Essie Borrowed and Blue Comparison

Finally got Essie Borrowed and Blue! There was so much hype surrounding the colour and I always thought it would be close to Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and the Nature Republic baby blue so here are some comparison swatches!

Left to right: Nature Republic BL503, Essie Borrowed and Blue, Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau and Essie Borrowed and Blue, under a lamp



Left to right: , Essie Borrowed and Blue, Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, Essie Borrowed and Blue and Nature Republic BL503 in indirect sunlight



Interesting how it looks closer to the Nature Republic one under the lamp but closer to Take Me To Your Chateau in sunlight!

Here's a bottle comparison, from left to right: Take Me to Your Chateau, Borrowed and Blue and BL503



Application wise, Take Me To Your Chateau was the most opaque of them all, one coat and it's almost good to go but a second coat even things out. Borrowed and Blue was also pretty opaque but I felt it was a little too thick so it tends to overflow and flood the cuticles. Used 2 coats. BL503 was easy to handle and needed 2 coats as well.

You probably don't have to get all three of them unless you're a polish addict like me. Just pick your favourite one! (:

MAC Blue India Franken

After my successful franken with Riga, my RBL 360 dupe, I decided to franken MAC Blue India next. I started out with a slate blue polish from Tony Moly, TR11, and then added in drops of black and white. I think I may have added in some drops of OPI Ski Teal We Drop too but I can't really remember anymore! I'm pretty bummed out that I forgot to write it down. And to top things off, I accidentally threw away the "recipe" for Riga so I'm really hoping I never run out of these 2 frankens. Can't believe how careless I was, throwning away the franken recipe but oh wells.

Here's a swatch of my MAC Blue India franken, which shalled be named "Slate Blue"!

This was two coats, taken in indirect sunlight, without a topcoat.

A flea and a ban

Went down to Smoochiezz's flea at Expo today and got myself 6 bottles of OPIs! Her prices are crazy cheap and I went bananas choosing all the colours I wanted! I'll feature bottle shots of the colours in June's Haul but that would have to wait a few more weeks because quite a number of the polishes I ordered in June are still on their way to Singapore!

I can tell you I went bonkers buying nail polish in June, with the GSS. I think I got like 20 bottles this month alone? It's gonna make my polish count go so high I don't even want to think about the money I spent! I really think this is an addiction and I seriously need to stop, or at least purge some polishes! I'm gonna have to impose another polish ban soon! Well, right after China Glaze launches their Metro collection and OPI launches the Road Trip collection. Those 2 collections are TO DIE FOR. The shades all scream me (sorry for the Ris Low joke, no pun intended though)! The Essie Fall collection isn't calling my name though, THANK GOD! Color Club's one is okay, not bad but I'm really trying not to visit too many nail blogs to stare at swatches!

After that, I'm going cold turkey. I guess I have enough new polishes to tide me over! Let hope there won't be a August's Haul and September's Haul post! I guess I'm lucky I'm not all that crazy over makeup if not I will probably have to eat grass everyday.  

Sorry I didn''t have peektures in this post. Just wanted to let you guys know about Smoochiezz's flea and my ban! I'll do up a post soon! I promise!

Hola Holo!

Met my friend after work on Wednesday and we headed down to Raffles City just to visit Make Up Store! No points for guessing what I bought there! After seeing so many amazing spazz-worthy swatches of Greta online, I decided it was time to get myself a bottle of some holo goodness.

For the swatches ahead, I have Greta on my middle finger and pinkie, and Color Club Worth the Risque on my index and ring fingers. I ran around the house trying to take as many good shots as I could that would show off Greta's linear holo, much like the holos in China Glaze's OMG and Kaleidoscope Collections!





Here's some bottle shots. I know the polish doesn't exactly look impressive in the bottle but just wait for the swatches!







The first 3 pictures (of the swatches) were taken under my table lamp with no flash!



This one was taken in indirect sunlight.



You can see my Helmer in the background, just behind the fan!!



Again, in indirect sunlight.





These 2 were taken with flash! Amazing how the flash kinda brings out the holo even more!







These last 3 were taken in indirect sunlight!

