Essie Playa del Platinum

Sorry if things are boring around here lately, folks, but I have been busy-busy and job interviewing, so nudes it is! Today, I have for you yet another: Essie Playa del Platinum. It was a recent acquisition, and I'm glad I rounded out last year's resort collection. This is a strange and amazing color. It's very nude, but also kinda putty like. It's got a definite green and/or yellow-ness to it, especially in the bottle. Oh the nail though, it transforms into a lovely neutral shade, that is simultaneously flattering, office-appropriate, and due to it's drab nature, kinda subversive.

I think this is two coats, and it was lovely enough that I wore it for a few days, even after my interview:

And in this job climate, I actually did something bonkers: I turned down a job recently. Ugh. It was something I thought I wanted, but the starting pay was too low (we're talking $10 here, and I've got a MA), the commute was 40 minutes (which for 10 bucks is insane), and they wanted me to say belittling things to their customers who missed appointments on the phone. This was reception in a chiropractic office, by the way. It's about half of what I'd like to make and that I think I'm worth, so I turned it down. I'd rather wait tables in our neighborhood (and would probably make more money doing so.... I like restaurant work, and did it for 8 years on and off during high school, college and grad school) than put myself in the position of something I'd hate. On the bright side: I'm waiting to hear back from the job I would *love,* and since both interviews went well, I'm hopeful. They said this week, either way, they would let me know. I love companies who let you know either way, because there is nothing more degrading than just being brushed off and ignored.

Digression! So Playa del Platinum. I really want this job, so let's hope it brought me a little luck :)

Essie Mint Candy Apple

Um, whoops! For some reason this originally got posted without text! My bad.

My recent foray with Essie Absolutely Shore made me remember a polish that I've never actually tried from Essie, their original mint green, Mint Candy Apple. This is the quintessential blue based mint green creme, and I found the formula on it to be excellent. Super smooth and not as streaky as most, below is two coats.

I think this is pre-cleanup, so I apologize. I like this mint green, I've always liked the mint trend. To the point where I probably have too many of them and have lately tried to restrain myself. I think my favorite, however, is still China Glaze Refresh-Mint (or wherever that hyphen goes). That one reminds me exactly of the base of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, which happens to be my favorite. While this is wicked pretty, the blue brings out the pink tones in my hands and I find the lobster phenomenon happens. So pretty though, I really love this color. What's your favorite mint? 

Essie Splash of Grenadine

This color came out last summer with Turquoise & Caicos, Lapis of Luxury and Playa del Platinum. These are four great colors, I don't regret a single one. This one was the last of the set, which I acquired recently. When it arrived in the mail, I made a face. Has this color always been so.... pink? I guess I had it in my head that it was deeper and closer to magenta. This is a straight up lavender pink color. It's quite pretty, but not as I remembered. Hope it's not a dud bottle.

It's a nice polish though, with that weird almost jelly (but not quite) texture that some creme Essies have. This is 3 coats.

What's funny about this is that the color almost (but not quite) makes me look... tan. I am not tan at all, so this is kind of amusing to me. I'm not sure about this one, it's definitely my least favorite of the set, but I think that's because I'm preternaturally afraid of pink. Any thoughts? 

Essie Absolutely Shore

For the longest time, Essie was a brand that was poorly represented in my stash. I relied on them for nice neutrals and sheers, and Fishnet Stockings and Ruby Slippers, but other than that, they didn't interest me much. I do remember being into Essie when Starry Starry Night(s) was available, and I do kick myself for never grabbing that one, but other than that I never really got into them until recently. Now I'm buying at least a polish from each of their releases and I find myself, now that they've gone retail, attempting to flesh out my collection. I've got a nice little army now, with more on the way. I find the formula hit or miss for me, but nothing unmanageable.

Absolutely Shore came out with the Brazilliant collection, from which I also got Smooth Sailing. Essie's blues and greens have been knocking it out of the park lately. I have a mint green problem, I tend to buy them without really thinking if they're anything great. I have a lot of neutral mints and blue mints, but this one seems to lean towards the yellow end of the spectrum. It's very pale, which I like, but somehow still not terribly unique. It's just another mint, not quite as yellow or dusty as I wanted it to be. It's pretty, but the color's definitely done.

