My Valentines Day Manicure!!

Hi guys happy Friday and Happy Valentines Day!!! If you have a valentines of course. I don't have one but that's okay. 

I just a simple manicure since between school, weather, and work life has been crazy!! We have about four feet of snow outside right now since yesterday's storm. My car was buried, I am so blessed that my mom and dad cleaned it off for me this morning. Thanks mom and dad!!! 

So for my manicure I went with Essie's Peach Daiquiri. Two coats will get you to opacity. I love the formula on this polish too, it's not too thin and clean up is easy. 

The. I wanted to add something more. I picked up a polish from Salon Perfect called Hearts a Flutter. It's one of there new special effects top coats. 

It consists of small pink micro glitter and giant gold hearts. 

I just used it on my accent nail. It was a little hard to get out the good hearts, I definitely had to fish for them. But they were easy to place. 

Once it was all dry I topped it off with Seche Vite! I'm not a huge fan of valentines day but I don't mind having cute nails! 

I hoped you guys enjoyed this, and I'll talk to you all soon! 

<3 Nicole

Joe Fresh: Mojito Mix!

Good afternoon lovelies!! 

Today's post is going to be yet another polish that I received from my amazing friend Lindsay of Polish and Diamonds! 

Have any of you ever heard of the brand Joe Fresh? It is a brand that is pretty much only sold in Canada. At the time or writing this post I googled 'Joe Fresh Nail Polish' and didn't come with anything but reviews for it on Make up Alley. I then headed to Amazon and EBay and found a couple of them there but that was about it. So I am very grateful for Lindsay for sending me the three that she did. The other two will be featured on here soon! 

The polish is called Mojito Mix, it is a mint green polish with a creme finish. I would say that its a dupe for Essie's Mint Candy Apple, which is one of my favorite shades! However I like the Joe Fresh formula better. The Essie version is a bit thin and a little hard to control on the nail where as the Joe Fresh formula is thicker and much easier to control. 

There was only one problem with this polish and it made me sad. But I don't blame anyone for it because you don't know it happened until you go to use the polish. 

Yup I got a wonky brush. Its not like the bristles on the brush got bent or something, the stem of the brush is actually cracked up the side and that's why the bristles stick out. 

However this did not deter me from enjoying and using this polish. Here's the results. 

I used two coats for opacity. The only time I had to do a lot of clean up was if the wonky bristles hit the sides of my nails or my cuticles. I love the bottles on the Joe Fresh polishes there so little and fit right in the palm of my hand. I think if I had to travel with polish I would choose  Joe Fresh because of its size!

I don't necessarily get the 'Mojito Mix' vibe from this polish but I do understand why they named it that, a mojito is made with liquor and crushed mint leaves. Nonetheless I love me a minty green polish and this one is just as awesome! 

I'll see you guys on Wednesday!! 

<3 Nicole 

Essie Parka Perfect

Good Monday morning guys and dolls!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! My Christmas was nice, I spent it at home with my mom and dad. It was quiet but nice. I got some nail polishes and make up which I will be hopefully getting up here on the blog soon.

So for today's post I have one of the new Essie winter polishes. Its called Parka Perfect. I picked it up just before Christmas when I was getting a gift for my best friend.

Its a really pretty muted blue grey color that has shimmer in it.

You can definitely see the shimmer in the bottle itself but I didn't really see it translate to the nail. Which makes me kind of sad but i still think its a very pretty color and very season appropriate. 

It takes about three coats for the color to be opaque, and I don't know if its just me or maybe it was my Seche Vite, but the color kind of dulled out after a couple of days. 

Nonetheless I think that Parka Perfect is a very winter appropriate color and makes me think of the very cold weather that is headed to New York by the end of next week. The weatherman is saying it is going to get down to -12 degrees by Friday night. What a way to start off 2014 right? I want the 60 degree weather we had back just before Christmas!! 

