essence - Just in Case

Above is two coats of Just in Case from my mini-haul of essence nail polishes.  I really liked the color (especially since it was fifty cents on sale).  The consistency was great though it dried with visible brush strokes--I know brush stroke lines bother some people but I don't mind as long as the actual texture isn't lumpy or streaky.  One thing that surprised me about this color is that the finish was really glossy and smooth, even without top coat.  This reminds me of some of the light brown metallics from China Glaze.

essence colour & go

I've heard great things about essence nail polish and finally picked up a few at Ulta over the weekend:

From left to right, they are: Enchanted Fairy (light pink shimmer), Where Is the Party? (purple/green duochrome), Just in Case (brown shimmer), Gold Rush (champagne shimmer), and What Do U Think? (orange / peach shimmer).  The bottles are pretty small (0.16 fl oz), about one third the size of a typical OPI bottle, but they sell for $0.99 and several of them were on sale for $0.49.  Can't wait to try these out this week!

China Glaze - Grape Pop

I've been wearing the mani above for almost two weeks now, which is why I haven't posted anything new.  I started with two coats of China Glaze Grape Pop and then stamped the flower pattern from GCOCL K04, which I used last month.  I thought it still looked a little unfinished so after that dried, I used tape to cover the flowers and painted a stripe of light purple using OPI Do You Lilac It? along the left side of each nail.  Loved the way it turned out!

Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not

Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not is an oldie but goodie.  It was part of OPI's France Collection in 2008 and I loved it so much I bought two bottles.  Today I was wearing this dress that I thought it would go perfect with Louvre Me, so after three coats I stamped a pattern in black from Konad plate m64:

Louvre Me has some fuschia shimmer in it, so depending on the lighting and number of coats, it can take on reddish / warm tones (think OPI Pamplona Purple).  I added one more coat than usual to make it a little darker since I was trying to match the color of my dress.  Wearing matching dress + manicure was so much fun!  I wouldn't do it all the time but I definitely got a kick out of it today.