Essie Silk Watercolor Palette 1 Review with Nailart

Hi Guys!

How are you doing?  I'm back again, this time with a product review and a bit of nailart for you.

This Essie set was a super-kind gift from a work friend who has been to America on her hols.  She picked this up for me and I was intrigued!  As I've been out of the nailart scene for a while due to many changes in my home life I hadn't heard of this set and couldn't wait to try it.

I especially didn't Google it before I tried it, because I didn't want to go in with any preconceptions.  I have had Essie polishes before, which I have reviewed elsewhere in my blog, but have never really been blown away by any of the ones I have tried.  But this set looked like fun!

So here's what I got:

I like the look of the packaging, and as you can see, there is a standard sized bottle of white basecoat, called White Page, and 3 minis of the watercolor polishes, a yellow called "muse, myself", a pink called "love sheen", and a purple called "no shrinking violet".

On the back of the pack is the instructions on how to use them.  Apologies for the light shining on the box:

I decided not to go with the design they suggested, as I wanted mine to look a bit more random.

I started by applying White Page.  This is one coat:

As you can see, it was a bit streaky.  It dried to a sheen rather than a shine.  If it was wall paint, think "eggshell".  I applied another coat after this.  It was reasonably fast drying, and by the time i'd done both hands, I didn't have long to wait before I could start again on the first nail.

Then I went on to randomly blob on No Shrinking Violet.  I did do them in the order suggested on the box, just in case there was a reason for that:

As you can see, very random.  I didn't go OTT with the first colour, because I wanted to leave room for the others.

Then on with Love Sheen:

Again just random blobs.  Was expecting a bit more merging between the two, but was pleased that the pink didn't completely obscure the purple.

Next on with the last colour, Muse, Myself.  Not sure why it's called that, I'm guessing some kind of pun on amuse myself:

Sorry for the blurry pic here, I'm guessing it was getting too dark by that time.  However when I went outside to take a better one, I dented my middle finger on the door **CRIES**:

So there we go, that was all of the colours on.  I was a little bit underwhelmed at first, but actually as the day went on, I got quite attached to it.  The colours really complemented each other, and in different lights there were different effects.

OBVIOUSLY I was not satisfied to stop at this, so I decided to stamp over it.  I went with GALS stamping plate GA22:

I went with the sun image on the right hand side of the plate.

And here we have how it came out:

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Yes, I can hardly see it either!  I have no idea why it came out so pale.  It was fine on the stamper, and I tried both Konad stamping polish, and OPI Alpine Snow, which I've successfully stamped with before, and had the same result with both. 

Here's a picture in different lighting.  You can "kind of" see it here:

This isn't to say that I don't like it.  As Bob Ross would have said, it's a "happy accident".  I like the mixed up look of it, but it definitely isn't what I expected, or aimed for.

As I always do (when I remember), here is a pic of the brushes.  Weirdly the brush in the mini is larger than the brush in the full size polish:

So what did I think?

Obviously as this was a present I don't know what it cost, but knowing the cost of Essies, I'm guessing it was mid-range.  A bit more than Rimmels, but a bit less than OPI's.  

It does have a lot of potential, and I will experiment more with it.  However, I haven't been blown away I'm sorry to say.  I know that the colours are intended to be sheer, but for me, they were a little *too* wishy-washy.  Even over white, the yellow is very subtle.

It does however create a lovely girly pastel look, and with some holo glitter and a bit more imagination on my part, this set could really make something incredible (and I'm sure some people have done so).

In summary, it was a kind wonderful gift from a lovely person, and although I haven't got the best out of it on my first try, I am sure that I will have something better to show you in the future.

Thanks for reading, and until next time...

MASPOOASE
xx Wendy xx

Artsy Wednesday - White Nailart

Artsy Wednesday once more!  These days whizz around I can tell you.  This weeks offering is the product of one of those happy occasions where you just throw something together out of neccessity and it actually comes out okay.  Nice one!

