Essence Gorgeous Bling Bling and Grey-t To Be Here
Essence Gorgeous Bling Bling, two coats. Burnt orange-brown creme with gold flakes. Back when my nails were long…
Grey-t To Be Here, three coats. Light grey creme with pink shimmer flecks.
Archive for the ‘Essence’ Category
Zoya Zuza, Wednesday, and comparisons
I should have posted this ages ago, but then I lost the photos of the nail wheel comparisons… or maybe I forgot to take the photos, I don’t know! So I took new ones recently, but they aren’t exactly colour-accurate… Ah well, I’m posting them anyway! 😀
Here is Zoya Zuza, a beautiful shimmery turquoise. Two coats, and the formula was a little thick, according to my notes. I love Zuza.
Zoya Wednesday, a slightly dusty turquoise/minty/tiffany blue creme. Two coats, three on my ridgey ring finger. The formula on this one was a little thin.
And here are the comparisons! The photos are not colour accurate; they photographed a bit too green and dark, which you can see by comparing Wednesday (3:00 position on the left wheel) to the swatch photos above. So keeping that in mind, the pic can give an idea of how similar they are to other polishes in the same colour family. Zuza is directly next to Wednesday on the other wheel, at the 9:00 position on that wheel. Should have numbered the polishes on the wheels, sorry about that…
(Not colour accurate, leans slightly too green.) Left wheel, clockwise from 3:00 position: Zoya Wednesday, Color Club New Bohemian, Orly Gumdrop, Nubar Mod Agua, Cult Nails Manipulative, Kleancolor Pastel Teal, Soulstice Kona, Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint, NYX Girls Pistachio, Essence You Belong To Me, China Glaze Aquadelic, Color Club Blue-Ming, NYX Salon Formula Surf, Barry M Mint Green, Orly Ancient Jade, Fingerpaints Choco Mint, NCLA Santa Monica Shore Thing, Fingerpaints Tiffany Impostor.
Right wheel, clockwise from 9:00: Zoya Zuza, Nicole by OPI Diva Into the Pool, Manglaze ILF, Milani Golden Sea, LA Girl Delirious, China Glaze Custom Kicks, Kleancolor Teal Envy, Kleancolor Mystic Grass, Sparitual Rhythm of Life, Butter London Thames, Gosh Ocean, LA Girl Obsess, Kleancolor Teal Marble, Kleancolor Metallic Aqua, Fingerpaints Winter Sky, NYX Juliette, LA Girl Chromium Green, Kleancolor Metallic Jungle.
From the Vault, again…
More random old stuff!
Nubar Pink Flame, under artificial light:
Comparison: left to right, Finger Paints Catwalk Queen, Butter London Bumster (middle and ring fingers), Misa Hot Couture. The Butter London and Finger Paints polishes are quite close, Finger Paints just has slightly more orange, while the Misa is noticeably darker.
Butter London Bumster by itself:
OPI Pepe’s Purple Passion (in light box and camera wouldn’t focus properly on the polish surface!):
I’ll admit, while I ended up really liking Pepe’s Purple Passion, I mainly wanted it for the name, because of this handsome guy whose name is Pepe. Although we usually call him Tex. 🙂
Essence Wanna Be My Sunshine with accent nail in NYX Girls Pure Green, all layered with LA Girl Zesty Citrus overtop:
Illamasqua Elope:
China Glaze Sun of a Peach and comparisons
Here’s another neon from the China Glaze Sunsational collection!
Sun of a Peach is a neon pastel peach, and a great unique colour! I like the name too, haha.
The formula is a bit difficult to work with, but not really worse than other neons or pastels.
I used three coats to even everything out. The photos include base coat and top coat.
I think the colour is certainly worth putting up with the neon formula. With flash:
In the shade:
And here is a nail wheel comparison with other peaches, neon and non-neon, and some that lean more towards coral. The photo was taken with flash, but somehow the polishes still look a bit darker than they do in real life. So, word of warning that these aren’t colour accurate, but give a good indication of the relative differences in these polishes!