So thats all for today lovelies! I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you tomorrow on New Years Eve to show you what I am wearing on my nails to usher in the new year. Which by the way I hope is awesome and way better than 2013 in terms of personal things that have happened! 

Talk to you all soon! 

<3 Nicole 

45 Days Of Untrieds Day 16: Cover Girl Perfect Penny.

Hey guys!!!

Once again sorry for the lack of untireds here on my part I should of been up to like day 20 by now! But quite a few awesome things have happened over the last week and they took over my life for a bit.

If you have read my last  post you know that I was talking about leaving my current job for a new one, well I officially put in my two weeks! It feels weird to say that I will be leaving as of the 18 of this month. I am beyond excited though, I love new adventures and taking the plunge with them. It was one of my New Years Resolutions this year!

Also I got re-admitted back into school as of Tuesday!!! Finding out that I am going back to school makes me so happy, I love learning and expanding my brain!

So today's untired is another Cover Girl Polish. If you have an addiction Rose Gold basically anything than you may want this polish.

Perfect Penny is the name and rose gold is its game! I think I became obsessed with rose gold jewelry, and polish and an sort of accessories when I first saw Ingrid or MissGlammorazi on YouTube show her rose gold watch from Michael Kors.

My mom asked me the other day when I showed her Perfect Penny if I had a polish just like this, one that she has worn. I told her yes but this is different. She just shook her head at me. One day she will see how different similar colored polishes are.

It almost blends in with my skin tone so when I was painting my nails I actually had a hard time seeing if I had any bald spots. It was either that or the my light was making it all weird.

Two to three coats are more than enough to make it opaque. I did notice a few streak marks when applying this polish, you know the marks you can get when a polish is metallic and you get those lines.

You can definitely compare this too Essie's Penny Talk which is another one of my untrieds I should feature here, but I feel that polish is not super metallic, its also thicker and really good for stamping.

But if you have always wanted Essie's Penny Talk which is now a polish I see all over the place, but you can't still get your hands on it then Perfect Penny might be a nice replacement or an awesome companion if you already have Penny Talk.

I got my Cover Girl Polish at my local Wal-Mart. It is a part of their core collection so it should be easy to find.


Don't forget to keep up with the amazing Adrianna of Mories Nail Art and Shaylads on Instagram!

Do you like Rose Gold Jewelry/accessories/fashion?? 

<Nicole

Day 7 of 45 Untireds, Essie: First Timer.

Holy cow can you believe that it has been a full week of untrieds? I can't! I have to say I'm going to give myself a small pat on the back for following through with this so far!

Today's untried is a polish that I can't believe I waited this long to feature, Essie's First Timer was released I believe this spring, and man is it a beautiful color.

First Timer is a lovely bright green creme, the formula is absolutely fantastic! I have never had an Essie polish that didn't disappoint.

Its almost as bright as a neon but doesn't dry matte, it actually has a nice shine to it. I don't normally gravitate towards green polishes, if I ever choose to wear them its at the holiday time, you know those evergreen polishes.

Two coats makes it perfect and adding top coat smoothes out any bumps if you happen to get any.

Essie Nail Polish is available at most major retailers. I purchased mine from Walgreens for $8 dollars. The beauty manager was really nice and found me a two dollar off coupon that brought the price to $6!
Essie usually runs about $8 at most retailers. Of course it could always be less or more depending on where you live and where you shop.

Check out Adri's untried and Shaylads, I'm so glad they are doing this challenge and I'm so glad Adri came up with it!

What is your favorite Essie Polish??

<3 Nicole

Essie Peach Daiquiri

*Purchased by me*

Hello!!! *waves frantically*

Happy middle of the week! Don't we all love it, it means the toughest part is over and yet only a few more days until weekend freedom! I'm excited because after today I hopefully get to see my best friend/sister, I haven't seen her or my niece in almost two weeks. Usually we get together at least once a week but with all the craziness going on between our families it just didn't come together.