As quite often happens with me, it was after 9pm on Tuesday night when I started thinking about doing these nails.  As I work all day through the week, I have to prepare my posts beforehand, so this really is the last chance saloon.  I have of course been trying to think up designs for a couple of days, but it turns out that white is quite difficult to think of designs for.

I went through all the thoughts of glitter accent nails, or crystals/glequins, but nothing really made me think, ooh yes I'd like to try that.  So I just went upstairs to my polishes, grabbed the obvious white, OPI's Alpine Snow, and thought, what colour do I really like with white?  And as it happens only one colour came to mind, and that's orange.  Now, I have done an orange and white manicure on the blog before, (here's the link) but that was stamping, and that means waiting for the base to dry, and no time for that today, not even with Seche!

So here's what I came up with:

One of the brightest oranges I own is Essie's Orange It's Obvious, which I swatched and reviewed in full (here) so I thought I'd go with that.  A good nailart technique to use if you're in a rush is dotting, because you don't have to wait for the base colour to dry fully before you get on with the art.  I decided to make random flowers instead of plain dots, just because I wouldn't have to take so much care (and therefore time) over it, and actually, I like the results!

 Here's another pic with the bottle getting a look-in:

As you can see, the Essie dries a shade or so darker on the nail than it shows in the bottle.  I used one quite thin coat, and then one thickish one because I was in a rush (as I think I've mentioned haha).

And I might as well put in the last picture, seeing as I took the time to edit it:

Back to indoor photos now, as there's no light left in the sky when I get home from work.  But to be honest, I didn't really take that much advantage of it even when there was.  So many more fun things to do when the sun's out, like sunbathing and reading a book in the garden.  I actually enjoy my polishes more in the winter, when I'm indoors and sitting still long enough to let them dry properly.

Why not take a look at what whiteys the rest of the Artsy Wednesday crew have come up with:

Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)

Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)

Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Emily at An Accent Nail (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)
Anna & Haylee at Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)
Anna at Makeup N More (link)

All in all, I like this, and I think I'll definitely have a go at it in some other colours. What's your go-to "in a rush" nailart technique?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

New Essie Haul - Swatches and Review

Hi all!

It's late at the weekend for posting I know, am having to work Saturday mornings again, and it really throws out my routine.  This achilles problem seems to be dragging on and on....

However, the sun actually came out yesterday, and I finally got around to swatching the Essies I bought a week or so ago from my trusty TK Maxx.  Good job too, because it's done nothing but rain today, if it carries on I'll need a canoe to get to work in the morning!

I was so excited when I saw these in the shop, because it actually contained polishes I'd heard of, they were Ballet Slippers, Orange It's Obvious, Tour De Finance, and Navigate Her.  For £9.99 for all four, I didn't need asking twice to pick this set up.  I'd been disappointed with the last set of Essies I got there, reviewed HERE so if I hadn't heard of these ones, I probably wouldn't have picked them up.

The first one I swatched, I nearly didn't bother with, because I knew I wouldn't like it, Ballet Slippers.  I already know it's a sheer and as you know I hate VNL, so wasn't expecting too much.  As it was, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would.  Here's the pics.  Firstly outdoors:

Next indoors in shaded light:

As I always do, I made notes while I was swatching, and next to this one I wrote, first coat - not even there, which tells you how sheer it is.  The second coat was a bit patchy and streaky, so I did a third coat and this evened it out. It is super-shiny, and dry time was medium.  I don't despise it, so it can't be all bad.

Next I swatched Navigate Her.  This was the one I was most excited to try, as alot of people seem to like it.  The formula was a bit of a nightmare, I had to take off my first attempt to apply this, as it just looked so scruffy.  It managed somehow to be runny without having any nice flowy-ness.  The first coat went on streaky.  I used 3 coats for the photos and it needed them all, as the second coat produced bald patches as it was drying.  Here's what it looked like in the garden:

It's lucky for it that it's such a pretty colour, kind of a pastelly khaki, or I wouldn't consider using it again because of the formula.  As it is, I'll probably get this one out again from time to time.  Here's a pic taken inside:

