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!

Funky Fingers Pastel Swatches.

First off Happy Mothers Day to all the fabulous moms out there! I hope you all who are celebrating with your mom or if you are a mom are having a wonderful day! I too am spending the day with my mom. It was luck of the draw that I didn't have to work today even though they tried to make me!

Today I bring you swatches of some Funky Finger Polishes I picked up a few weeks ago at Five Below. I love that they do 3 for $5 polishes and 2 for $5 on there special ones ( usually crackles). I also found out from Alaina from The Little Canvas that the company that brings us Funky Fingers also brings us Color Club! How about that right?

So to start off there are three pastel colors that they have put out for the spring season. A lovely mint, baby pink and a lilac/lavender. All three of the pastels have a lovely gold shimmer that is very visible in the bottle. On the nail, well I get to that.

First up is the mint color called Mrs. Mint. Appropriately named this is the polish I had the worst time with. It is beyond streaky. Which is sad to say because its my first and only true mint color.

The formula is on the thin side, and can flood your cuticles easily. as you can see when  I tried to clean up my cuticles. When applying this polish you have let each coat dry practically completely or else you get major brush drag.

This is three coats, I can't remember if I put a top coat on for all the polishes or not. I'm going to say yes there is a top coat on these swatches though. Now for the bummer on the gold shimmer. I was so happy to see it in the bottle and then on the nail it gets lost. Unless you are in blinding sunlight you don't see it at all.

Next up is a favorite, mainly because of the name. The pink pastel is called Queen Cupcake.

This polish reminds me of Pink Friday by OPI or the Nicole by OPI Kardashian color. This polish is streaky as well but you don't have have each coat completely dry before adding another coat. A few minutes is more than enough and three coats is good for opacity. 

The last and final color is called Sugar Plum Fairy. Now I know that, the name is usually associated with Christmas, at least to me. I would of picked a different name for it. Out of the three though this had the best application. Yes the first coat is streaky but not nearly as bad as the previous two and its such a pretty lilac/lavender color that you could get a way with it all year round.

Two coats is good for this polish and the shimmer that isn't prevalent in Queen Cupcake and Mrs. Mint actually can be seen in this. The camera didn't pick it up but I could see it in real life.

Funky Fingers is available as I said in the beginning at Five Below. They always run specials for 3 for $5. It worth a trip in if you live near one.

Hope you all enjoyed this. Until next time.
Nicole