I actually tried taking some picture under full on sunlight but the holo didn't seem to shine through. What a shame. I had 3 coats of both polish on my nails and I still had some bald spots but I couldn't bare to use more coats. No top or base coats cuz I have no aqua base and apparently topcoats kill the holo effect.
Obviously, I prefer Greta to Worth the Risque (WTR) but Greta's price tag ($22) is so much steeper than WTR's ($8.50) plus there's only 8ml of Greta compared to 15ml of WTR.

I'd call Greta a linear holo while WTR is more of a scattered holo. I'm pretty sure WTR used to be more awesome and was previously a linear holo too, before CC changed their formula, much like how OPI screwed up My Private Jet.

There's also a blue-based holo, Siw, and a dusty pink / nude holo Madeleine from Make Up Store and I'm thinking of getting Siw just cuz Greta was so awesome. Hurry up and get them though before the SA at Make Up Store told me once that some of the holos they have are already not in production and once this batch sells out, there'll be no new batch! :(

OPI Stranger Tides

Recently got OPI Stranger Tides from nailvibe since they were offering a 10% off (with min $50 purchase). This is the last of the OPI Pirates polishes I got because I wasn't interested in the two pinks and the grey. I've been lemming for Stranger Tides ever since I swatched it on my thumb at BHG, even though I already have Essie Da Bush (which is a very close dupe). So if you've been wondering how much they look alike, look no further!

Before any pictures, let me just tell you what's on my digits so I won't have to repeat myself for every picture! All pictures were taken under indirect sunlight and without flash.

Index: OPI Stranger Tides

Middle: Essie Da Bush

Ring: OPI Stranger Tides

Pinkie: Essie Da Bush

This is one coat and it's really hard to tell the two colours apart.

Here they are with two coats and immediately you can start to see that Stranger Tides looks more yellow and Da Bush looks more blue. Da Bush was pretty opaque upon the second coat but Stranger Tides had some bald spots so I had to do a third coat. I feel that with shades prone to bald spots (perhaps due to the fact that they're not as pigmented), painting with lighter strokes helps. That way, the brush doesn't press too hard on the polish and create bald spots. Lighter strokes with a little more polish on the brush!

Even though Da Bush didn't need a third coat, I still painted it on for comparison sake. With a third coat, Stranger Tide is now fully opaque sans any bald spots. I must say that even though Stranger Tides required three coats, they were very easy to paint on because of the pro-wide brush as well as the formula of the polish. It wasn't too thin (ahem, Essie Turquoise and Caicos, I'm talking about you) nor too thick. Da Bush also had a nice formula and was also easy to paint on.

Here's a bottle shot! Da Bush on the left and Stranger Tides on the right.

I find that recently with Essies, their formulas have either been a hit or a miss. Take for example Mint Candy Apple, Eternal Optimist and Borrowed and Blue. From my experience, even these three colours were rather pigmented and only required two coats, they were pretty thick and hard to control, which resulted in ugly brush strokes or flooding of the cuticles. So kudos to Essie for getting Da Bush's formula just right!

I also asked my mum if she could see a difference between the two shade and she honestly couldn't tell that Stranger Tides has a yellow undertone compared to Da Bush's blue undertone. She only said that Stranger Tides looked lighter than Da Brush but the difference was so minute she started nagging me about wasting money on polishes again. So verdict wise, like I always say, unless you're crazy like me, or you love colours like these or a back up of sorts, you really don't need both. Personally, I do see a difference and do not regret getting both but when it comes down to actually wearing them and deciding which one to use, I'll probably just flip a coin cuz they're pretty much similar.

OPI Mermaids Tears

For our second comparison post, we have OPI Mermaids Tears. This was the first colour that caught my eye when all the bloggers did swatches and I knew I just had to have it!

Mermaids Tears is a dusty green and some people say it's similar to Orly Ancient Jade but I don't have that so I can't give you my verdict on that. I did however dig up some potential dupes and here they are!



From thumb to pinkie: OPI Hey! Get in Lime, OPI Mermaid's Tears, Essie Turquoise and Caicos, Etude House Mint Green, LA Girl Disco Brites Turntable.