Next up we have Tour De Finance, I loved the name of this one, I don't wear many pinks but this one has a nice purply shimmer running through it, which gives it a nice depth.  I liked the formula of this one.  The first coat was patchy, but I only needed two coats for these pictures.  Firstly outside:

Next indoors.  This shows the shimmer quite well:

Last but not least, we have Orange, It's Obvious.  In the bottle this is a really bright primary orange.  It had a reasonably good opacity, this is 3 coats, but I could still tell where my nail tips were, so it's not going to be a go-to.  It reminded me very much of Nails Inc's Portobello, which I reviewed HERE it had the same runny formula, but it was reasonably fast drying.  Here's the outside pic:

And here's a close up.  I didn't have any inside pics, as my cuticles were starting to look a bit ick, and this was one of the least disgusting pics I could find out of the ones I took:

And last but not least, here's the brush shot.  It was a wide but flat brush, it was actually very wide, and if you have narrow fingers you might struggle, but I didn't find it too bad.  The green brush is sideways on:

So there we have it, one set swatched, do you own any of these?  What do you think?

Until next time......

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Pretty Jelly - Grape Escape Review

Hi there!

The sun came out :-)

This means it's holo time!  The next one on my to-try list is another polish from the Pretty Jelly Glamorous Thief collection that I bought recently.  I've already reviewed Bullet Rouge from the same collection, and you can see that post HERE

I was in two minds as to whether to swatch any polishes this weekend, as I still have that slash on my cuticle, but as I don't feel like I've seen any sunshine for MONTHS, who knows when my next chance will be?  So I decided to go for it, and cover up the slash with my watermark, YOLO, right?

So here's Grape escape in all its sunshine-y glory:

Awesome, eh?  It's a lovely mid-toned purple, leaning to the lavender side, and really wearable.  I still haven't managed to catch the real life holo loveliness properly, as it looked much more holo than it appears in these pictures.  Definitely this could be office appropriate though, as in the shade it looks just as pretty but in a less 'disco' way:

This photo also shows the finish nicely too.  This is two coats over regular base coat and no top coat.  The formula was lovely to apply, and very forgiving, as I dug the brush into the first coat accidentally when I was applying the second coat.  Other polishes could have made a bald spot clumping argument about that, but this polish said 'hey mistakes happen, let me smooth that out for you', and it did, nice.  It left the brush (which was one of the thin-ish type, not pro-wide or flat) at a nice controllable speed and didn't flood or clump.  Dry time was medium-fast.  I like alot.

As a large swathe of the UK, including us here in Cumbria, have had alot of snow this week, I thought I would carry on the theme with snowy nail art.  Looking through my stamping plates, I was surprised to realise I only have one full nail snowflake plate design, so it wasn't really a hard decision which one to use. Bundle Monster BM-323.  I tried a few different polishes with this plate.  Barry M Indigo worked really well, but it wasn't really the look I was going for. 

The Essie Borrowed and Blue I bought from Amazon was delivered this week.  I have been so disappointed with it.  The colour is really pretty, but the formula is awful!  Plus I thought Essies had wide brushes now, and mine has a thin brush in.  Clumpy, floody, just a bottle of yuk.  So imagine my happy surprise when I discovered it stamps perfectly!

Here's what I came up with:

As you can see from the photo, I'd lost the sun, so I took a pic under the kitchen lights so the holo could come out to play:

I'm really pleased with how this came out.  It's definitely gone onto my list of 'lets do this one again' manis.

And just because I can, here's a picture of the polish nestling in the snow:

Just one little green shoot sneaking up past the cap, spring is trying to peek its way through!

Pretty Jelly polishes can be bought in the US HERE for $10 each, they are 3-free and cruelty free, so it's all good.

What do you think?  Do you own this one? 

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Essie Haul - Swatches

Hey there lovely people, it's the weekend, so it must be bloggin' time!
I would have posted yesterday, but for some reason my mani's weren't working out for me, and all I was making was a mess...  so I decided to crack open the G&T and chill out instead - my blog, my rules, hee hee!

So, at the end of June it was my 6 months of quitting smoking anniversary, during which time I've saved over £800, so I decided it was treat time!  Hit the shops big time, bought myself some clothes, some shoes, and of course, polish! 