That's three coats, pre-cleanup (sorry!). It wore really well (as Essie's tend to for me), and I only removed it because I chipped a corner of my nail. Boo :-( Any thoughts on Super Bossa Nova from this collection? I feel like I want it but I haven't talked myself into it yet. Let me know if I'm missing out!

Mail Call!

Just popping in quick for a haul post, which I haven't done in a long time!

I know we all have the occasional beef with the postal service, and I'll admit my personal bias, as my mom is a postal worker, but I sometimes truly believe that the Postal Service delivers happiness. I love getting mail, even if it's just junk and flyers. Today was a happy day, as my postal working Momma sent along a package full of goodies I had sent to her house.

OPI I Eat Maine-ly Lobster, Holiday Glow, Uh Oh Roll Down the Window, Teenage Dream, Roadhouse Blues. (Flash is making everything way brighter than it is in reality here). These are all from Aveyou.

Essie Bonded, Splash of Grenadine (I was surprised at how pink this was IRL), Playa del Platinum, Power Clutch. These were also from Aveyou.

aaaaand, Chanel Graphite & Peridot from Neiman Marcus, Sally Hansen Purple Diamond & Golden Tourmaline from eBay! Question for those of you who are not Chanel noobs: The square cap. Is it supposed to not work as a functional cap? Is it supposed to just come off and you polish with the smaller cap underneath? 

So so so excited to try all these out. My first Chanels! It's like awesome overload. The only thing that didn't show up was my OPI Zom-body to Love, which my mom told me she had... maybe she ran out of room in the box?? Hope I can get it for Halloween though! Any thoughts on which one I should wear first? I'm thinking Peridot personally... :D

China Glaze White Cap over Essie Marshmallow

A couple posts back I mentioned that I had recently decided I needed a couple polishes from China Glaze Anchor's Away, a collection I had passed on (with the exception of Ahoy!) more times than I can count since it debuted. One of the polishes I decided I needed was White Cap, and here it is.

White Cap is pretty ridiculous, it's this softspun white with crazy golden shimmer that is ever so slightly opalescent. You could probably make it opaque with numerous coats but instead I wore it over my favorite white, Essie Marshmallow. For the record, Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure over Essie Marshmallow is one of my favorite manicures of all time. It's like having opals on your nails. Marshmallow is a jelly white, and its formula is kinda bitchy, but I love it anyway. It's the perfect blue toned squishy white.

This is 3 coats Marshmallow, 1 coat White Cap.

I wore it to an interview, and kept it on. So pretty. I may even try it over other colors. I don't know if I've ever publicly proclaimed this on my blog, but I kinda hate layering. I'm not very original about it, I often pass up polishes if they necessitate layering. This may stop I guess, because I find myself gravitating towards them again and again lately.

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black

Just popping in quick to share my update to Essie Smokin' Hot. I added 2 coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black on top, and the effect was pretty awesome. These pictures do something weird. The flash turns it much more purple; in real life, you can't see the base color of Smokin' Hot, it just turned that murky brown-black that is Chunky Holo Black. Also, the duochrome on this glitter is a complete rainbow. It's amazing and gorgeous. None of this, unfortunately, seemed to pick up in my photos.

Here's a couple of crappy pictures. I may try this again over black to capture it better:

It has a lot of depth and is actually very fall-like in tone. So pretty.

Essie Smokin' Hot

This is nothing you haven't seen before, but I actually just got this color. I could never find it at my local beauty supply (despite them having the rest of the collection) back home in NY, and I think the price of it shot up on eBay for a while so I didn't bother wanting it. It's a good color but nothing worth paying out the butt for. Recently, aveyou.com had a flash sale and they had this in stock so I made sure to grab it. Except my package went to my Mom's in NY (for 1 dollar shipping) and she sent it inside a recent care package (along with several other awesome pretties).

