Essie Mojito Madness

If you had have your eye on Essie’s Mojito Madness, I highly suggest running out and purchasing it NOW! This polish is simply incredible! Part of the Summer 2012 collection, Mojito Madness is described as “a fun loving, lime green”. I don’t find it lime green; it’s more grassy to me than that.

Don’t mind my cuticles; I have since discovered Sally Hansen cuticle remover (thank goodness). Anyway, this is two coats in natural light. The photos are a good representation of the color; the polish might be a smidgen lighter in real life. Application on this polish is excellent; some of the best I have experienced with Essie!

I could not stop staring at my nails when I wore this. A friend of mine said she has the same polish and is obsessed with it, and this is a girl who regularly purchases and appreciates higher-end polish, like Chanel. This might even make my favorite greens list (which I have been composing mentally).

China Glaze Ride the Waves

China Glaze Ride the Waves is a royal blue jelly polish from the Summer Neons 2012 collection. I really loved the swatches I saw of this collection and fully expected to be picking up Pink Plumeria, but my Sally Beauty didn’t have it. I also liked the orange, but after seeing it described as fake cheese (as in macaroni and cheese), that ruined it for me. Ride the Waves is the one I liked the best and happily, it was at my Sally store.

This is just two coats, so it is a bit sheer. I adore this polish and it ranks up there as one of my favorite blues, possibly one of my favorite polishes in general. I can see why it is called Ride the Waves, since it reminds me of water (the Great Lakes, of course!).

The jelly finish is glossy and shiny; simply gorgeous! I usually don’t go for blue so easily, but I fell hard for this one!

Nail Freebies Galore!

Ulta had a wonderful online promotion recently where you could get a free bag of nail goodies with a $25 purchase. Even though there is finally an Ulta in my area, sometimes I shop online if the deals are better (plus I can get money back through eBates). This bag of nail goodies was particularly exciting: SEVEN bottles of Essence polish (they retail for $1 each), a bottle of Ulta Professional Nails of Steel Nail Hardener (retails for $7.50), a small sample of Butter London Kitten Heels Foot Creme, and a sample of Ahava Mineral Hand Cream.

When I first saw the image online, I thought the blue and the pink colors were similar to two other Essence polishes that I have, but that was not the case! These are all new to me polishes and they’re colors that I like (no grape purple!!).

In the top row:

1. White Secret- It looks opaque, but it’s actually a sheer, milky white. I love white so this is perfect for me. It reminds me of OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu.

2. What Do U Think? – I teach English and it’s destroying me inside to type “U”, but this polish is super pretty. I read that this is a dupe for Chanel Orange Fizz (and it seems to be; check it out here). It’s a nice peach with some shimmer. I love this color, and in the bottle it’s my favorite of the bunch.

3. Date with the Night -This is a nice neutral, sort of a deep taupe/gunmetal color depending on the light. This also has some shimmer. I am totally obsessed with taupe eyeshadow right now, so I’m excited about this.

4. Enchanted Fairy- Okay, now this is REALLY my style! A girly and feminine grayish lavender with shimmer. And just look at the name!

5. Just Rock It- This is a deep blue that leans in between cobalt and navy. This looks promising from the swatches I looked up.

6. Everybody’s Talking About- This reminds me of Essie Watermelon; I may have to compare them. Either way, it’s a gorgeous deep pink and very summery.

7. Can’t Cheat On Me- This is a subtle holographic polish, so I am pretty excited about this one! It’s a classic silver shade and the swatches look pretty.

I used the mineral hand cream today and while I loved the texture, the scent was not for me. Since What Do U Think? is a Chanel dupe, I may have to try that one first!

Essie Who Is The Boss? + Icing Written in the Stars

It’s another crazy work week over here, grading final literature reviews and submitting final grades, plus starting a brand new semester. Now that the big stuff is out of the way, I have a couple of easier days before grading another batch of final essays. It sounds confusing, but I work for two places which is the reason for all of the overlaps. Anyway, I have another fantastic blue polish from Essie to show off today!

Essie Who is the Boss? is a lovely light blue polish from this year’s wedding collection. This is a nice muted blue. Essie has been knocking it out with the formula lately. This is two coats. I added some embellishment with Icing’s Written in the Stars.

The wear time on this polish was great as well! Since I’m rough on polish due to all of the typing I do, I almost always have tip wear right away, but this still looked good when I removed it.

Megan Miller Collection Roja

Red is probably the most popular color in the beauty world. How many of us are always searching for the perfect shade of red? With lipstick, Chanel’s Dragon seems to be what gets the most hype. Because red is so common, I rarely go bananas over it, but this amazing polish from the Megan Miller Collection is simply stunning!

How cute are these bottles? The cork top is stamped with a feather, and it actually makes the whole painting process quite enjoyable. I especially loved that I had a good grip on the cork as opposed to slippery, hard plastic.

Application is perfection with Roja! It went on smoothly and easily, and it didn’t slide all over the place like some polishes do.

I used two coats here, but I think three would have been ideal for this color. I have never seen these in person and ordered mine off of the website. Shipping was incredibly fast! I ordered this on the 19th and it was at my doorstep on the 21st. Also, every month features a “color of the month”, where a polish is offered at a discount. This month’s color of the month is Coral Bliss.