Anywho on today's polish post! One brand I have said I don't have many of is Essie, I think my grand total is a whole six. I know for someone who is an addict you would think I have more than that of Essie. Every once in a while I see a color Essie has out and it just calls to me or I find it on sale at TJ Maxx (which reminds me I need to go there soon). The latest color to jump out at me was Peach Daiquiri.

Peach Daiquiri is not the color you think it is. It is definitely not a peach color. To describe the color it is more of a strawberry coral color. So when applying it to the nail you'll notice it is more on the red toned pink side of the color spectrum.

I absolutely love this color, I plan on wearing this a lot over the course of the summer months, I'm definitely putting on my list of what colors I want to wear on my toes when I go on vacation to Florida  in a about a month and a half. Actually its about 48 days away!

So enough gabbing here is the pictures!

In these pictures I have two coats on plus a top coat. Application was really nice, a little streaky on the first coat but I encounter that a lot so it doesn't bother me so much and doesn't really become a factor in deciding whether I like a crème polish or not. I did notice that if you have any trace of dirt under your nails it can be visible through the polish. I did have a bit of chipping but I chuck that up to my job and probably me not wrapping my tips in top coat like I should.

So if your looking for a nice bright Essie color Peach Daiquiri might be right for you. Essie is available at most drugstores and Wal-Mart etc. I paid $7.75 for mine at my local Wal-Mart but remember as always prices may vary depending on where you live and what store you purchase your Essie polishes from.

Until next time!
<3 Nicole

My first adventure with Bundle Monster!!

Good Morning!!! Hope you all are well where ever you are.

Today I bring you my first experience with my new Bundle Monster plates! I have been lemming the Bundle Monster plates for a looooonnnnngggg time, I always was looking at them on Amazon and on Bundle Monsters own website wishing for them to be mine. That wish came true this Christmas when my Aunt and Uncle were very kind and gave me a gift card to amazon. I immediately knew that I wanted to buy nail art related products, I narrowed it down to the 2011 BM set and 2012 BM set, both sets I had designs I knew would be useful for up coming nail art.

First off I want to talk about my experience with Bundle Monster as a company. I have always been leery about buying off of Amazon due to the sellers; who can you trust who can't you trust, same with EBay and Etsy. I have heard some stories and it just made me a hell of a lot more cautious. So when buying the stamping plates I was pleased to see that the plates shipped straight from Bundle Monster and not a third party seller.

Each set cost $21.99 each which is not a bad price point since you get 25 plates and at least five-six designs per plate. Shipping was fantastic too, if you chose the standard shipping which was 3-5 business days it was free. Now I know that sometimes Amazon will offer free shipping with qualifying items but this free shipping was straight from the seller! So of course I chose the standard shipping and placed my order. I waited patiently for my shipping conformation email ( which means me checking my phone once an hour) and I saw the plates were being shipped from Hawaii which is where BM is located, I seriously thought it would take the 3-5 days or more to get to me since it was on the other side of the country. 

I placed my order on a Friday morning and it got to me by that Monday night! How Crazy is that!??? I have nothing but praises for the Bundle Monster Company and will definitely be placing an order for more stamping plates if they make any!

Ok so on to the manicure that I tested out my first plate with.

I started off with a base color of Nicole By OPI Selena. I love this color it most certainly helps me get through the winter blues.

Once my base color was dry I was unsure what color to stamp with so I pulled out all the contrasting colors I thought would look nice over Selena. The final two were Essie Penny Talk and Sally Hansen Ruby Rush. After stamping some on to a napkin to see what looked better I thought Penny Talk would be nice, since it is metallic color and the stamper really picked it up well from the plate.

 

 

 

 As you can see I used BM plate 201 and the swirly design in the close up shot. I wanted a delicate print and this one fit the bill well. It would cover the whole nail but not take away from the base color. Now looking at the plate I even think the sweeping lines on the left side of the plate would of been nice too.