The formula is good (if a little thin), opaque in 2 coats and very shiny. It's so grey and drab but still manages to be purple, which makes me really happy. I'm glad I was able to get my hands on this for retail.

I did something weird today, which I only tend to do with China Glaze collections. I suddenly realized that I *needed* China Glaze White Cap & Sea Spray. That collection came out what? At least six months ago? And I've passed on it countless times. Luckily I found 'em.

Thanks for looking in!

It's been a long, long time!

I didn't want to abandon my little blog here, but life has just been crazy for the last six months. I moved at the beginning of May to Canada (my hubby's homeland), after finally celebrating our marriage (9 months after the fact). Moving was nuts. So much paperwork and physical work and waiting, oh, and driving 1700 miles. My nails got trashed, and I kept them short. Also, my lack of work has curbed the polish acquiring (a bit!!). I also, unfortunately, ended up leaving about half my stash (over a Helmer's worth) at home in NY. I went through and just weeded out everything that I didn't feel I *had* to bring, boxed it up and stored it in my closet there. It was a lot of drugstore/dollar store impulse purchases and vintage stuff I'm keeping out of sentimentality. but I also left all my backups. I plan to go through it at a later date. So far I haven't found myself missing too much of anything.

Living in Canada is strange for me. It's so like home and yet so... not! Though my lack of a job has curbed my polish buying, another thing has helped: lack of CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreens! Oh my drugstores, how I miss thee! Drugstore stuff here is just hella expensive and hard to find exclusives (here's hoping Milani knocks off their awesome collections for a while). Anyway, it helps not being tempted. That said, I have an American Apparel a block away (uh oh, amazing polish), and OPI's are not exorbitant (~$8.95-9.95, though lots of places are 2 for $16). I made the mistake of buying one at a random beauty supply without asking, and it was $12.99 (Spark D'Triomphe backup), and uh no, never again. My husband, Chris and I are going to North Dakota this weekend and I CANNOT WAIT to go to CVS! Haha.

Enough rambling, here are a very few select NOTDs from the past few months:

China Glaze Crushed Candy over American Apparel Manila. Loved this combo.

Essie Mochachino. Didn't love the way this taupe looked on my skintone, but it was so pretty.

These are both OPI I Lily Love You over China Glaze Ahoy. I'm unfortunately not able to take outdoor pictures, and my lighting situation isn't ideal. So the first one is no flash, and you can sort of make out the detail. The second one is more color accurate, but the flash washes out the flakes and glitter. Not sure I love this one. It's pretty but...

These Sally Hansen nail strips are basically amazing. So pretty and fun. The only set I had any trouble with was the Frock Star glitter ones. They were a bitch to put on and stayed "tacky" and didn't seem to set. Oh well.

Orly Here Comes Trouble. I couldn't find Bubbly Bombshell, but this one is awesome. Love the different shapes of glitter and the color! Perfect spring green.

Love & Beauty. Stupidly labeled as "Blue." This polish is ridiculously amazing. It's probably got an LA Girls equivalent but I'm lazy and don't feel like looking it up. But seriously. Beautiful. Shimmer. Perfect application.

Super crappy iPhone4 pic! OPI Your Royal Shine-ness. Gorgeous, underrated. A warm, almost pewter silver foil. Seriously blingy. Love love.

Ohmygod. This is Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal over American Apparel Hassid. So, you'll all want to punch me after I tell you this, but I've had Turquoise Opal for years. I bought it and tons of other Prisms in 2 packs at Dollar Tree probably 3 years ago. Maybe longer. And I've never worn a single. one. WTF was I thinking?? Anyway. I got so many compliments on this. A sweet lady at the dollar store actually grabbed my hand. It wasn't creepy... yeah maybe a little. But seriously, I don't blame her.

And finally, a few crapalicious pics of today's nails... (I've seriously gotta figure out a new lighting situation. Basement apartment=not good.)

