing it: the edges of the glitters became silver. For the pictures I dry brushed them a bit to give them back their crimson red colour.

China Glaze - Release (The Giver Collection, autumn 2014) and comparison to Essie Bangle Jangle, Zoya Caitlin, OPI Parlez-vous Opi etc.

What is it with these taupe, greige, grey-purple colours that makes you want to own them all so desperately?
When I saw the first pictures of the The Giver Collection, I just needed Release immediately!
Release is a fairly neutral greige, not too warm and not too cold: very wearable for all kinds of skin colours.
The formula works reasonably well, it's a bit fast drying so you have to get on with it and don't fuss. I did three coats here to get it all opaque and greigealicious.

China Glaze - Release

Oh, don't you love it?!

It reminded me of a few colours that are sitting in some of my drawers.....soooooooo I needed to do a comparison!

First up I compared Release with Zoya Caitlin, OPI Parlez-vous Opi and Essie Smokin' Hot. Parlez-vous was too mauve and not grey enough, the Essie was too brown and too dark; the Zoya was the closest in colour yet it was a bit darker and was overall a bit too blue.

Zoya Caitlin, CG Release, OPI Parlez-vous Opi, Essie Smokin' Hot

Smokin' Hot, Parlez-vous, Release, Caitlin

Then I remembered Essie Bangle Jangle....that might be the closest friend of Release.

Zoya Caitlin, CG Release, Essie Bangle Jangle, OPI Parlez-vous Opi

CG Release, Essie Bangle Jangle

Bangle Jangle really is a very close friend, the same tone of colour as Release BUT it is a tint lighter then the China Glaze.
So relieve here: I have no dupes, only friends and I really needed this greige, no doubt about that!

Zoya - Carter (Fall 2013 PixieDust Collection)

It was in my drawer for a while now: Zoya Carter. And it is one of the best liquid sands/pixie dusts I have ever tried! The base colour is this wonderful dark purple and it has tiny fuschia glitters in it to give it sparkle and colour. I love it when they add different colour glitters to a dark base: spectacular!
The first layer was a bit weird: it was uneven and streaky and very translucent, but the second layer gave it all its colour and evenness.

Zoya - Carter

As usual my camera doesn't pick up the blue very good: the colour is much more intense and deep then my pictures suggest.
If you like these texture polishes you absolutely should try and get your hands on this one: it is stunning!

Zoya - Stevie (PixieDust Collection summer 2013)

Ahhh, it is liquid sand/pixiedust day today!
I love these textures because they are easy to work with, no top coat required and they dry very fast >happy<
At first glance I thought that Stevie would be a cold colour and would perhaps not compliment my skintone: I was wrong! Stevie seems to morph and flatters my skin tone instead of creating lobster fingers >happy<

I used a basecoat and two coats of Stevie to get this result:

Zoya - Stevie, PixieDust

I love the colour, it could be this is one of my favorite texture polishes I tried so far! PixieDust wears very well: just do not get into cleaning loads of tiny stones for your fish (without latex gloves), by shoveling your hands through them....it wears your polish down pretty quickly :-)

Last three China Glaze - Autumn Nights 2013 polishes with comparison!

This post has been waiting and waiting.....my nails looked like sh*t after the holidays, then the light was bad, then the polish did not speak to me: it just was not going to happen, until now.
I have three foils from the China Glaze Autumn Nights Collection; Gossip Over Gimlets, Strike Up A Cosmo and Rendezvous With You.
First up is Gossip Over Gimlets, a dens silver foil with gold flecks:

I compared Gossip Over Gimlets with Annie Never Can Say Goodbye and OPI Designer De Better. GOG was the most foil like of the three polishes and the most harsh looking.
NCSG has pink metallic flecks and has much finer silver metallic flecks. DDB is less dens, finer and has these bronze coloured flecks which gives a much warmer feel to the colour. I like the OPI best!

Next up is the rosy metallic, Strike Up A Cosmo:

Stike Up A Cosmo is also a grainy metallic foil with gold and silver flecks in there. I compared it with Zoya Faye. You can see it is in the same colour family but Faye is lighter (more pink) and has more golden flecks and no silver. SUAC covers almost in 1 coat and with Faye you need at least 2! Perhaps Faye is more spring and SUAC is more autumn.......

The last one of the Autumn Nights series that I have is Rendezvous With You:

Rendezvous with you has a little finer in structure then the other two and it also lacks the gold flecks (only silver here). It is a nice, very saturated, brownish purple colour; very autumn appropriate.
I compared it with Zoya Daul but as you can see there are no similarities between the two.

Over all I find these three metallics a bit too grainy and to harsh looking for my taste. I missed the little extra umpfh, like a nice colour shift or tiny extra colour twinkle (like some tiny little red micro glitters in RWY).