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.
Since I started blogging about polish, Spa Ritual was just one of the premier salon brands that always seemed out of my reach for more than one reason: No retailer I knew of stocked it, I wasn't ordering anything on the internet etc... so it was always a brand I hoped I'd find somewhere, sooner or later. As you can imagine, I was pretty happy to find a 5 bottle gift set of Spa Ritual nail polish in a Winners back in my hometown of Montreal for the dirt cheap price of $15 CDN when it can normally retail for $13 CDN and up.
Well, my happiness quickly turned into one hell of a disappointment as I soon discovered that this is one of the worst quality nail polishes I have ever perchased. Sage certainly looked like a promising shade. I'm a sucker for a nice taupey shroom but the polish just wouldn't dry. I had polished my nails in the morning (the day before I took this photo) but despite having had the polish on all day long, I woke up to the imprint of my bedsheets squished into the polish. That's just awful! I wore it for two days and never in the whole time did the polish ever set. It just stayed soft the whole time and just became a worse and worse mess as the day went along. I was able to dent the polish with my fingernail right into the polish up to 48 hours after application. Now this polish is just sitting on one of my night tables with the remaining 4 polishes that I don't have any motivation to use since Sage was practically garbage...Oh well, there's always Hiddleston...
Taupe polish is now a staple just as much as red, light pink & wine colours and are usually part of the collection of even the least obsessive polish buyers. You Don't Know Jacques was part of OPI's France collection a couple of years back and even though some many say they're bored of taupe, it's pretty much here to stay. But in all honesty, I can think of a few taupe polishes that are actually of better quality than this one is China Glaze's Ingrid would be one of them). I love the mushroom like colour but the application leaves a bit to be desired in terms of coverage. Two coats is not enough to keep bald spots and some streaking from happening and that keeps it from being up to OPI's usual high quality. Though in terms of durability, it does quite well.
If there is a brand that doesn't get a lot of blogger love, it's Estee Lauder and frankly, I don't know why that is. Granted, I don't buy their products often as they can be quite expensive but I do love what I have bought. That goes for lipsticks, eye shadows and so on. I'm particularly fond of their Pure Colour line in which Metallic Sage is part of. MS is like a mix between olive green and taupe with light gold and copper shimmer throughout it:
The shimmer keeps this polish from looking muddy and turning it into something exceptionally lovely. Application was good, two coats gave even coverage but dry time was a little longer than most other polishes. Honestly, I think I'm going to bust out my old Estee Lauder polishes and do a post on them. They made a stunning blue duochrome ten years ago that is just gorgeous. Yes, that's right, I said that Estee Lauder had a blue duochrome ten years ago. There are so few new things under the sun!
I picked up Beach Bum Blu by Essie about a month and a half ago at Shoppers Drug Mart, but only got around to using it this week since I wasn't feeling all that blue (no pun intended). It's nice and shiny but I have reservations about the finish. It looks more pearlized on the nail than it does in the bottle and that made the application somewhat streaky. It looks fine on my left hand but it's a bit more patchy on my right.
I haven't picked up this shade (greige with lilac glitter) and I haven't seen it in stores, but I did splurge on a bottle of All Hail the Queen when my group project scored a 96%. Yay Team!
With Flash
Sunlight
It's a light taupe with a subtle holo shimmer with a highly glossy finish than I was able to wear for 4 days without a chip. That's good news since it cost me $17 CDN so I'm glad that it's got mileage! It makes for a great work shade, not super flashy but has something a little extra.
People who know me know I'm no great romantic, I couldn't care less about the upcoming royal wedding and the only princesses I really gave a damn about were Wonder Woman & Xena, Warrior Princess:
Whatever...
To that stuff I say, FTS! But there's another British lady who wears blue named Kate who has a big date coming up. I am eagerly awaiting the new release from the great Kate Bush:
Put Your Hands Up In the Air...
And Wave 'Em Like You Just Don't Care!
I Said Put Your Hands Up In the Air...
Now Fly Around With Your Tongue Hanging Out!
Director`s Cut is her first work since 2005`s Aerial and if you are a Kate Bush fan, you have grown accustomed to waiting years for her to release new material. May 16 is not coming fast enough for me!
Left to right: Hot Coco, Going Incognito, Silken Cord, Masquerade Belle
The holidays are coming up and I'm trying to get in the festive mood with some "Christmas" colours. So I picked up the Essie Winter Collection Minis for 2010. I'm starting to like Essie colours more and more since they've been a bit more adventurous with polish colours than they used to be. No longer sticking to reds and pinks, I now come to expect that Essie will be putting out greens and blues on a regular basis:
With diffused overhead lighting
These four creme colours certainly say "Christmas" to me even though the polish names don't and that's fine. No need to go overboard and get gimmicky all of the time! The application had two real stand outs with Silken Cord being the best and Masquerade Belle being the worst. Silken Cord went on perfectly in two coats while Masquerade Belle was kind of streaky. Hot Coco and Going Incognito are in the middle with no real problems so 3 out of 4 is pretty good.
With Flash
As far as the colours go, you get a medium taupe, forest green, bright red and a deep wine in this set. I'm very fond of Hot Coco and Going Incognito cause taupe and green are my thing but I could do without Masquerade Belle. It's pretty, but I've ODed on wine polishes lately so it's not a must have for me. As for Silken Cord, my photos cannot begin to capture how intense a red it really is. It's so bright I would swear it could guide Santa's sleigh through a Christmas Eve Storm...
Not that it could ever replace you Sweetie!
I can recommend the set as a whole but if I was going to buy just one colour, Going Incognito would be my choice with Silken Cord and Hot Coco in a tie for second.
I finally got my hands on Ingrid by China Glaze. Since I don't buy anything online, I had some trouble tracking this colour down and had to wait a while until Trade Secrets had it in stock. In fact, I had to wait so long that I tried my hand at creating a Frankenpolish/Dupe out of OPIs You Don't Know Jacques and Curry Up, Don't Be Late. Actually, my mix didn't turn out that badly at all! Check it out:
Left: Ingrid, Right: My Frankendupe
I applied my Frankendupe to the pinkie of my right hand so that I could get a good comparison between it and Ingrid and it turned out to be slightly lighter than Ingrid but it's a pretty good try if I say so myself:
On My Pinkie: Frankendupe, On All Other Fingers: Ingrid
The colour on my pinkie is slightly lighter, more golden but all and all, a pretty good substitute if I wasn't able to find what I was looking for. All that being said, I do love Ingrid! It's just one of those great kind of Fall colours that I just can't resist. The application was much better than Classic Camel, also from the Vintage Vixen Fall collection, but I also had a problem with unexpected lint in the bottle that could have mucked up my manicure.