I'd say the closest to Mermaid's Tears is Essie T&C although formula wise, Mermaid's Tears triumps T&C ANY DAY. I used four coats for T&C here, so it will be a headache to paint a full mani with T&C (one of the reasons why I haven't done so before). Mermaid's Tears only required two coats! Mermaids tears however, is much dustier than T&C. I would say T&C is like relaxing on the beach where everything is bright and sunny whereas Mermaids Tears is a lazy afternoon at home.

The rest of the colours are visibly different so they're not dupes at all. I think if there's one colour you absolutely must get from the Pirates collection, Mermaids Tears would be it!

OPI Planks A Lot

First of the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection comparisons is Planks A Lot, a dustly purple.

Here, we have Planks A Lot with its other OPI cousins!

From L-R: Parlez-Vous OPI?, Planks A Lot and Done Out In Deco.

They'll all so different but you can still somehow see a common thread running through them right? All three of them are dusty and a dream to apply. 2 coats each if I recall correctly.

Regardless, all three of them are gorgeous and are VERY different so if you are a fan of shades like these, they're all must-gets! OPI Parlez-Vous OPI? is a discontinued colour but it should still be relatively easy to find on Ebay!

Half Moon Manicure

Was inspired to do this after seeing countless pictures of gorgeous half moon manicures.





For the half-moons, I painted the base colour, waited for it to dry completely, and then used the little circular stickers I paste on top of my polish bottles as a guide. I found the moons a little too small though so I may try using re-enforcement rings (that quite a few people have used to do half-moons) next time round!

The navy polish used is TFS BL604 and the tan polish is MK0106 02 Skin. Whatcha think of the colour combi? I love how the tan and navy compliments each other so much! Tan and black was always a good marriage of colours but tan and navy? Oh, I'm sold!

Riga, the RBL 360 dupe

I've been wanting RBL 360 for the longest time but it's just too expensive (for now! HAHA!) and troublesome to get so I decided to try frankening it! I used 10 different colours to get this baby and I tried mixing it on a piece of paper before mixing it inside the bottle! I used China Glaze Pelican Grey as one of the base colours so there is some secret shimmer!

The shimmer was pretty hard to capture so I had to crop and then blow up the picture so it does look a little grainy. Also, the blue was so hard to capture and I had to photoshop the pictures to make it more colour accurate.

The original colour of the bottle that I used was called Riga (it was a pink I used for french manicures) but I feel that Riga kinda suits the blue too so it shall be called Riga too!

Gonna try frankening MAC Blue India soon because it's one of my most covetted colours, along with Essie Greenport which I shall try to franken some day too! What are some of the colours you wished you had but has been discontinued or always sold out?

Speaking of rare, discontinued colours, I just ordered Milani Dress Maker (the famous Chanel Jade dupe) and I just can't wait for it to come!

 

May's Haul!

This is my new monthly haul segment that I decided to do, instead of accumulating a few hauls then showing you at once cuz I always scared myself when I take the photos and realise how much I've spent! Breaking it down into monthly hauls seems less daunting!

So for the month of May, these were was I got!



The Rubi polishes were going at $2 each only cuz the Citylink outlet was having a sale! My friend and I went down on 24 March and all their prices were still normal but when we went down again on 26th, almost everything was on sale! I bought a couple of other stuff from Rubi too (like 3 bracelets, a pair of flats and another pair of sandals but since this is a polish blog, I shall only feature the polishes). The first Rubi polish I got is called Purple Haze (top row, first from left). It's a lilac coloured polish, took 3 coats and it's quite close to OPI Done Out In Deco.

Second polish from the left is a mauve one called Rose. My mum and I love shades like that so it's always a good excuse to buy polishes of this shade! (I always think "Mum will like it even if I don't and she won't get mad at me because she will wanna use it too!" HAHA!) It's a darker version of OPI Kreme de la Kremlin (which has been discontinued but I managed to hunt it down so it's really precious to me).