Here is how the manicure came out.

I did come out really light and you could only see it if you got up close or was in the sunlight. But since I usually suck at full nail stamping designs I was pretty pleased how this came out. I do think next time thought I will use a slightly darker color that will contrast a bit better I also think that I might invest in a Konad Stamper since the only one I have is from the Salon Express kit and sometimes it doesn't pick up the designs well unless I give it a good file with a emery board. I would say these are office appropriate nails since no one will notice the design unless they shove your hand in their face.

If you want to invest in either your  first set of stamping plates or just add to your collection than I suggest ordering the bundle monster plates plus a Konad stamper ( if you don't already have one) , which all can be found on Amazon. If you want a quick fix for some stamping the Salon Express stamping kit by As Seen on TV is available at quite a few retailers. If you want to see my post about that kit click HERE.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I will talk to you soon!

<3 Nicole

Sephora X Nail Polish: Chaotic

Hello lovelies!

Happy almost weekend!

Today I have a polish to show you that I was very excited to get my hands on. I first saw this polish when Jen from The Polishaholic featured it on her blog about a month ago I want to say. Sephora created a new line of nail polishes called Sephora X, they have a ton of different colors and finishes, this polish is a part of collection called 'The Toppers'.  It is a black and white glitter polish! How cool is that? I know that some of the best B&W glitters come from all the amazing indie nail polish brands out there, and I do hope to get my hands on some of them one day, I just have to set up a PayPal account, which I always forget to do!

So this Sephora Polish is called Chaotic, which I feel its name does suit it. It does look like it creates chaos on the nail when applied over certain colors. Over other colors it just looks freaking awesome.

The glitter make up of Chaotic consist of small round black and white glitter, black bar glitter, medium hex black and white glitter, and large black and white hex glitter in a clear base. I think I would been a little bit more happier if they had put a bit more white glitter into the mix, especially white bar glitter.

Application is fairly good, the small standard brush can get stuck with some of the big pieces of glitter in between the bristles which can make glitter placement a little clumped together. Dry time is good and the finish is glossy but a little rough to the touch, not so rough that its annoying to touch it though. A good coat of your top coat makes it all better.

In the two pictures above I used chaotic over China Glaze Loves A Beach from the Summer Neons Collection,( I will have a full review of Loves A Beach soon) I also used it over Essie Mint Candy Apple, (full review to come of that soon as well). I think Chaotic over MCA makes it look like mint chocolate chip ice cream, anyone else think so?

Anyway the availability of Chaotic is pretty good, if you cannot get your hands on one of the many awesomely amazing  B&W  Indie glitters then this can help you get by until you do. Most Sephora Anchor stores have the Sephora X line, if you only have access to the Sephora's that are located in some JC Penny stores then you won't find it there and you will have to order it online through the Sephora Website. This polish retail for $11.50 each, which is pretty steep price tag for only a 10ml bottle but hey it is Sephora after all.

Until next time!
<3 Nicole

My Top 10 Polishes of 2012 Part One!

Good Friday morning lovely polish lovers!

Today I bring you for the second year My Nails. My Polish. Top 10 Picks of 2012!

We had some amazing polishes this year and it was so hard to pick the 10 that I wanted to feature. This year I came up with some guidelines to help narrow things down. The first guideline was to that the polish had to come out THIS year. Which obviously is appropriate. The second guideline that I had was that I had to have worn it and taken a picture of it. If I featured it on the blog even better. I think there was only one I never featured on the blog, but put up on Instagram. You'll see that one later.


Alright lets get started. This is the first five on my list, I figure one post would be super long and you the lovely reader would get to tired half way through.  This list is no particular order so I'm not saying that any polish is better than another. They are all my favorites from this year!

First up is a polish that I couldn't stop raving about this holiday season. It has definitely become my favorite red polish! That's right its China Glaze Cranberry Splash, from the Holiday Joy Collection.

