Category: Essence

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Killing it in Killing Red by Layla.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I used to be completely obsessed with red nail polish. I went a good year and a half almost exclusively painting my nails some shade of red. (This was circa 2004-2005 when all the celebrities of young Hollywood–Mary-Kate Olsen, Nicole Richie, ect–were rocking bright red nails.) Now a days, I don’t wear red quite as often (except as a pedicure), but I do love to throw back to a classic every once in a while.

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For this manicure, the polishes I grabbed were:

  • Mariposa Mini polish in red.
  • Layla Ceramic Effect in shade 53 (which, I saw somewhere was called Killing Red.)

I applied a base color of the Mariposa, because I knew from experience that the Layla takes quite a few coats to cover. This Mariposa polish is a red jelly. I’ve never used it before–I grabbed it on a whim–but I must say it has beautiful application, even if there is still visible nail nail with it on it’s own. Next, I applied two coats of Layla 53–Killing Red, to get a full application of the flakies over my nail. Oh my god I love this polish. It’s such a step above your basic red. I finished it all off with a coat of Essence Gel-Look Top Coat, followed by Essence Nail Art Express Dry Drops. When that was dry, I finished with a coat of Icing’s “It’s a Matte World” Matte top coat.

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Such a gorgeous combination. Makes me remember exactly why I use to love wearing red nail polish so much. But it isn’t until you capture it with no flash that you can really see it’s true beauty.

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Can you see those beautiful golden flakies swimming in this red polish? I didn’t have the best natural light inside for taking pictures, but they still come through.

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I legit cant stop staring at my nails, especially in the sunshine. It’s making me realize I’m going to have to go out and get more Layla polishes. All the ones I have used already have all been winners, and they have such an awesome selection! First on my list is going to be some of their holographic polishes. I’ve seen swatches of them online, and I have to have all of them!

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Krazy for Kozmic Colors.

There is nothing I love more than a good nail polish deal. While I wish I could afford every single polish from every single collection, my paycheck just doesn’t allow for it. That’s why I’m always looking around for awesome polishes at a deal.

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My Mom actually found these Kozmic Colors polishes for me at our local Dollarama, for a mere $1.50 for the three. I’ve never bought any of their polishes before, but I’ve always noticed them when browsing there nail polish selection. I have to say, it’s kind of crazy how much Dollarama has to offer! I’ve found OPI polish strips, Revlon polishes, and NOPI polishes there in recent months, and even that As Seen on TV stamping kit for $3. I was really curious to see how the quality of these Kozmic Colors polishes would compare to others in my stash, as–according to what I’ve seen on other blogs–they are exclusive to Dollarama.

I decided to swatch the blue creme polish first, as I already have colors similar to the other two.

There are no names on any of the polishes, and each set that I saw there contains three square shaped mini polish. Of the three in this group, two of theme were metallic polishes, and the blue was a creme polish. They had many other sets to offer though–glitter, and metallics, and cremes, and jellies (oh my!).

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First off, can I just say this polish has an awesome application. It’s smooth, and streak free, and reaches almost full opacity in one coat if you apply it thick enough. (For my swatches, I used two.) I’m not even sure what to call the color. In person it’s a deeper blue, but in pictures it comes across almost as a sky blue. When it dries, it’s not quite matte, but almost a satin-like finish. I should have taken a picture of it before I applied my top coat, but sadly I didn’t think. Silly me! Adding top coat gives it a gorgeous shine though, so either way this polish is a win. It will definitely be going in my Summer polish stash.

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So what do you think of this Kozmic Color polish? Do you have any experience with off-brand polishes–were they nail wins, or nail fails?

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Simple Nails: purple & gold.

Sometimes I just don’t have time to get complicated with my manicures, for whatever reason. After rocking my Spiderman nails for two days, I needed to paint something new, but I was feeling under the weather so I had to come up with something quick, but still pretty.

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene in Sea of Beauty — my gorgeous base color.
  • Layla in Golden Touch (from the soft touch collection) — golden shimmer.
  • Essence Gel-look Top Coat.

Oh man, I love the combination of these two together! Sea of Beauty is just the most perfect blue ever. And Golden Touch is one of my favorite polishes to layer over other polishes. It just jazzes up a manicure, and adds a nice shimmer. Love!

Also, you can see from my ring finger, I’m still having trouble with my Essence top coat–even though I applied the quick dry drops over the top coat, it obviously didn’t dry soon enough for me not to nick my nails. It makes me sad, because the top coat has excellent lasting potential–a good two days with no chipping, which for me is awesome since I work in retail and use my hands for 8 hours a day. =(

 

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Spiderman… Spiderman… Nail Art!

So I don’t know if you knew this, but The Amazing Spiderman 2 comes out this weekend. I’m a total superhero girl–although I am more of a DC girl than Marvel. That being said, I wanted to mark my excitement over the new movie in the best way I know how–nail art.

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This manicure was inspired by the Nailasaurus, and her amazing Spiderman nails. For my version, however, I started with a gradient. I painted my nails first with Revlon’s Spidey Sense, which is from their limited edition The Amazing Spiderman 2 Electric Chrome collection. Then, using a make up sponge, I created a gradient with Super-Powered, also from the Electric Chrome collection.

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Next, I went through with my Stripe Rite Striping Polish in Black, and created my web on each nail.

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Tada! Amazing Spiderman nails. And probably the only time you will ever see anything related to Spiders on my nails… ever. I am not a big Spider fan, but for Spiderman I will make an exception. =) I topped it with a layer of Essence Gel-look top coat, followed by Essence Nail Art Express Dry drops, to speed up the process. They definitely seem to help with the drying process, thank god. No more sheet marks for this girl.

So what do you think of these Spiderman nails? Did I do justice to The Nailasaurus’ original design?

Who is your favorite Superhero? I think you can tell by my PJ pants who mine is. And one of these days I’m going to have to make an attempt at Batman nails too!

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Essence Gel-look top coat: the good, the bad, and the bumpy.

So because I ran out of my Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat, I figured there was no time like the present to test out a new top coat. I picked up Essence brand Gel-look top coat from Shoppers the other night, along with Essence brand Express Dry Drops (which I’ll review at another time) and was curious to see how it was.

I’ve read some seriously mixed reviews on this top coat. Of course, I didn’t read them until after I had bought it. Never the less, it was only $2.99 at Shoppers Drug Mart, so the price was definitely right. Because I paint my nails so often, I go through a lot of top coat so it can get pricey. A cheaper, but good quality, top coat would be much appreciated, and Essence does make some lovely polishes.

Everyone complains about how long the dry time on this top coat is, so I made sure to paint my nails a little while before bed, and to fall asleep with my hands outside the blankets (just in case). It felt dry to the light touch so I figured I would be fine.

Yeah, not so much.

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Sheet marks. Lots of sheet marks. You can see how lovely the shine is on a couple of my nails–the ones that didn’t get dinged, but the majority of them were left textured because they were not quite dry before I fell asleep apparently. It was kind of disappointed, because I almost always paint my nails before bed so I need a top coat that isn’t going to take forever to dry. =( However, I do have those Express Dry Drops to try out, and I’m interested to see how the two will work together.

However, I did fix up my manicure with a very thin layer of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash from the bottle of a bottle I forgot I had. It definitely smoothed them out so I could show off the lovely sparkle of my moon manicure.

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Just in case you’re interested, I used Sinful Colors in Forget Now as my base, and LA Girl in Groupie for the purple. They just go so perfectly together.