SWATCH SUNDAY — Essie Bare With Me

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. I hope everyone had a wonderful week — & is ready for the new month! I truly can’t believe it’s almost August. Wasn’t it just June? This Summer is definitely speeding by & I’m trying to soak in every sun soaked moment.

After a whole lot of neon, though, I thought I’d switch things up a bit with a more neutral shade. I recently picked up 2 new shades at my local Shoppers Drug Mart that were on clearance for $2! As soon as I saw this blushy neutral I knew I needed it in my collection.

2 coats + top coat

According to my internet research, Essie Bare With Me was released in 2017 as part of the Wild Nudes collection — & is now, sadly, discontinued. Online, it’s described as an apricot, but I feel it’s more pinky/blushy myself.

The formula was easy to apply & smooth, & dried down without much patchiness. I did smooth things a bit with top coat, but it does dried relatively shiny on its own. I just much prefer my nail polish with top coat.

Bare With Me is a very complimentary to my own skin tone, which I really like. It’s nice & subtle — which is not a look I tend to go for, but sometimes you just need to switch things up. I actually ended up wearing this shade for a few days with a coat of Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Moonlit Top Coat over it, & it looks absolutely gorgeous together.

Unfortunately, like I said, this shade has been discontinued— probably why I scored it for $2 — but if you do track it down it’s definitely a lovely soft shade to have in your collection. I also think it’ll make a great base for some naked, but not really naked, floral designs.

What do you think of Essie Bare With Me? Do you like a good neutral shade on occasion? What is your personal favourite neutral to wear? Let me know down in the comments below!

Happy Sunday!

SWATCH SUNDAY — Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 90s Collection (& new Miracle Gel Top Coats)

•contains pr/gifted product•

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! I hope you’re ready, because I have quite the swatch heavy post ready for you today. As I’ve previously mentioned, I was gifted part of the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 90s collection, & I’m really excited to share these shades with you!

As a child of the 90s, this collection hits me right in the nostalgia. So I was pumped to be able to share these shades with you. The actual collection contains 8 funky 90s inspired shades, & I have 5 of them to share today! I was also lucky enough to receive two of the new Sally Hansen Miracle Gel special effects top coats, to add a little extra sparkle to your manicure.

These limited edition 90s shades can be found wherever you buy Sally Hansen. I’ve found them at my local Shoppers Drug Mart & Walmart stores — both in special edition displays.

Continue reading “SWATCH SUNDAY — Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 90s Collection (& new Miracle Gel Top Coats)”

SWATCH SUNDAY — Olive & June Summer 2023

•pr•gifted•

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday! Today I’m super excited because I have a brand new (to me) nail polish brand to share with you that was recently gifted to me.

Olive & June is a nail polish brand that sells both nail polish & press on nails. They have an extensive range of 15-free nail polishes in a ton of exciting colours, so I felt super blessed to be send their Summer box which contained everything I need for the perfect summer manicure. While I’ve used their nail art stickers before, I’ve never tried their nail polish!

The summer collection contains 6 polishes — 5 cream/crelly shades, & one shimmery topper.

Continue reading “SWATCH SUNDAY — Olive & June Summer 2023”

SWATCH SUNDAY — Icing Stores Starlight

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. It’s a rainy, grey, & extremely blah day here on the East Coast — & it’s starting to feel like we’ll never see the sun.

I needed some cheering up after this blah, blah week so I started digging through my Claire’s/Icing drawer & found this old school beauty! & I just knew that I had to pick it for this week’s Swatch Sunday.

This is Icing Starlight.

3 coats + top coat

The formula on this beautiful jelly glitter is thin thin thin, but it builds to nice coverage. & because the formula is so thin, each coats dries down quickly before you apply the next one. It also means you can see each & every silver & holo glitter suspended in the base, which I love.

Truthfully, I could have applied a forth coat for a bit more opacity, but with the exception of my tips (where it shows of a bit of my natural yellowing from my nail polish obsession) I really love how this looks. & that could easily be corrected with a colour correcting base coat. Or, by using it as a topper over another blue polish.

In the bottle it reminds me a bit of China Glaze Dorothy Who? but the base is much thinner leaving the colour on the nail much, much lighter. However, it has those beautiful holographic glitters that really show up, so I can’t be mad about it. It’s a beautiful shade all on its own.

Sadly, this colour is long long out of circulation. If I had to hazard a guess, based just on the bottle shape, I would say I purchased this bottle somewhere between 2009-2011. The brand has gone through quite a few bottle changes since then, but I’m happy to see even a decade later, this shade applies & wears beautifully.

& sometimes it’s just fun to take a walk down nail polish memory lane with a shade you haven’t seen in a while.

What do you think about Icing Starlight? Do you have any oldies in your stash you haven’t pulled out in a while? This Sunday is a great day to find a shade you haven’t worn in a while, & pull it out!

Have a lovely day! 🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY — Essie Willow in the Wind

•PR/Gifted•

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend so far. We celebrated my daughter’s birthday this weekend (her birthday is today) with a mermaid themed party, so it’s definitely been busy! But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have time to paint my nails for this weekend’s Swatch Sunday — especially since I received the most epic nail polish package from Essie on Friday! So obviously, I couldn’t let this weekend pass by without painting my nails with at least one colour!

Today’s pick: Essie Willow in The Wind from the Swoon in the Lagoon collection (I also received Swoon in the Lagoon & Frilly Lillies as well.) This colour is so out of my usual comfort zone, but I couldn’t get past how beautiful & unique this shade was, so I had to wear it first!

2 coats + top coat

I would describe this green as a kermit green, which is so far outside my usual go to shades, but there is something so vibrant & fresh about this shade! This is two coats, but the formula was pretty flawless, so I feel a bit like my second coat was more of a “comfort” coat than anything else — with the except of a few sparse spots that needed another coat. The wide brush on the Essie bottle made it easy to apply the polish to my whole nail in one quick swipe, which is always a good thing.

So squishy & lush! This is definitely going to be a part of my regular nail art arsenal for floral, because I feel like this is the perfect green for leaves! Is it a shade I’m going to wear on it’s own on the regular? Probably not. But as part of some nail art, I think it’s going to be amazing. & who knows… maybe I’m becoming a green girl!

Essie Willow in the Wind should be available anywhere Essie shades are available, including these online stores:

What do you think of this lush green shade from Essie? Are you as obsessed with Willow in the Wind as I am? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below.

Have a fantastic Sunday! ♥︎

Products featured in this post were provided in exchanged for content.  All thoughts are honest & my own.