Essie Resort Collection 2012 - No More Film

Hi readers! I hope y'all had a great weekend.  Sorry for being so absent this weekend but between work and visitors, I've been swamped.  Anyways, I have two weeks of vacation now that my bosses have gone on vacation so I'll be going on a little trip next weekend to the Adirondacks for a little R&R and some hiking.  But not to worry, I'll be publishing at least three articles during that week.  It'll also mean that I'll be in the states so I'll have to opportunity to pick up some polishes that are not available in Canada.  If there are any polishes that you think I should pick up, let me know by leaving a comment!

 So as promised, I'll be reviewing the last colour of Essie's Resort 2012 collection.  I must say, I am a fan of this collection and I can honestly say I've been impressed with every colour so far.  This last colour doesn't fit the profile of a typical spring colour.  On first impression, I thought it was more of a fall/winter colour.  But it is striking nonetheless.

Anyways, today I'm bringing you Essie's no more film.  No more film is a creamy deep violet that just sucks you in.  I love how it has a hint of dark blue to it.  The coverage of this polish is fabulous.  I could have honestly gotten away with one coat of polish but I decided to do two coats for the pictures.  The application was excellent and applied smoothly.  Once it was taken off, it didn't even stain my nails.

Overall, I am very impressed with this collection. My top favourites were sure shot and no more film.  But I really have nothing bad to say about she's picture perfect and pink-a-boo.  I absolutely love how they have a subtle glitter to them and they play with the light.  She's picture perfect and pink-a-boo feel like the most appropriate spring colour while the other two feel like year-round colours.

Are you impressed with this collection? What colour is your favourite?

Keep those fingers polished!

Essie Resort Collection 2012 - Sure Shot

Hi readers! Hooray, the week has come to an end! I hope that your Friday is going well and that you have exciting plans for the weekend.  Well, I must admit this post is being written on my lunch break.  Luckily work is fairly easy today as we're in the midst of doing spring cleaning.

So today, I'll be talking about the third polish from Essie's Resort Collection 2012.  This polish is a magnificent magenta with a wonderful shimmer.  I must admit, this was one of the first polishes that caught my eye from this collection.   This truly is a nice colour.  In the sun, it looks pinky-purple.

In terms of the polish itself, I have no complaints.  The consistency is perfect and it applies very nicely.  For this picture I used two coats.  In order to really make this polish pop, it needs a topcoat (I used Essie's good to go).

Overall, this polish really lived up to the expectations I had.  I would say that this is a must buy polish because it would work for both spring and summer.  Have you bought this polish?

Have a wicked weekend!!

Essie Resort Collection 2012 - She's Picture Perfect

Hi Readers! I hope your Thursday is going well.  This is my last day off before I have to work for two days.  Though I would like to work more, it has been slow at work so they don't need the help.  Hopefully the summer will either bring me more hours or the start of a real career.  Anyways, I'm excited to talk about the second colour from Essie's resort collection 2012.

As I talked about in this post , I will be bringing you guys a new colour from the resort 2012 collection for four days.  Well, today I'm bringing you my official first true purple polish.  Yes that's right, she's picture perfect is the first true light purple that I own.  I do own some pinky-purples but no light purples.

She's picture perfect is a gorgeous iridescent lilac.  The shimmer is a blue-pink and it just grabs your eye.  Glitter and shimmer is hard to do justice in pictures but trust me it's just stunning in person.  The polish applied beautifully and was a perfect consistency.  She's picture perfect really surprised me because it dried with a high gloss finish even prior to Essie's good to go topcoat.  For this picture, I used two coats.  I feel that she's picture perfect is a softer, more shimmery version of Essie's playdate.  Though I don't own this polish, I would love to see them compared side by side.

Overall, I haven't always been the biggest fan of purples on nails but this one is definitely a keeper.  It'll be one of those colours that I'll use when I want to spice things up.

Is this a colour you've added to your collection? Does it remind you of other polishes? If so, let me know which ones.

Keep on polishing!

Essie Resort Collection 2012 - Pink-A-Boo

Happy hump day readers! We're half way through this week.  Well, it finally looks like the weather has broken here and we're starting to see some sun. Yay! Anyways, this past weekend I did my usual rounds to my favourite beauty stores to see if anyone had any new nail polishes.  Well, I got a little off track and ended up at Winners.  This ended up being a very good thing for my nail polish collection.  I found a little package that held great potential.  As I've said before, Essie's Resort Collections have always been big hits with me.  Well, surprisingly I hadn't picked up any of the colours from the 2012 collection.  When I was going through the beauty section in Winners, I found a perfect little gem.

