Walk of Fame by Essence

My shrinking pay cheque has been leading me back into the drugstore makeup sections more than ever.  As a result, I've picked up a few more of the budget brand, Essence that has recently popped up at Shoppers Drug Mart.  I always appreciate a good, cheap beauty buy and Walk of Fame is definitely one.  This taupe creme wasn't as goopy as the previous Essence polishes I've tried and true to its claim, it does dry quickly.  It chips just as fast too but I tend not to complain about that so much if the polish is a quick dry.  At least it doesn't take long to repair a chip.

Where's the Party? by Essence

A quick stop in a Shoppers Drug Mart on Dufferin Street & Lawrence Avenue led me to an almost empty display rack of Essence cosmetics.  I'm curious to know why I've never seen this brand of makeup in any other SDM in the GTA except for that one.  They certainly don't carry it anywhere near where I live.

I bought 2 polishes and one of them was Where's the Party?, a purple green duochrome that leans a bit on the frosty side.  Considering the cheap price, it was less than $2 CDN, it's a pretty decent looking polish and has some really nice tonally transition to it and it looks good.  However, I got to tell you the formula was hard to work with.  It was too thick, bubbled and actually lived up to the promise of being a quick dry polish by becoming extremely sticky coming out of the bottle by the time I got to the second coat.  I doubt that I'd be able to get 3 more wears out of it before it would begin to dry up and be unmanageable.

Cool Couture by Maybelline

After the polish disaster that was Purple Trend, I'm glad to say that another polish from the same Fall 2011 Maybelline line is definitely not hideous.  Mind you, Cool Couture is a terrible polish name that almost makes me long for the terrible puns that OPI always seem to come up with.  A cool dark grey with a good amount of teal shimmer, Cool Couture has a great finish and decent durability, even though I needed 3 coats to make it look its best.  I can't really complain about that as it is a quick dry polish. The shimmer gives the colour some depth to it and was the main reason that I picked it up.  There's been plenty of deep, cool toned creme polishes this fall so I didn't really need to get me another one but I can't help but notice  in this photo that the polish is making my skin look a little pale.  I don't have an issue with that but I can't help but wonder if it would make someone with a much paler complexion look really washed out.

Purple Trend by Maybelline

Ever look at a polish in the bottle and say to yourself "Oooohhhh!!!" but when you paint your nails just look at them and say "Eeeewwww!!!"? That's what happened after I bought Maybelline's Purple Trend at the Great Canadian Superstone during Boxing Week.  Its dark purple tone with a teal blue shimmer looks so great in the bottle that I snapped it up and as you can see, it photographs really well.  But, look at it!  It just looks awful on me.  Like some kind of slimy liver got stuck on my fingers.  It's a real shame that this polish looks so bad because it's staying power was fantastic.  I've had it on for 5 days and there's not one single nick, chip or crack in it.  What a shame!

Sally Hansen's Rose a Go Go

At the moment that this post is appearing, I'll most likely be back in my hometown of Montreal eating good food and enjoying the company of good friends or I'll just be buried under a bunch of comforters and snoring away in bed.  Either one of these options would make me happy but I wish that I could say that Sally Hansen's Rose a Go Go from the Insta-Dri line made me happy too.  The colour is definitely what I would classify as a "work" shade as it's somewhat neutral pink creme and nice looking without being to eye catching or attention grabbing.  However, the formula leaves a lot to be desired.  It was a bit too thin and had almost no durability to it at all.  In the photo, you can see some small chips and wear which is problematic as this is less than 9 hours of wear.  It doesn't matter how much you've paid for a polish when this is the kind of wear you get out of it.  It just boils down to a waste of money.

New York Color's Fall 2011Collection: Backstage Brown

It's pretty clear that I wore New York Color's Backstage Brown for at least 3 days before I ended up taking a photo of it and as with Underground Purple, I'm again not really seeing where they're getting the idea that the colour they are seeing is "brown".  Out of the 3 polishes of the Fall 2011 collection, this one is my favourite but I would call it more of a honey colour than I would call it brown.  I guess if it were called "Backstage Honey" that could conjure up some seedy connotations (or if you just have a dirty mind).  The formula is a bit  streaky  but also provided good coverage in two coats and wore well for 3 days before signs of wear began to show.  I would call this an all year round colour and would definately go back to it during the summer months.  And speaking of years, Happy New Year everyone!  I hope than that the next 366 days (it's a leap year) brings you and those you love, a great many good things and good times!

New York Color Fall Collection 2011: Underground Purple

I don't know about you but I am not seeing any purple going on here with New York Color's Underground Purple at all.  That doesn't mean that I don't like it.  This type of magneta is one of my favourite colours and one can always get away with wearing make up in this colour (if it's a pair of pants, not so much!).  The formula for this polish was much much better than it was for Scene Stealer Grey and applied evenly with no streaking at all. But if you want absolute coverage, then you should use 3 coats instead of 2 as I have in the photo.