Third one is called Gunmetal. It's a darkened silver metallic shade and it has silver particles. I've recently been on a metallic spazz so this one was a must get for me. And since I got this and another dark metallic (which you'll see later on in the post), I decided not to get OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous anymore. This one needed 2 coats I think.

Last one from the top row is TR11 from Tony Moly. It's a slate blue which has a dustiness to it. I bought it a few months ago and it reminded me of MAC's Blue India so I decided to buy another bottle to franken Blue India. I'm done with the franekn but I haven't swatched it out properly yet so I show it to you guys another time! The funniest thing is that Tony Moly doesn't state the name of their polishes on the bottles itself but when I saw my receipt, it said "Indian Blue" so I took it as a sign I should definitely make a Blue India franken!
Bottom row now, first one from the left is BR307 from Etude House. Gosh, I really hate it when polishes have no names but only number codes! It's a nude polish that looks like a really light taupe so it was a must get for me! And Etude House was having a sale the day I bought the polishes so I got it for only $1.75 (usual price $2.50)! It needed 2 coats but they went on easily enough!

Next is a purple duochrome again from Etude House at $4.13 (usual price $5.90) and it's called PP904. Sophia said it reminded her of Chanel's Paradoxal and to be honest, it does have a certain resemblance but this baby has got a gold sheen that Paradoxal doesn't and while Pradoxal is straight up purple, this one comes across as brown in certain lighting.

Last of the Etude House polishes is WH701 and it's the other darkened metallic shade I got this haul. It's a gunmetal base with tiny multi-coloured shimmer particles (the particles are smaller than that of Gunmetal from Rubi) and it reminds me of Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous so it was a $4.13 dupe for me! I wanted to also get WH702 that Sophia got but I had to control myself.

Last of the haul, Essie Da Bush! I love love love it so much. It's a murky sage green that's neutral enough for me to wear to work without people saying "SHE HAS GREEN NAILS!!!" It's a really close shade to OPI Stranger Tides (which I just ordered from nailvibe so that'll be in June's Haul) except Da Bush has a blue undertone while Stranger Tide has a yellow undertone. They are really close though so like I always say, unless you're crazy like me, you don't need both. I tried out Stranger Tides at BHG last month though, and the pro-wide bursh made it so much easier to apply so I may have to choose Stranger Tides over Da Bush (but it's only cuz of the brush). Da Bush needed 2 coats and it was a little thick so I may add in a drop of thinner later on!

So that's May's Haul for you. Total damage done was quite minimal cuz of all the promos so I'm rather relieved! I foresee my wallet dying after June's Haul though so stay tuned!

Also, if you'd like to see any swatches, comment away! I'll eventually use every colour I buy, just depends when but if you comment and the colour you requested suits my mood, it'll probably get swatched on sooner! :D I'm gonna try to do my nails at least once a week so I'm hoping I'll get through my stash faster than I buy new colours. So much for my a different colour everyday project! Such an epic fail because I didn't foresee how fracking busy I'd be during this internship!

Orly Fowl Play

Remember how a couple of posts back I was talking about how Orly's Fowl Play looks like Merry Midnight? Now, I have proof, courtesy of Gilded Nails!



This is what she wrote:

"To my eyes, Merry Midnight's base is a touch brighter and redder. And the finish of Merry Midnight seems more glossy than Fowl Play but a good top coat would fix this.  However, these differences are quite negligible and when looking at my nails in natural and artificial light, I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the two."

OH MY GOD I AM ALREADY SPAZZING WITH EXCITEMENT! I can't wait to get my hands on Fowl Play once it launches! Too bad 8ty8beauty stopped bringing in new Orlys so I'd probably have to get this baby from nailvibe when they can get a hold on some! Oh man, flakies have got me by the chokehold!
Also, I'm so glad to see so many onsugarettes discovering Nubar 2010! Looks like we all bought our bottles from the sidewalks and I'm so happy that the flakies excitement is slowly spreading! (:

OPI Miami Beet (and a sales pitch)

I'm wearing OPI Miami Beet right now. My mum's friend got it for her birthday last year and I stole it from her to do this NOTD. Don't worry, I'll put it back after I'm done with this post!

