Essie: Fashion Playground and Good as Gold

Hello!

Spring is finally here!  Well it's still cold but at least the snow has melted and it's mostly nice and sunny.  I have Essie's Fashion Playground to share with you today.  I own a lot of mint greens, sometimes I wonder if I'm on the search for the perfect mint green.  I'm not sure if I found it but I'm pretty happy with this one.

When Essie's Fashion Playground first came out, I thought I could do without this colour.  I started seeing Fashion Playground on instagram and it looked pretty!  I guess in some cases, curse instagram for making me so weak!  Anyway, I started to pay more attention to reviews and reach that the formula wasn't that great but the colour was nice.  I decided to give it a try anyways.

Thoughts

Part of the reviews I read said the formula was very thin.  My bottle is actually quite thick.  I think the colour was good enough after two coats but I noticed that my messy application would have required me another layer to even it out.  I'll have to wear this again to see how it applies.  My coats were my regular coats.  I didn't thin out the brush too much because sometimes it results in a streaky/bumpy application.  

I realized with my first coat, I could get some coats to be fine and another ones were a little streaky.  It wasn't the same streakiness I find with other Essie products.  So I thought I would mention that.

Overall, I really love this colour! I'm happy that I ended up buying it because it's pretty and I do notice the subtle shimmer. It's not as obvious as it is on the bottle but it's pretty enough.

Shoppers was having a BOGO free polish sale for three hours on Friday, April 25.  I kind of bought this earlier on nailpolishcanada.com.  I kind of wish I had waited but this was a surprise sale that I've noticed for the first time, so I wouldn't have been able to expect/predict it.  

Essie Fashion Playground

Oh the shimmer

Breakdown
Basecoat: Essie First Base
Colour layer: Essie Fashion Playground (3 coats) and Good as Gold (ring finger)
Topcoat:  Essie Good to Go

Brush shot

No Top coat

No Top coat

No Top coat

With added dots

I saw another picture somewhere on the internet with the accent as dots by using Good as Gold.  Since I had Good as Gold, I decided to give it a try.  The picture I saw ended to be in matte but I left it as shiny.  I'm sure I can not credit the post because I forgot where I saw it.  I just remember it looked nice :)

My dots aren't as nice as the picture I saw though.  

Good as Gold

Good as Gold

With top coat

With topcoat

I bought Fashion Playground on nailpolishcanada.com for $8.95 (they increased their price by $1 but it's free shipping) for 13.5mL.  I bought Good as Gold a while ago but it must be from either Shoppers or Wal-mart.  I realized how great these Mirror Metallics were very good for stamping.

Essie Ballet Slippers and A-England She Walks in Beauty

I wanted to share this simple look.  Lately I've been getting into glitter.  Even though it's difficult to remove, I've been cutting my cotton pad into pieces and leaving the piece on the finger with glitter for a longer time.  It makes removing it easier.  It's still stuck but not as bad as before.  Also, because my layer of glitter is pretty thin, it makes it easier.

Today I have Essie's Ballet Slippers.  I went to the L'Oreal Warehouse sale but this was not available.  I tried looking at all the natural/milk colours available and none of them were Ballet Slippers.  My curiosity for Ballet Slippers is pretty random.  The first reason is because I wanted to find the perfect cream pink shade. The second is because Essie Weingarten of Essie always talks about Ballet Slippers.  I think I watched somewhere that she usually wears Ballet Slippers with Mademoiselle on her nails.  I mean her mentioning it a few interviews kind of had Ballet Slippers stuck in my head.  

I wore it with A-England She Walks in Beauty on the accent.  I feel like this pairing is really nice.  Although I did not do it on purpose, I also feel like this can be a bridal look.  It's subtle with a little accent.  I did a thin coat of She Walks in Beauty, and I think it really looks very pretty like this.  I received compliments for this look and my boss even pointed out that she basically liked the base colour more than my glitter accent.