The mini Essie Resort Collection cube was for sale for $11.99.  This was such a good deal, especially in Canada.  With that said, I just had to pick it up.

 This cute little set came with the four polishes from the collection.  Sure shot is a glistening magenta, she's picture perfect is an iridescent lilac, pink-a-boo is a micro-glitter sheer pink, and no more film is a rich violet creme.  These colours have incredible depth and are definitely going to become fast favourites.



Okay, so I'm going to switch things up a little bit.  For the next three days, I've going to feature a different polish from this collection.  To begin, today I'm featuring pink-a-boo.

Pink-a-boo is a somewhat sheer baby pink with iridescent micro-glitter.  Honestly, in the box this polish was just another pink but once I took it out of the box, I was taken aback by how pretty it was.  The glitter within this polish is a mix of blue and pink, which is very unique.  The picture really didn't pick up the glitter which was quite a disappointment.  In order to make this polish opaque, I used three coats.  The consistency of pink-a-boo was perfect and the application was wonderful.  I think layering this polish overtop of a white would really make the colour pop.


Overall, this polish is definitely a keeper.  I love the subtle shimmer and the way it applies.  If you are looking for new pale pink for the summer, this one is a great choice.  Let me know what you think! Will you be picking this colour up? Have you tried layering overtop of other colours? If so, which ones!

Keep those fingers polished!

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!

Mani Monday - Cosmetic Arts April Showers

Hi Readers! Mondays are such tough days.  The snow and rain today have made this Monday exceptionally hard.  I mean, snow in April? I know I live in Canada but really, this is like a cruel practical joke.  Anyways, I thought I'd talk about a little Christmas gift I got.  As a stocking stuffer I received a pretty Cosmetic Arts nail polish.  Trouble is, when the price tag was removed, so was the name of the polish.  Well, my strong investigative skills have concluded that this polish is probably Cosmetic Arts' April Showers (appropriately named for today).  Anyways, if you recognize this polish as some other colour let me know in the comments section!

Cosmetic Arts' April Showers is a sheer polish.  With this said, I used it overtop of four colours.  Because this polish is a shimmery blue-green, I wanted to show how a both green and blue make a significant difference in the final look.  I also used light pink and a creme coloured bases to show a more accurate representation of Cosmetic Art's April Showers.


For the picture on the left, I used Essie's Turquoise and Caicos on my index and middle finger followed by two coats of Cosmetic Arts' April Showers.  This really brought out the sparkly green tones in this nail polish.  For my ring and pinky fingers, I used two coats of Essie's Fiji followed by three coats of April Showers.  Three coats was needed to ensure even coverage because Fiji was so sheer.  The pink base colour caused April Showers to have a shimmery blue appearance.  Honestly, I don't think that either of these colours bring out the true appearance of CA's April Showers.  With that said, I really like how April Showers looks overtop of Essie's Turquoise and Caicos.

For this picture, I used two coats of Zoya's Sadie as a base colour with two coats of April Showers overtop.  This was the truest representation of April Showers.  Depending on the light, both the blue and green tones really popped.  For my index and pinky fingers, I used two coats of Nicole by OPI Nothing Kim-pears to Blue with two coats of April Showers overtop.  I feel like the blue tones overwhelmed April Showers.  This was the combination that I was the most excited for but I was the least impressed with.  With this said, my favourite combination for this picture is Zoya Sadie with CA's April Showers.  I feel like the true colour of April Showers aren't drowned out by the base colour.  Overall, my favourite colour combination was CA's April Showers overtop of Essie's Turquoise and Caicos.

Finally, this is what three coats of Cosmetic Arts' April Showers looks like with no base colour.  Though the picture doesn't show it, without a base colour the coverage is really spotty and streaky.  Overall, application is decent.  The formula is a little thin and you have to be careful to ensure brush strokes aren't left behind.

I love using this polish as a top coat to add a little shimmer to otherwise less dynamic polishes.  This polish was bought at Winners in Canada for around 7 dollars.

Let me know what you think.  Is this a polish you would use? Do you have this colour? If so, how do you use it?

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!