Miami Beet can be described as a "rich, deep purple creme" to quote Scrangie and at times it comes across like a deep berry shade with a slight hint of purple. In low light, it just looks like a deep red.

Here it is, under indirect sunlight

and with flash

It took 3 thin coats to achieve full opacity but 2 thicker coats would have sufficed with more skilled hands. The 3 coats applied like butter though, so doing this mani was easy enough. Recently I've been using a lot of Essie colours so the sudden change back to the pro-wide brush was much welcomed! I used 2 coats of Poshe base (because colours like these really stain my nails so I wanted to take extra measures to prevent that from happening) and no top coat.

Nail swatches aside, I went to Robinsons yesterday and managed to swatch a couple of reds I was thinking of purchasing. Felt pretty happy, having decided which reds I want to get now because I find it so hard to buy reds without looking at a real life swatch. Reds can be so subjective according to different skin tones so I always avoid buying reds from sprees. But now that I know, I'm gonna get OPI Vodka and Caviar and From A to Z-urich from timtam soon! She's having a GSS promo so if you're interested in some colours hop down over to get them before her stock runs out! I actually saw Miso Happy With This Colour available a couple of days ago but it's gone now so don't think and just go buy whatever colours you want now!!

I think this whole GSS thing is making me go nuts cuz I've buying polish like nobody's business these days. I recently got a slate blue from Tony Moly to franken MAC's Blue India (get this though, the blue I got from Tony Moly was actually called Indian Blue!!!! So dupish right!), 3 colours from Etude House cuz they have having a 30% off storewide, and I bought some other polishes from a couple of sprees. I decided I'll do a monthly haul segment starting from May to show you guys the polishes I got in that month. I won't be showing you swatches of all the polishes in that post though as I only do swatches when I do a NOTD so if you wanna see any swatches, just comment away and I'll try to make it my NOTD if I feel the colour! May's Haul will be up soon so do watch out for it!

June's Haul is gonna be a big one cuz I got word from my usual spree site that China Glaze is gonna discontinue their Crackle Glaze after this batch so I'm getting Black Mesh (as a back up for Black Shatter which is ALWAYS oos) and Lightning Bolt just because it's white and should be easier to match base colours. So if you haven't got your Crackle // Shatter // Textured // Fractured fix yet, act on it before they're gone for good! I'm also waiting for my spree-er to get Navy Shatter because I tried it out yesterday and it looks FAB! I know that most other sites already have it selling at $15 but this awesome site I always spree from usually sells them at $11 only so I shall be patient! I also got a couple of Milani polishes (2 Chanel dupes) and a Sinful Colours polish from Smoochiezz. Nailvibe was also having a 10% off so I got 2 Zoyas and OPI Stranger Tides (even though I already have Essie Da Bush which is a very close cousin). So many firsts for me in this June Haul (Milani, Sinful and Zoya)! Can't wait for all of them to arrive! :D

So, do take advantage of all the awesome promos this GSS and have yourself a polish fix! (Somehow this post seems like some sales pitch! Sorry if I'm tempting you!)

 

Essie Eternal Optimist

I was wearing Essie Eternal Optimist my last paper because I wanted to be as optimistic as possible and not to feel depressed if the paper went terribly wrong. Eternal Optimist is a light salmon which gravitates more towards the pink side then orange. I was actually rather surprised when I got it because alot of the swatches I googled showed it as a nude but the description "spiced tea rose" is pretty accurate except it's not as dark / dusty as I would have imagined (when I think of spiced tea rose, I think of ChG Fifth Avenue).

Here's the most accurate shot of it I can get! Please ignore my super dry cuticles. Maybe it's time I invested in some cuticle cream.

I felt a little weird when wearing it because it was too pink for my preference but if you're comfortable wearing pinks, give it a go!

The wear time for me was horrendous though. I had chips on a couple of nails after 1 day (maybe from the excessive flipping of my notes and textbook during my exam and the shopping afterwards). Essie usually wears like iron on my nails so I'm convinced it chipped so quickly due to the things I did rather than its formula.

This was 2 coats (I think) with a coat of Seche on top.