Thoughts

Ballet Slippers is pretty sheer.  To get it to be even and opaque, I used three thin coats.  I has a very pretty finish, kind of like a jelly-like finish.  I'm not used to having such light polish on my fingers and maybe this week I was extra rough because I could see the scratches on my nail polish (scratches from my daily activities I guess).  With Seche Vite, this started chipping by fourth day.  Which isn't bad.  

During the week, even though I had She Walks in Beauty as my accent, I did imagine other glitter combinations with Ballet Slippers.  I really like how this looked on my nails.  I think next time, I will wait longer in between coats.

Breakdown
Basecoat: Seche Base
Colour layer: All except ring finger - Essie Ballet Slippers (3 thin coats). Ring Finger - Essie Ballet Slippers (2 thin coats) and A-England She Walks in Beauty (1 thin coat)
Topcoat: Seche Vite

Bottle shot

I bought Essie's Ballet Slippers at Wal-Mart for C$7.96.  A-England's She Walks in Beauty was bought on nailpolishcanada.com for C$13.50.

Rescue Beauty Lounge: Liberty

Hi! Today I'm going to do a short post only because I wanted to share this polish but it is no longer available.  

I bought Rescue Beauty Lounge's Liberty a while ago and it was part of the Bloggers 2.0 collection.  It was sold out after it was made available for the regular sale.  I was able to buy it once it was available for public because I couldn't make the pre-sale.

Thoughts

I honestly really love this colour. It's a really nice mint green but with silver/blue sheen.  The only thing was my polish chipped on the second day. I'm not sure if it was my top coat but that was a little sad.  Also it was a little difficult to remove because of the blue and silver shimmer particles in the polish. Or I found it a little difficult because I wasn't expecting it would be stuck on the way it was.

Breakdown
Basecoat: Butter London Nail Foundation
Colour layer: Rescue Beauty Lounge Liberty (2 coats each polish)
Topcoat:  Butter London P.D. Hardware

Brush shot

From my iPhone 4 shot

I bought Rescue Beauty Lounge's Liberty on the website.  It was US$20.  I just want to mention again that this colour is unfortunately sold out.

OPI You're Such a BudaPest and Polka dot com

Today I kind of have a repost of polishes I have already swatched and reviewed before.  

When I first started this blog, I was trying to get as much swatches as possible so that I could have an update like every few days.  I realized early that it wasn't possible, especially with my busy work schedule.  Also I felt like I wasn't actually painting my nails that nicely, which does no service to me or anyone reading my post/seeing my pictures.  

Today I have OPI You're Such a BudaPest (YSAB) and Polka dot com.  I really like this look.  I rarely wear glitter because of the removal process.  I haven't bought the OPI glitter base and I haven't tried the school glue technique but I decided to wear glitter anyways.  

I never posted about YSAB before, I did swatch it but I guess my photos turned out really badly.  It's a little streaky so I needed three thin coats to make it opaque.  I have this thing about wearing three coats of polishes, but since the polish itself is pretty thin (not runny though), I am ok with wearing three coats of this.  It's a really pretty purple  

I did kind of a weird mix of glitter on top of some fingers and no glitter on other fingers.  I'm really tempted to paint the glitter on all my fingers but since I've already painted the top coat, I'm not going to.  It would look really pretty though.

Breakdown
Basecoat: Seche Base
Colour layer: OPI You're Such a BudaPest (3 thin coats) and OPI Polka do com (1 thin layer)
Topcoat: Seche Vite

Essie: Watermelon

Today I have a bright red for you.  Essie's Watermelon is like a bright red.  It's a red that leans more pink? I'm not sure if that makes sense because pink is based on red and white.  I just want to mention that I wore this manicure in February.  This is the reason you will see an outside picture with some snow.

Thoughts

Watermelon is very pigmented.  I painted my nails pretty late at night, and my nails were covered after one coat.  I could have just painted the top coat but to just make it even out, I added the second coat.  I really like the way it looks with two coats.  I was able to wear this for four days with minimal chipping.  I must add something interesting. I'm not sure if it was the topcoat or the polish but if I were to accidentally scratch my hands on a white piece of paper, the polish would get on it.  This has happened to me before, and it also happened to be a red polish.  Weird.  Also when I removed the polish, there was a bit minor staining.  It was easily removed but I just thought I would note that.

