Trendy Tuesday - Favourite Essie Colours

Hi Readers! First of all, I would like to thank A Polish Problem for adding my blog to the Blog Round Up.  I hope that I can share my passion of nail polish with more people everyday! Okay, so today I thought I would write about my absolute favourite Essie polishes out there.  But if I featured them individually, this post would be a mile long (kind of like yesterdays).  Anyways, I got creative and decided to feature all of my favourites using polkadots! This way, you get a taste of each colour in a creative and fun way.

As I wrote yesterday, the weather here has been dreadful.  If it isn't raining, it's snowing (in APRIL!).  It has put me into a bit of a funk.  As a result, I thought I would brighten up an awesome platinum colour with these bright polkadots.  But I ran into a bit of a problem. For the past three weeks I've been on the hunt for a set of dotting tools. In the end, I never did find any.  I've tried Sally Beauty, Trade Secrets, Shoppers, and even Michaels.  If anyone knows of somewhere  to buy dotting tools in Canada, please let me know! Anyways in the end I got creative and used the plastic end of a bobby pin and I think they turned out quite nicely.  


As a base colour, I used two coats of Essie's Playa Del Platinum.  It's from the Resort 2010 collection.   It's a grey-beige blend rather than a pure grey.  The uniqueness of this colour is what originally brought me to buy it.  It truly is a warmer grey.  Then I used four colours for the polkadots. Firstly, I used Essie's E-nuf is E-nuf.  This creamy coral is a great punch of colour. Then I used Essie's Turquoise and Caicos.  This Tiffany box turquoise colour was also released as part of the Resort Collection in 2010.  For the third set of polkadots, I used Essie's Splash of Grenadine.  Again, this colour was a part of the Resort Collection in 2010.  As you can see, this was one of my favourite collections that has been released so far.  Splash of Grenadine is a wonderful mix of lavender and pink.  Alone, this colour almost makes me look like I've got some colour (which is far from the case).  I can't get enough of how it's not quite a true purple nor is it a true pink.  Splash of Grenadine is truly lovely.  The final colour used for the polkadots was Essie's Over the Edge.  This gunmetal grey has a nice hint of sparkle.  As described by Essie, it's "a dramatic metallic midnight silver".  I couldn't have described it any better.  I like how it's not just a flat black, rather it's quite a dramatic grey.

Overall, I love how this manicure turned out.  This was my first attempt at polkadots and I'm sure I'll get better.  Are any of these colours staples on your nails?  Do you use any other home-made tools to polkadot? If so, which ones?

Keep those fingers pretty!

Weekend Nail Art!

Hey guys and gals, I hope your weekend is going well! Now that the craziness of school is over for me, I get to let my hair down and let loose.  As a result, I created a magnificent manicure to match my stellar mood.  This manicure makes me feel a little like Lady Gaga.  Though it's not directly inspired by her, I feel as if this is something that she would do.

Anyways, this nail art was done free-handed.  No tape, no mess.  This manicure started with a base coat, three coats of Nicole by OPI Nothing Kim-pears to Blue (I reviewed this one yesterday), and two coats of China Glaze's Prism (reviewed this polish last week).  


To begin, I painted all of my nails with the blue base colour.  Once that was dry, I painted a diagonal portion of my nail with two coats of Prism.  In order to even out the layers and give the nail a high gloss finish, I used two coats of Essie's good to go.  This fast drying top coat is an absolute life-saver for those who can't wait for polish to dry.


I terms of wear, this combination is super durable.  I have worn this design since Tuesday and there is absolutely no evidence of tip wear or chipping on either hand.  This manicure is definitely one that I have gotten many complements on.  People seem to love the colour combination and how unique it is!   


I must say, I am not an expert at nail art whatsoever.  This is one of my first attempts at anything 'artsy' with my nails.  But this coming week I'll be focusing on art as well as reviewing a few new polishes.


Is this a design that inspires you? What type of nail art would you like to see me do?  If you have a blog, leave a link in the comments to your favourite nail art design.


Have a excellent weekend!

Mani Monday - China Glaze Prism

Hi readers! Hope this brightens up your Monday morning.  This weekend I made a trip to my local Sally Beauty and picked up some neat polishes that I'll bring showing you this week.  First off, I just wanted to let you guys know that they are still having their buy two get one free sale so it's a perfect time to pick up a few new polishes.

So this weekend, I picked up China Glaze's Prism.  Prism is from the Prismatic Chroma Glitter collection (Spring 2012). As a glitter addict, this was a must have.  I thought that it had the greatest variety of colours compared to the other polishes in this collection.   This polish is a solid mix of ultra-fine purple-pink glitters along with larger hexagonal multi-coloured glitter pieces.  I was truly impressed with how densely packed this glitter polish is.  For the pictures, I used two coats of Zoya's Sadie and then two coats of China Glaze's Prism.

Throughout the application I was impressed with how it went on.  It naturally dispersed the glitter evenly and it only took two coats to get superb coverage.  Prism does require two good coats of top coat to get a nice smooth finish (I'm really finicky with finishes so I always use two coats of top coat on top of my glitters).  In order to make removal easier, soak a cotton ball in acetone, place it on top of the nail, and wrap the nail with tin foil.  Let this sit for a good 5 minutes and it will make removal a breeze.

Honestly, I really like now this polish turned out though it is hard to capture the duo-chromatic properties of this polish through pictures.

Let me know what you think! Have you fallen in love with glitter polishes? What is your favourite glitter>

Keep on polishing!