Essie | Avenue Maintain

As always, I've reverted to my old ways and stooped to pick out an Essie color from their spring collection. I promised myself only one and this is what I ended up with. It's described with words such as "parisian" "chic" and "fashionably adroit" -- whatever that one means. I've found myself staring at my nails all day. I filed down my nails quite a bit and with a few slicks of this, a fresh foil, and a mini chop I feel like a whole new girl. A sixteen day hospital stay really can make you feel that way. Brand new. Rejuvenated. And I didn't even need to go to rehab! (Score.)

A formula that's to die for, and a price point that you can't really argue with, Essie continues to be my favorite brand. Definitely the accessibility of their varnishes help to sell them to me, but they're relatively cheap and last a significant amount of time.

Have you picked any new spring favorites? Look out for a whole post dedicated to shopping my stash - as they say - to find some new colors...

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Valentine's Day Nail Picks

from left to right:

Essie Watermelon

Essie Lilacism

Essie Muchi Muchi

Essie Vanity Fairest

NARS Anardana

Top Shop Chase

I just want to put this out there that I am a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. Pink is my favorite color, I love everything about love, plus I'm a real sucker for a bouquet and a sugar high. That's not to say that I'll necessarily have a Valentine on this day, but I always get a card from my nan, plus some specials from my mom and step dad. Among other things, I also have a major love for nail polish and this is where the two loves collide to create something.... beautiful.

These are essentially classic colours that I love during spring as well. Light, pastel, girly. I'm a huge fan of Essie because of their accessibility and range of unique colours that most often, you can't find elsewhere. NARS did some great nail colours last spring/summer collection with tons of brights. Chase is the only Top Shop shade that I own (since a Top Shop just came into my area in the last six months) and I caved for this babe. I'm dying to try some others. Two hot pinks, two baby pinks, and two light purples and we've got all the options I thought of for this Thursday, which essentially, is just another day in my world. But filled with candy. Yum.

How are you celebrating this year? Treating yourself (like me) or going out with a significant other? Leave a comment below.

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Mini-Review: Essie "Snap Happy"

This colour is true as ever to its name, in the snap of a finger, it makes me happy. Not sure if thats what they were going for, but the colour is fresh and new. I've mentioned Essie many times on the blog before and my review will continue to be the same. The colour is pigmented, the brush is easy to work with, the price is pretty good and the selection/range of polishes is out of this world. One of the reasons I continue to go back to them is that they have an incredible value of shades to choose from. Need a nude? They've got at least ten options. A sparkly glitter? Recently added but really brilliant colour choices for these ones as well. I own the most Essie probably because it is very accessible to me and relatively cheap. I don't feel guilty buying one or two when I stop by the drug store.

I found it fairly hard to get a decent exposure to this colour, because it is very bright and as you can tell, it's been particularly rainy and gross recently. I hope these pictures did it justice. I've had this painted on my nails since Sunday night and I've had no chips... Though, I am tempted to reapply with some of the others I've picked up recently.... Whoops!

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Essie Mini-Haul

over the edge - butler please - stroke of brilliance

If there's one brand I'm always on the fence about, it's Essie. They have without a doubt the most accessibility and variety, but on average have very poor formula. With a good base and top coat though, I figure that most of the time I can battle the poor formula for the gorgeous color. I got the inspiration for this post from Essie (of essiebutton) and her favorite nail varnishes post. I realized after watching her video of her favorites that a. I was in love with this bright blue and b. I had none in my rather large nail varnish collection. SO when I stepped into Target, this was the first thing I beelined for, after basking in the already holiday decorated card section. Butler Please is described as an "indulgent bright blue" and I completely agree. The one thing I stray away from with this nail polish is that the formula was very hard to work with which I found a bit surprising. The color seemed easy to work with from the bottle. It took a while to dry, needed two coats, and a third would have worked even better. It was necessary to have a drying fast top coat or my nails would have been ruined.

Over the Edge is a true dark gray with white shimmers running throughout it. The color is truly unique and reminds me of Urban Decay's Gunmetal eyeshadow. It is described as a "dramatic metallic midnight silver." This will be perfect for the holiday season, especially with a nice red dress or LBD. Stroke of Brilliance is a glittery blue top coat, perfect on it's own or over the top of another. I think it'd look fab over both Butler Please and Over the Edge. I have such a love/hate relationship with glitter nail polishes but I think my obsession might have been sparked again... I hate the taking off process, but love the long wear time and the look.