Kleancolor Holo Chrome with Chunky Holo Bluebelle on top. I'm also holding Bluebelle. Um, yay Kleancolor for amazing polishes. I don't hate the smell. It smells like chemical awesome. And Beautyjoint.com ships to Canada super reasonably. I'm gonna order more. Anyway, Holo Chrome had kind of a bitchy thick formula. Three coats. I shoulda thinned it. It's so beautiful. What you see above is mostly Holo Chrome. The Bluebelle you can't see in my lighting but in certain lights you can also see the effect in the bottle on my nails. The base color also sorta matches Holo Chrome.

More true to color.

Sparkle!

In the last few months, I have also grabbed the Serena Wimbeldon & French duos, hauled KleanColor's like crazy mad, got 2 Dare2Wear collections, all the OPI shatters, a couple Nice Stems, and got 3/4 of the Miss Universe collection. Also some Essies. My only leftover lemmings (until Christmas, fall isn't really doing it for me... maybe a couple China Glazes) are Chanel Graphite and Peridot, but I doubt my budget will be accommodating, at least to both. Maybe though :-)

What have you all been hauling/loving/doing lately? How's summer?

Also!! If any of you are on Pinterest, follow me! I post NOTD's and other things too.

http://pinterest.com/sarahrobo/ I'd love to follow you back :-)

More Pic Spam from the last couple months!

I really have no excuse for being MIA this time, except that I think I sort of have the winter blues. I also think that, upon going through my stash and updating my spreadsheet, that I feel that I'm reaching my nail polish saturation point. Creeping closer to being in the 4-digits--scary!! But fun. I know it's a harmless hobby, but yeah. Somehow when I realized how much I had acquired made me a bit crazy!

Plus, I have to decide what I'm going to do about it. I'm moving to Winnipeg in May, around 1700 miles away. I'm having my stuff shipped in a pod, but there's *no way* I'm packing that many polishes, and I won't have room for my polish in my car. My solution, so far, has been to decide on a core number to bring with me, pack them securely in one of my Helmers, and ship that, and store the rest of my collection at my mom's house in NY. Our move to Winnipeg is supposed to be somewhat-temporary (a few years, until I'm a dual citizen), and then we intend to return to the States. What would you do? Could you live without part of your stash? I'm certain I could, plus I could always grab stuff when I visit home, or have my mom mail it. Any suggestions from you other nail mavens?

Anyway, enough babble and on to some NOTD's from December to present, in some sort of general chronological order, with running commentary, as usual:

Milani Purple Gleam. Umm stunner! So awesome it needed two pictures. I bought all of these new glitters the released. When I'm in Canada, I will seriously, seriously miss these LE Milanis (do ya'll get these? I feel like I read you don't). I bought all the colors and the Jewel FX's, even the Silver one that I ordered especially from Cherry Culture. I have glitter sickness!

OPI My Private Jet. I won't lie, I own two bottles of this beauty. I only break it out for special occasions. In this case, I wore it to my graduation for my Master's Degree.

China Glaze Peace on Earth. I like this polish a lot but it was a bit hard to control the brushstrokes, as you can see. It was pretty much a one-coater, though.

China Glaze Sexy in the City. Liked this one more in the bottle than in practice here. This is also a terrible shot of it. It's just not as blue as I wanted. In the bottle, it sort of reminds me of the Cerulean Crayola Crayon. In reality, not so much :-(

Milani Silver Dazzle. LOVE.

China Glaze Little Drummer Boy with China Glaze Fairy Dust on top, Konad Plate M59. Got a lot of compliments on this one, I wore it for a while.

China Glaze Frosty with China Glaze Party Hearty. Love both of these polishes. Frosty is like snow, so gorgeous.

OPI Teenage Dream. This is awesome. I bought all 4 Katy Perry polishes, even though I have zero opinion of her one way or the other (I'm a rock'n'roll kinda gal, I have zero knowledge of pop music), but this is a lot of fun, and very pretty.