New York Colours Fall 2011 Polishes: Scene Stealer Grey

It's so nice when you get an actual sunny day in which to photograph your polish with! We just are not getting a lot of bright days in the GTA these last few weeks and nothing really brings out the accuracy of colour like the rays of the sun.  I've had these polishes for a few months now but I hadn't had enough time to get around to posting about them.  With big collections like OPI's the Muppets and MAC's Gareth Pugh (those photos are coming soon...I promise!) a smaller collection like one from New York Color can get left behind.  So last but not least, here's Scene Stealer Grey from their Fall 2011 collection.  This polish is more of a gun metal or deep silver than it is a grey.  When I think of the colour grey, I tend to think of creme finishes and not so much about shimmers.  The formula is a bit thin, if you take a look at the top of my pinkie nail, you'll see a bit of a bald patch and the small brush was a little bit of  a challenge application wise but all and all, it's still a good buy for less than $3 CDN

Emerald Empress by Sally Hansen

Christmas has come and gone, I am tired, tired, tired and the holiday season isn't even done yet as we still have New Years Eve to look forward to or contend with (depends on how you look at it).  I haven't had too much time for posting but I just had to take some time to drool over Sally Hansen's Emerald Empress from their Insta-Dri Line.  This polish straddles a fine line between blue and green but regardless of what your eye thinks it sees, it's still seeing a beautiful colour.  This deep shimmer polish had full coverage in two coats and true to it's name it dried very quickly.  It also had very good wear time as this picture was taken 3 days after application.  The Insta-Dri line is 50/50 when it comes to durability so it's great that this one lasts a bit longer than others.  The obvious downside to a polish like this one in the unavoidable staining of the nails that these kinds of colours cause.  So be prepared to take some extra time for removal.

Ruby Rush By Sally Hansen & Layla Graffiti Effect

I recently picked up Ruby Rush, one of the Fall 2011 colours from the Insta-Dri Line from what was a pretty full display at my local Pharmaplus.  I don't know if shoppers are not into the usual fall "go to" colours that always come out at this time of year or if it was the fact that the display was tucked away on a bottom shelf.  Maybe they're just looking for something different in terms of polish.

If you're looking for something different, you won't find it in this colour but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  This types of wine coloured shimmer polishes are usually a core type of colour.  Like a pure red or a nice clean nude polish, you should expect to find at least one colour like this in every polish lovers collection.

There were no issues with application and it did dry quickly as advertised but the formula was a bit thin.  It ended up chipping by the end of the first day of wear, so if your looking for something that will last more than a couple of days, then Ruby Rush is not for you.

As for polish buyers wanting something new, I can't help but wonder if we're reaching the end of the crackle craze.  While at the same Pharmaplus, I found a completely full display for a polish line called Layla.  Their take on crackle nail polish is called a Graffiti Effect topcoat but it just adds up to the same thing.  I decided to give the purple colour (the polish didn't have a name) I bought a try on top of Ruby Rush right before I removed it.

If you look closely, you can the problem with the polish right away.  When I polish my nails, I start with the pinkie and work my way over to my thumb.  That way I don't accidently bump or smear a wet nail so you can see that while the polish is cracklingly very well on my pinkie but by the time I got to my thumb, it wasn't doing so well.  If you're wondering, I dipped the brush for a new sweep of polish for each nail.  I guess I can't grumble since it was under $4 CDN but that was the mark down price:  It was originally priced at $15 CDN!  So if you live in the GTA and you want to try out a crackle polish, $4 is fairly reasonable.

Dear God My Eyes with Sally Hansen's Chartreuse Chase

Sally Hansen's Chartreuse Chase is not the type of colour polish I usually choose.  I mean, sure, I 've got hundreds of colours in my collection but I could safely say, I didn't have one that looked like day-glo vomit.  I bought it mainly because it was different and it was 1/2 price. In fact, CC is so jarring that when I painted my nails with it, I thought that I would end up gouging my eyes out like Ray Milland at the end of the B-Movie classic: The Man With the X-ray Eyes...

I Can Still See!!!

 As badly has this hue is burning my retinas, I sort of actually like it even though it took 3 coats to make it opaque and even then it was all clumpy and blobby.  I find it suits my skin tone!   I'll leave you with the trailer for the Man With the X-Ray Eyes.  If you think that Ray Milland, who won the best actor Oscar  in 1946 for Lost Weekend, had sunk low with this film, then you haven't seen anything until you've seen the sadness that is The Thing with Two Heads.