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

Pastel Cloud Nail Art with M&S Limited Collection Polishes

Hi everyone!

I know it's strange for me to post on a Tuesday, but I did my nails tonight, so I thought I would do a 'Nails Of The Day' post. 

I went shopping on Sunday, and I bought three polishes from the Marks and Spencers Limited Collection polishes. 

I love it when Spring is on the way, because all the pastels come out to play, and I LOVE pastels.

The three I picked were Pale Lavender, Pale Peach and Mint.  I was also missing a super-pale blue in my collection, so I went into Superdrug and picked up Rimmel Lasting Finish in Sweet as Sugar, and Barry M Blue Moon.  For this manicure I used the Rimmel, and will try the Barry M another day.

I wanted to test ALL the colours out, so I decided to do a pastel skittle.  To make a different colour on all 5 nails, I added Max Factor's Mellow Yellow, which was already in my stash.

I was undecided whether to do polka dots, stripes, or a cloud manicure.  In the end I went for the cloud, and here's what I ended up with:

Apologies for the slice across my cuticle on my middle finger.  I was reaching into the kitchen drawer for the tinfoil, and the serrated edge on the clingfilm box caught me, ouch!  I couldn't photograph my other hand because my index finger on my right hand has an even worse injury, deary me.

So, I actually planned this mani out.  I put the most 'normal' colours, i.e. the lavender and peach on the two largest nails.  Then, I wanted the two most similar colours, the green and the blue away from each other, and the same with the green and the yellow, so the positions just slotted in nicely.

For the clouds, I used the 'next door' colour.  I moved over one nail each time, so the peach is on the main part of the middle finger, but the end of the ring finger, and so on.  All in all I'm pleased with the way it turned out.  Here's another pic:

I was mightily impressed with the Marks & Spencer polishes.  First coat was slightly streaky, but you expect that with a pastel.  Two coats was enough for opaqueness and they dried nice and fast.  Not bad at all for £3.50.  If they did free shipping they'd be sold out in no time at all.

 

The Rimmel blue was a pain.  This is 3 coats and I still had VNL.  I hope the Barry M is better.  I already knew the Max Factor was a pain, it was gloopy when I got it, and I thinned it, and it's still not a very nice consistency.  It goes bald at the cuticle, and goes streaky no matter what I try.  But it was the right shade for this so I perservered.

 

Here's what the skittle looked like 'nude'  As you will see I did have a bit of chipping by the time I thought to take the pics, 24 hours on.  It didn't have a topcoat and I'm pretty tough on polish as I type all day so this really wasn't bad going:

Lastly, here's a line up of the polishes.  I've remembered to include the brush this time, I keep forgetting.  It was a flat style one, and quite stiff but not too bad.  I would have preferred it to have been slightly rounded at the tip, so it loses half a mark for that:

So there we have it, todays NOTD.  Which finger colour combo is your favourite?  I think mine is the ring finger, the blue and peach really work nicely, but I actually quite like them all.  Hopefully I can manage not to get bored of this one until the weekend!

 

Until next time...

 

MASPOOASE x x x

~Wendy~