This is a hot mess of a picture but here's OPI Black Shatter (no topcoat). Just playing around, and here my camera starts to do an annoying streaky glare thing that it will continue to do for a few more shots to come. Once I get my hands on the black China Glaze Crackle, I'd like to do a comparison, as I also have the Cover Girl and the Isa Dora black crackles.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Cut It Out. This was amazing. Any "wear" you see in this shot was actually user-error, I broke a few off wrong and had what looked like chips, but they weren't. Anyway, these wore crazy well for me, no tipwear, chipping, lifting, anything. I didn't want to take 'em off. I got a few more packs to try too, but I think I'm saving them for when I know I won't have much time to change my polish, as they're a bit pricey.

RBL Coral with OPI Dress to Empress on top. I felt like I needed RBL Coral in the last sale and I'm not sure why. It is pretty, but I don't really do coral. I got Dress to Empress at a salon on clearance, I hadn't heard of it before. It looked kinda sheer, so I layered it here. In real life, this sort of resembled OPI Wing It, and even though it was 2 coats of the RBL and two coats of the OPI, it was still kinda-not-totally-opaque. Lame!

Zoya Edyta. OK so sue me here. This picture sucks, and I have to say that I recognize and respect that this polish is gorgeous but I hated it on me? It was so boring and one dimensional on the nail. Yuck. Oh well... it wore great. I got this with my sale order, I also got Crystal (love), Cheryl (love), Valerie (untried), Tiffany (untried), and SARAH!! (my name!!!), which is serious, serious, serious love. It's wicked gorgeous, thank you Zoya! I didn't take pics though, sorry :-/

Essie Dive Bar with China Glaze Millenium & Konad M61. I'm trying to use my Konad more lately, it's kinda gone by the way-side. I'm bummed that the gorgeous purple duo in this polish doesn't show really on the nail except at some very random, incapturable moments. This is part of the new Essie retail line. Also grabbed Mochachino, and I reallllly want Coat Azure from the new spring line. *saves CVS coupons*

Milani HD. I can't tell you how many times I've passed this in the store. In CVS lighting, it looks dreary and un-holo. Actually, all the gorgeous Milani holos look dreadful in this light. I heard they're dc-ing these, so I wanted to grab the few I still didn't have. I still want the blue and pink ones. Anyway, this is WAY more holo than this picture shows, it's so pretty, I'm in love. This is tonight's manicure and it looks like it'll be my Valentine's Day one, too. Maybe I'll add a Konad heart, even though I don't celebrate (husband is far away, so boo).

I've gotta stop doing this in giant chunks and blog a little more regularly. I have fun ideas for posts, but then I get lazy! Ugh! Winter! All I do is read and work and try to stay warm and watch movies! I'm just itching for spring.

One last question to my lovely readers: Anything from China Glaze Anchor's Away that I need? I can't decide. Ugh. I've gotta go get a better look at 'em.

I'm back! And Wet 'N Wild Craze in Lust & Konad M59

So, I began this several months ago and things quickly petered out. I decided to start anew with things. I changed my blog address to something less ubiquitous. So ignore that old watermark on previous posts, I was too lazy to change it on the pictures. At any rate, despite my lack of blogging, I've been taking photos of my manicures nonetheless. So I'll start off with a recent one, just to get the ball rolling. Valentines Day---I hate Valentines Day. It's not a bitter single person hatred of the holiday (I'm happily engaged) but it's more along the lines of me thinking the holiday is just kinda ridiculous. At any rate, I celebrated on my nails, mostly because I have a zillion Konad plates and will use any excuse to break 'em out.

Luckily enough, I started my V-Day manicures a few days early, because, due to awful circumstances, I ended up having to attend a wake on the actual day. So I broke out RBL Grunge out of respect. Photos of that to come later.

The first one I did was Wet 'N Wild Craze in Lust, a pretty shimmery hot pink with a blue pearl to it. I did 2 coats (which was not entirely opaque, but I knew I was Konad-ing over it), and then the Konad plate M59 with China Glaze Millennium for the stamp. I topped it all off with a coat of Essie's Matte About You (Lust & Inferno, both from the Craze line, look awesome matte).

It was a bit brighter in person. I'm still perfecting my camera skills, as well as my Konad skills. I really liked this matte, though.

Thanks for looking!