The sets I was most excited about (yes there were a few) were the Essie sets I got from TK Maxx, £9.99 for 3 bottles.  I've never used Essie polishes before, but have seen them on other peoples polish pages, they seem to be mainly in America & Canada, not so much in England.  These are the bottles I got:

And this is how they came packaged:

It was a bit weird this packaging, it meant that the bottles rattled around in my shopping bag, and took up far more room than they needed to, but never mind, that was soon taken care of when I got home.  I've swatched all the colours one by one.  They didn't all have their name stickers on, so can only name the ones that did.

The one bottle that's not swatched is the see-through blue one, this is 'grow richer', which I had to look up, it turns out its a moisturising base coat, which I was surprised about, as it has an extremely watery consistency, but I've used it for every swatch and it did a pretty good job and dried fast.  I saw it on Boots website (sold out) at £8, so am pleased that I got it in this set!

First swatch - Lovie Dovey - bottom left of first picture

First impressions of Essie polish were quite disappointing, it was quite sheer and a bit streaky on the first coat.  It was also runny enough that it made it a bit tricky not to flood my cuticles.  It put me very much in mind of Bourjois 'So Laque' in Rose Lounge, which I already own, and wasn't a great fan of.  This is 3 coats and still VNL (visible nail line, my pet hate in manicures).

The next one I swatched didn't have a name, but it's pretty much a 'nail tip white'.  Bottom left in first pic.

It has to be said, it looks alot better in this pic than it did in real life, and thats saying something!  This is not sheer, but the first coat was very streaky, this is 2 coats.  If you own or have used Alpine Snow by OPI, this is pretty much identical.  Will probably come in handy for nail art, but I think it's unlikely that I'd wear it by itself.

Next up was Intimate, bottom middle in the first picture:

Mixed feelings about this one, off white with 'blush' coloured tiny shimmer in it.  In the bottle it looked super pretty and I really wanted it to work out.  The formula was the same as the others, a bit runny & self deleting if you go over your strokes too many times.  I really perservered with it, this is 4 coats and I still had some VNL.  I took it outside to photograph it as it was the only way I could get the colour to show up properly without washing out.  I think I could maybe make it work by painting it over an opaque nude (Liloo's idea, thanks x) I didn't try that, but I probably will in the future.

Then I tried the shimmer pink, I don't have its name, top left of the first picture:

It has to be said, I'm not a big fan of shimmer pinks, and I don't own many, this is 3 coats and still some VNL, I wrote notes as I was swatching, and I wrote 'frustratingly runny' for this one.  I can't see this one shortlisting for my 'most favourite polish of 2012' award.... enough said

And last but not least, top middle of the first picture, another 'no-namer':



I took both an indoor and outdoor picture for this, as I felt like it changed quite alot with different lighting.  Indoors in artifical lighting it looked almost brown, but outside it turned into a lovely dusky plum colour, still not really showing up here, but it's the closest I could get.  This was 2 coats, and was my favourite of all the polishes, it has a lovely glossy finish.  It had the same runny consistency, but because it was more opaque, it was easier to work with.

And I have to show you a picture of the brush, I've told myself I will do this with all the polishes I review, mainly because I don't see it done much, and I personally find it interesting, as if you're buying online you have no hope of being able to see the brush before you buy, and actually this came out as a closer representation to that last colour in natural light:

 So there we have it, all the Essie polishes I got.  I would have been disappointed if I had paid £10 for any of these, in my opinion they seem strictly 'high street' rather than 'high end'.  There's nothing wrong with that of course, as long as the price reflects that.  Also I don't know if these were in the sales precisely because they were the less popular Essie polishes, and so can't really form an opinion of a whole range in 5 bargain bottles, but I personally wouldn't pay top dollar for one now I've tried them, unless someone I trusted was seriously raving about it.

Do you have experience of Essie polishes?  Have I just been unlucky with these or is what I got representative of the brand?  Would be interested to hear your opinions.

Until next time -

MASPOOASE X X X