When  this collection came out I wasn't really looking to get any of them, I wasn't impressed until I was looking at Kelly from Vampy Varnishes swatches and saw how it glowed and was just the perfect holiday red. I needed it and quickly added it to a list I had started on one of the E-tailer websites that I usually order from. A week or so later a trip to Sally Beauty with my mom let me get my hands on it sooner and boy was I glad I got it. Take a look (if you haven't already seen it in any other post I did with it LOL)!

Next on the list is a dupe of polish that I featured last year, but if you want this polish you still maybe able to get it through China Glaze. I picked Immortal from the Halloween Collection this year to be on my favorites list because I have never loved a grey polish so much in my life. When I first saw Immortal in Sally's I knew immediately that it had to be a dupe for Fright Night Polish in Phantom.

What I love most about this polish I the shimmer. Between the grey shimmer is a mix of blue and purple, its very subtle on the nail and can be seen well in the bottle.

This polish that I have for you is only my fourth Essie polish. I can't believe I have never bought more of that brand but the price tag always gets me. When Essie released their Winter Collection this year which is also named Leading Lady I knew I wanted at least Where's My Chauffeur!

It is a bright sky blue crème polish that looks like a certain runner up that will be featured at the end.

What I like most about this polish is the formula, it is on the thin side but that's okay, three coats achieves opacity. In the picture below I used it with Pure Ice Stop Flirtin'.

Earlier this year L'Oreal release a line of polishes that all have names that refer to one of my favorite places in the world next to home, is England!! I know I talked more at length in the post about my love for British Television and this polish just fits the bill perfectly. L'Oreal Brit Invasion is an amazing brownish taupe polish with copious amounts of golden shimmer. When I posted this on the blog it was one of my most viewed post! If I had to choose one polish to wear all fall this year this would of been it.

This year was the year of the Jelly Sandwich, many companies even right up to the end of the year were creating jelly sandwiches in a bottle. One company that jumped on that band wagon was Nails Inc. Sold at Sephora and on Nails Inc. website, these polishes were all the rage! They were even sold out for a time. In July I broke down and decided that I needed all of the Nails Inc. Sprinkles Collection. Now nail bloggers generally define a Jelly Sandwich as a sheer polish that is buildable layered with a glitter polish in between. Nails Inc. took it to the next level and used crème polishes with matte glitters. My favorite out of the four was Sugar House Lane. It is a neutral toned crème polish mixed with black and white matte glitter. It does look like the top of a chocolate frosted cupcake.

Okay so I think that is where we are going to stop for Part One of the Top 10. The next five that will be showed are equally amazing so just remember that! Most of these polishes are still available in some places. The L'Oreal polish you may have to go hunting for though I still found some in the Wal-Mart in the next town over from me.

So stay tuned for the last half of the list!!! Talk to you soon!
Nicole

Stop Flirting and Where's my Chauffeur???

Hello and happy Sunday!!

I apologize for not having a post for yesterday, my usual schedule of posting every other day has been going pretty well until Saturday morning when I went to put the post together. The polish I had swatched/wore was a beauty. It was one of the new Pure Ice Polishes that are exclusive to Walmart and limited edition. I won't go in to much detail about it since I plan on re-swatching it and posting it eventually. I thought the photos came out well but when I pulled them up on the computer they looked horrid. In the end I had to trash those pics and start from scratch.

So that's where today's manicure came from. It took me all day to decide what to put on Saturday and I decided I wanted some glitz but not all out in your face glitz.

I started out with my base coat of course. Besides using the matte top coat I also did a layer of Orly Bonder before hand because my nails were fraying a little and I always noticed Bonder seemed to help with that.

After my base was dried, I applied one of my newest untireds, Essie's Where's My Chauffeur?. This is from the Essie Winter Collection and you can find it wherever Essie Polishes are sold, it was the only one that stood out to me, the other colors are ones that either I have from a different brand or just not me.