Right now, there are 12 colors available from the Megan Miller Collection, but I am hoping that this will expand in the future!

Comparison: Butter London Dosh and Wet ‘n’ Wild Twining Vines

This spring, Wet ‘n’ Wild released two limited edition boxed sets at Rite Aid: Flora (warm tones) and Fauna (cool tones). Each box contains a blush, nail polish, lip gloss, and eyeshadow palette. These are limited edition sets (although I did notice the blush was not LE), and the green nail polish is called Twining Vines, which is in the Flora set. I thought Twining Vines looked a lot like Butter London’s Dosh, at least in the bottle, so I decided to do a little comparison.

As you can see, they are not as similar as I thought! The polish on the left is Dosh, and the polish on the right is Twining Vines. On the color wheel, I used two coats of each. Dosh (which is slang for money), was opaque in two coats, while Twining Vines probably needs at least two more coats to be opaque.

Dosh is a little darker and more green (olive), even though it does have some gold sheen and also some shimmer to it. The gold comes out a lot more in Twining Vines.

The differences are more prominent in this photo. Dosh is on the right in this one, and you can see the application is very smooth. Twining Vines does have good application, but the weight of the glitter made the polish slide around more on the color wheel. I don’t see this being an issue on the nail.

At first, I was not impressed by Twining Vines in the bottle, but I actually ended up really loving this color and think it will be gorgeous over some other polishes I have. After reading up about this polish on some beauty blogs, I can tell you that many are reporting that Twining Vines has some major staying power.

Dosh- Well, it’s Butter London! What’s not to love? I LOVE green and Dosh is just an all around amazing polish for people who love green like I do.

Overall, Twining Vines is not a dupe for Butter London’s Dosh, but both polishes are fantastic.

Butter London Disco Biscuit

What says it’s a million degrees outside like a hot pink jelly polish with an awesome name? Butter London’s Disco Biscuit is described as “A tropical hot-pink lacquer with an undercurrent of tiny iridescent glitter particles.” I’ve seen the glitter described as blue and purple. It seems to fall somewhere in between, at least to me! According to Urban Dictionary, a “disco biscuit” is drugs (ecstasy).

I adore this color and just think it screams FUN! This would have been the color of my dreams as a child! It’s a jelly polish, so it is pretty sheer. I used two coats and had visible nail line of course. Application was not a problem at all and it went on smoothly.

One thing to note about this polish is that it stained my nails, even with a base coat. That isn’t a deal breaker for me, but I was also surprised for some reason. That said, I love this color and wish the sparkles would have shown up better in my photos! To see some sparkle (and four coats instead of two), check out The Polishaholic’s swatches of Disco Biscuit!

 

Sinful Colors Timbleberry

I bought this polish on a whim. I picked it up, saw that it was called “Timbleberry”, and had to have it because thimbleberries remind me of my grandfather (who I love and miss every single day). I’m not sure why this polish is called TIMbleberry instead of Thimbleberry, but I have noticed that some blogs do refer to it as Thimble instead of Timble. Mine says Timbleberry of course, and I like this polish way more than I thought I would!

Here it is in full sun. In the bottle and in these photos, it looks quite red. At the drugstore it looked quite red in the bottle, and until it was on my nails, I didn’t realize how much the pink comes through! Unfortunately, that doesn’t come through as much in the photos.

Here’s some thimbleberries!

I used two coats and a top coat. Application is excellent with this polish, as the consistency was nice and even and it settled well. There is some visible nail line with just two coats, so if you don’t like that, you may want to use three or layer it with white on the base. I don’t mind VNL (I’ve hit the big time, using polish acronyms!) because it is a sign of how far I have come with not biting my nails!

Timbleberry is one of the best Sinful Colors polishes that I have tried, and I definitely recommend it!

China Glaze For Audrey

There’s not much to say about For Audrey by China Glaze, as this polish has already reach somewhat of a cult status due to the name and classic turquoise color that resembles Tiffany blue. Like so many others, I love this color. Next time I use it, I definitely want to mix it up with some glitter.

Here it is indoors, no flash, in natural light. I love how creamy this polish looks. This is two coats with a top coat.

Here it is outdoors in full sun. When I wore this polish on my trip, I kept looking down at my hands. That is usually a sign for me when it comes to how much I like a polish! I think this color is a must have for anyone who loves robin egg blue. 🙂

Maybelline Go-Getter Green

I mentioned Maybelline Go-Getter Green in my travel polish post, and ended up wearing it on the first few days of my trip. I like these Maybelline polishes because of their fast drying time, even though the application isn’t always easy, especially on the first coat!

Here it is indoors under a lamp. Go-Getter Green is from Maybelline’s 2011 limited edition summer collection called The Bright Side. I found this polish in a random clearance bin at Rite Aid, and fell in love right away with the color! This was a good polish to bring with me because it dried fast and had some decent staying power.

Here it is outdoors in natural light. I really like this color and got a few compliments on it while I was out and about. If you happen to see it in a bargain bin somewhere, I definitely recommend it, especially if you love green like I do!