Essie has a reasonable price at about $8 a bottle, though I don't exactly think it's always worth it. I'd really like to try some more of their new collection!

What are your favorite drugstore polishes? Do you bother with high end nail care?

x

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Halloween Nails

Essie 'Grow Faster'

Essie 'Head Mistress'

Revlon 'Quick Dry Top Coat'

Thought I'd pop a post up before I head to Seattle for yet another concert. This time it's Two Door Cinema Club, which I'm rather excited about but also excited for the sunday after because that means I will have so much more free time. This month has been both really exciting and exhausting. Nearly no time to myself, getting sick, trying to continue school work and the blog has amounted to a very exhausted Blair. But no worries, everything will alas be back on track soon.

I felt very excited for Halloween has it's coming up quick, so I threw on some nails inspired by it. It's quite a simple step by step process. Start with a base coat, follow up with a stripe of red at the end of the nail and then gloop on a few blood like looking stripes down to the bottom. End with a top coat and let it dry. This took me all in all probably 15 or less minutes to do. Super simple.

Do you love Halloween? Hate it? Let me know in the comments below.

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Five Favourite Neutrals

The smell of fall is in the air and yet, I don't feel that it is that time of year yet. School has started, I've gotten loads of new clothes and I can't wear any of it... The weather simply doesn't permit. It's rumoured to be 75 for a while here. I can talk your ear off about how excited I am for autumn to be upon us, but (lucky for you) that time hasn't arrived. It's the time in between summer and fall where I am stuck in school for seven hours a day, with dress code limitations and very little appropriate summer wear (i.e. I don't wear skirts to my knee very often and high waisted, short shorts are a staple). Along with the summer feeling gone, so has the nail varnish. My favourite bright pastels are being replaced with darker, more autumn feeling colours. This transition time in between summer and fall is difficult but I find I always reach for these varnishes if no others come to mind. Here are my top five favourite neutrals this year.

1. Love & Beauty's (Forever 21) Taupe

(far left)

This light brown has the smallest hints of shimmer and is very wearable for many skin tones. It elongates the hands in the most elegant of ways. Used on the right nail shape, it can look so simple and elegant. At $2.80 per bottle, it's incredibly cheap although it doesn't apply that way. After two coats, this shade can be easily worn without bumps, knicks, or bubbles.

2. Sephora's Under My Trench Coat

A much darker brown in comparison to Taupe, it has layers of grey and an obviously simple sheen or shimmer to it. Sephora nail polishes are not my favourites in general but this colour is one of my must haves. The application on the nail is very thick and required only one coat minus a base. I have a feeling Sephora has changed their formula in recent years because this bottle is rather old. The colour in the bottle is very different and much lighter when applied.

3. Chanel's Paradoxal

One of the darker neutrals in this post, it stands out for the obvious purple shimmer included. With one coat, the varnish is pretty transparent and definitely requires a second layer to evenly distribute colour. In harsh lighting, the colour appears dark grey with a definite purple under tone to it. In natural lighting, the purple shines much better. Chanel has quite the price tag so I'd suggest trying this on in stores and seeing how you like it. 

4. OPI's You Don't Know Jacques!

A near dupe for Chanel's Paradoxal, I'd say. This colour is exactly what Paradoxal would be without the purple undertone and shimmer. It's quite flat but can create a sophisticated grown up type colour. This muddy grey most likely requires two coats as OPI varnish doesn't have the best distribution.

4. Essie's Eternal Optimist

(far right)

One of my all time favourite nudes, Eternal Optimist is a salmony pink true nude and works very well on Olive skin tones. Some may consider it a "grandma" type colour but it's always been a favourite of mine. It's a safe bet but can warm up skin in the darker, more grey months of winter.

What are your go-to neutral/nudes? Any caught your eye recently? Let me know in the comments below.

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xx
p.s. i have a new camera coming soon, not to worry. The days of crappy iPhone photos will be over soon. I'm sorry we have both have had to suffer for this long.