Count 'em 3 coats to make WMC opaque. The formula is nice, easy to handle, the only thing I noticed was brush drag if I didn't let each coat dry completely. The color of this polish can be compared to China Glaze Aquadellic although I feel WMC is a little more dustier, which I think Jen from the Polishaholic has swatches up on her blog.


OK now for now for the glitz! In the new Pure Ice Polishes, there are two glitters I purchased that seem to resemble the OPI Muppet's Polishes. The one I added on for the sparkle is called Stop Flirting it is a blue glitter with larger silver hex glitter mixed it. I believe the OPI polish it resembles is Gone Gonzo. I don't own that polish so I cant do a side by side comparison.

Stop Flirting is actually a smooth glitter, I added three coats to my ring finger over WMC  and even with out top coat it was smooth. That is a huge plus in my book!

Okay so I hope you enjoyed this post! Stay tuned for the next one soon.
<3 Nicole

Breast Cancer Manicure!

Hello! How are you all? I'm doing okay on my end, lots of stuff going on as this fall season gets going, parties, visiting with my new niece and my work load at my job has picked up more since we are a man down in the office until further notice. I have been pulling six to seven day shifts in a row. Sadly they are not in the same pay period so no extra money to be had in my wallet :(

These six-seven day stretches really wear me out and by the time I have a spare minute blogging is not the first thing that comes to mind, although I have been taking pictures of manicures that I've done and some swatches, so now that I actually have a spare minute I'm trying to get a few post pre-published to help me out. I feel like I've been in a slump lately with blogging since work is killing me, but with the Holiday seasons creeping up on us I want to get back in the game.

And the way to get back into the game is to post my Breast Cancer Awareness manicure that I did back a couple weeks ago for a fundraiser my supervisor started two years ago!

I don't personally have anyone in my family who suffers from Breast Cancer or any Cancer for that matter, thank god but I do know people at my job outside my job that includes customers and even friends of fellow bloggers who have had to battle this awful disease.

So for this manicure I used the most appropriate polishes I could find/owned and that was the OPI Breast Cancer Duo, and last years Essie Breast Cancer polishes.

I started out with two coats of Zoya Flora, a nice dusty pink color that would help contrast the nail art I wanted to create. Flora is a lovely pink polish that like with most pastel pinks is a little streaky on first coat but by the second coat its pretty opaque. It has this almost jelly like finish two it but its more on the creme side. It dries kind of dull so a top coat is needed to wake it up.

Then on my left hand I created a pink ribbon using Essie's Raise Awareness, with the small end of a dotting tool. On my right hand I couldn't re-create the pink ribbon so I took the Glitter from the OPI Duo and covered my ring finger in about three coats of it over flora!

Essie Raise Awareness is probably my favorite pastel pink that I own, its not streaky at all and its just a fun girly pink color. The Glitter from the OPI Duo, (which the name escapes me) but I think its You Glitter Be Good To Me, is pale pink round glitter with darker pink small hex glitter mixed in. You can wear this glitter by itself with about three coats for full coverage, but just remember how much a pain in the butt glitter is to remove! Unless you use the foil method of course!

With Flash

In The Natural sunlight, this was taken in the early am.

My right hand with flash

Now these pictures were taken after a day of wear so please forgive me for the slight tip wear. My coat has been a mix of Orly Sec n Dry and Sally Hansen Insta Dry. My Base is Orly Bonder. I Hope you enjoyed this post and stay tuned for more.

<3 Nicole

A couple of dotticures!

Hello!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend! The weather here in good ole New York was half crappy half amazing. Saturday it stormed and sunday it was filled with plentiful sunshine. It's also forcasted to be sunny and fall like for the rest of the week!

So for today's post I thought I would bring you two manicures where I finally incorporated some simple dots. Who doesn'tl love dots. I miss doing nail art, I stopped because life wasn't allowing me the time to do it :( but now I have some time so I want to get back into it.