Breakdown
Basecoat: Butter London Nail Foundation
Colour layer: Essie Watermelon (2 coats each polish)
Topcoat:  Butter London P.D. Hardware

Brush shot

These shots were taken at night

These shots were taken at night

These shots were taken at night

Office lighting with Second Cup

Outdoor lighting in the morning.  It's a pretty vibrant colour and I took this picture while it was still winter.

I bought Essie Watermelon a while ago and don't remember exactly where I bought it.  It is available in drugstores and salons between C$7.79-11.99 for 13.5 mL (0.46 Fl. Oz.)

Formula X: Cherry Blossoms - Just pictures

I'm way too excited for this but I'm not much of a glitter person. Right now it's the Sephora 15% off sale, so I ordered this online. It is C$15 but with 15% off it's $12.75.  

I know Sephora has a whole line of Formula X products now that their collaboration with OPI has ended.  There are some colours that look nice, but it's C$13, so I rather stick with Essie or OPI.  However, when I saw the promotion picture in my email, not even knowing it came with the flower glitter, I was way excited.  

I wanted to share this but I haven't swatched it yet.  Sorry.

For now, let's look at the pictures?  

Quick swatch

OPI Panda-monium Pink and a england She Walks in Beauty

Happy April Fools day!

So today I have a pink look.  Lately I've been wearing a lot of pinks.  So, this seems to be going with my trend.

I have done an accent nail because I've never worn a england's She Walks in Beauty before.  

Thoughts

I have always loved OPI's Panda-monium Pink.  This is the first OPI product that I bought at a salon.  It's also my second bottle of OPI ever.  My first is OPI Who Needs a Prince, but I bought that on ebay.  Even though I have a lot left of Panda-monium Pink, I feel like I'm on a quest to replace it since this is a discontinued colour.  I did find that I need a lot a product in order to have a nice application.  I'm sorry for showing this since it's not available in the salons anymore.  However, I still wanted to share my look.  Cause there's always similar colours out there.

A England She Walks in Beauty is really pretty.  There's a bit of a texture to this because of the glitter.  It's fine gold glitter with pink dot and medium hexagon glitter.  The gold is really sparkly and pretty.  I think in most lighting, the gold really does over power the pink.  You have to look really closely to notice the pink glitter.  It is very pretty though.

Application isn't a problem.  It's not buttery smooth like the holos but this is a glitter polish so it should be expected.  I just want to also add that I used this by itself, and it's pretty pigmented.  The gold foil like base is very dominant.  If you want to use this as a glitter top coat, I would just note that it might cover your base colour.  Also, I would watch out what I would use as a base colour. For example it would like good with beige, pink, nude.  If you use green or blue, it would probably cover a lot of the base and add a gold foil with pink glitter.  So if you wanted it frosted at the tops or as a half moon, just note that the base is already pretty strong.  

Overall, I like how these two work together.  Panda-monium Pink is a light pink so it doesn't draw attention too much because all the attention is to the accent nail.  Also this pink is similar to the pink glitter in A England She Walks in Beauty.

OPI Panda-monium Pink

OPI Panda-monium Pink

a england She Walks in Beauty

a england She Walks in Beauty

Breakdown
Basecoat: Seche Base
Colour layer: OPI Panda-monium Pink (2 coats on all but ring finger). A England She Walks in Beauty (2 coats on ring finger)
Topcoat: Seche Vite

I bought OPI Panda-monium Pink at Trade Secrets but it is no longer available, I have tried looking for it.  A England She Walks in Beauty is available on nailpolishcanada.com for C$13.50 for 15mL.

Some examples of possible combinations for using a England's She Walks in Beauty

I used the following as bases:
Purple: butter London in Marrow
Light Brown: Essie in Case Study
Blue: Essie in Butler Please
Green: Zoya in Wednesday