The first 'dotticure' was one I wore the other day but then had to change the next day because one of my dots smeared off even tho the mani was supposedly dry!

I used Essie's Raise Awareness as my base color and then used Sinful Colors To create the dots. I love this red from Sinful not only is it bright but it's also a jelly polish which is great for those jelly sandwiches us nail addicts love to do. I think this manicure would be perfect for valentines day next year or you could substitute the red dots for a darker pink and you can have a great manicure for October for Breast Cancer Awareness! I know I'll be showing you what I wear since I have a fundraising bake sale in the beginning of the month!


The next manicure is the one I am currently rocking as I am writing this post. For this one I used China Glazes Hang Ten Toes and for my accent nail I used Sinful Colors Rainstorm. Then I alternated the dots, using Rainstorm over the pink and Hang Ten Toes over Rainstorm. I will do a proper swatch of Rainstorm soon. You actually could get away with one coat of Rainstorm it's just that pretty!

Ok on to the pictures!

My very first Essie Polishes!

Hi everyone! Hope all is well!

Today for once I didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to work, I love having a Saturday off! What is even better is work is kind enough to give me next Saturday off too! Apparently the customer service gods are shining on me :)

Today I bring you my very first ever Essie Polishes! I have always love the brand, always ogled at them in drugstore when they started showing up there, but at $8 a pop I couldn't justify buying one, when $8 can buy me like 5 of a more cheaper drugstore brand polish. Maybe its the bottle size that is intimidating to me, I mean I have walked into beauty supply stores before and walked out with an OPI Polish and there about 50 cents to a dollar more, so why have I waited so long???

 Yup I dragged my mom out of the house at 11:30 this morning solely to go to Big Lots to find some discount polishes since the rumours are flying around that you can find some really decent polishes there now. The only thing I don't like about Big Lots or as my mother kept referring to it as "Odd Lots" is that not all of them have the same items, and some store won't get the overstock that another store does. With all intentions full steam ahead I went in and prayed I would be one of the lucky ones.

The outcome of my trip? FAIL! Not really any polishes at all! A few sets of obscure Revlon Colors that weren't that appealing and a few of the Sally Hansen Nail Pens but no huge bins of discount make up items to dig through :( I became a sad panda.

So I dragged my mom down the road to the next shopping plaza where I knew I would be somewhat successful. Its got a Sally's, Five Below, TJ Maxx and Kohl's, Walmart, Rue 21. One of these places or more were bound to have some polish I want. Now I know I said I was on a 'No Buy' but looking at the calender I did a successful month of no buys, I actually started July 15th. but didn't start talking about it till almost the 1st of August. Today is the 18th so exactly one month and 3 days!

Although I probably will go on another month of no buy now since I bought a few. That's what I do at least. Well unless the new L.E. Maybeline Fall Fashion Week Polishes come out....

Anyway enough rambling! On to the polish. These are the two beauties I picked up at TJ Maxx!

These are Raise Awareness (pastel pink) and Infatuation (darker pink)!. I believe they are in the salon bottles since the caps have a large lower case E on them and the names are on the bottom and they don't have the Essie name in the white label like we see in drug stores today. I snagged these lovelies for $3.29 a piece! Score!

Here is the manicure I created with them!

Pretty self explanatory, I think every nail polish lover and blogger has done a manicure like this. Each color is two coats both reach perfect opacity. When I got Raise Awareness I thought like every other pastel pink it would be streaky but it was not at all, and no brush drag either. Infatuation is like a nice berry pink that I don't have in my collection from any one else! These pictures were taken in sunlight with a top coat. Oh and I used my new base coat today too! How many of you use Orly Bonder??

Okay so that is for this post! I do think I will be buying more Essie in the future, my Walgreen's has pretty much a full stock of all the colors and I desperately want Marshmallow, and Penny Talk!

Talk to you all soon!
Nicole!