1) China Glaze Sun of a Peach, 2) Misa Shake it to the Samba, 3) China Glaze Peachy Keen, 4) Nubar Orange Creme, 5) NCLA Poolside Party All Eyes On Me, 6) Joe Fresh Orange Sorbet, 7) Kleancolor Mango, 8) Jessica Tangerine Dreamz, 9) NYX Amazon, 10) Cult Nails Scandalous, 11) OPI Apricotcha Cheating, 12) FingerPaints Circus Peanuts, 13) NYX Girls Naked Pink, 14) Funky Fingers Daiquiri on the Deck, 15) Barry M Peach Melba, 16) Kleancolor Pastel Orange, 17) Illamasqua Purity, 18) Essence Rebels Peach Punk
None of these are close to Sun of a Peach; the most similar are Kleancolor Mango which is darker and much less bright, and oldie NYX Amazon which is a translucent jelly with iridescent glitter, however. But as you can see there are some dupes and near-dupes among the other polishes – notably China Glaze Peachy Keen and Misa Shake it to the Samba which are basically identical. Cult Nails Scandalous is also similar to OPI Apricotcha Cheating, and Kleancolor Pastel Orange to Illamasqua Purity, but those pairs aren’t close enough to be dupes.
Zoya Rory, Kimber, and Comparisons
Today I have another one of my straggling summer Zoya posts – the two pink foily polishes from the Surf collection! (Look at how long my nails were – I really liked this length/shape! ;))
First is Rory, an awesome cool-toned, lilac-leaning bubblegum pink foil polish! Quite unique, I love it! This was two coats. The formula was a little thick but easy to apply.
And next, Kimber, a darker red-toned warm fuchsia pink with golden shimmer.
I’d say that Kimber’s finish is somewhere between foil and glass-fleck, definitely not a true foil like Rory.
This is also two coats of Kimber, whose formula was similar to Rory’s, although slightly thinner. Neither had any issues with application.
And now, some nail wheel comparisons of any and all polishes I had that were remotely similar! The first photo is indoors near my Ott light, the second in direct sun; neither is that great lighting-wise but I hope each can make up for the other’s deficiencies in showing the colours! Kimber and Rory are directly across from one another at the point where the two wheels are closest to each other.
Left wheel, clockwise: Soulstice Kauai, Milani Photo Flash, Milani In a Flash, Kleancolor Metallic Pink, Manglaze Lesbihonest, Milani Golden Girl, Milani Gold Digger, Milani Pink Out Loud, Zoya Kimber, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Essence Glamorous Life, China Glaze Endurance, Zoya Starla, LA Colors Coral Reef.
Right wheel, counterclockwise from top: LA Girl Rockstar Scandal, China Glaze No Way José, Orly Rose Radiance, LA Girl Pink Steel, Zoya Rory, Pop Beauty Ruby Metal, Orly Preamp, LA Girl Color Addict Euphoria, Milani Gold Violetta.
As you can see, Rory is unique even among the other pink foils I have, and Kimber is fairly similar to China Glaze Strawberry Fields. Strawberry Fields is a bit lighter and less red though, and its shimmer is less dense.
Left wheel, clockwise: Soulstice Kauai, Milani Photo Flash, Milani In a Flash, Kleancolor Metallic Pink, Manglaze Lesbihonest, Milani Golden Girl, Milani Gold Digger, Milani Pink Out Loud, Zoya Kimber, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Essence Glamorous Life, China Glaze Endurance, Zoya Starla, LA Colors Coral Reef.
Right wheel, counterclockwise from top: LA Girl Rockstar Scandal, China Glaze No Way José, Orly Rose Radiance, LA Girl Pink Steel, Zoya Rory, Pop Beauty Ruby Metal, Orly Preamp, LA Girl Color Addict Euphoria, Milani Gold Violetta.
Pastel Skittles Mani
Just a quick post today to share a recent pastel skittles (each nail a different colour, for those who aren’t familiar with nail-polish-addict-speak ;)) manicure I did. I felt like doing something spring-like and cool-toned, and here are the polishes I decided on: Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, and Milani Antique.
Essence You Belong To Me is a pastel turquoise creme with some fine pearly secret shimmer; Milani Original is a mint green creme; Essence A Lovely Secret is a lavender creme with fine warmer-toned and slightly darker magenta-purple glitter; Milani Dressmaker is a pale minty jade with turquoise shimmer; Milani Antique is a slightly muted/dusty light blue creme with fine pearly secret shimmer. Three coats of each polish (actually I think I added a fourth of Dressmaker, since it’s a pretty sheer polish).
Unfortunately there was no sun when I wore this, so the shimmer of the polishes doesn’t show up very well in the photos, although if you click to enlarge them you can see some, especially in the first photo. These pics include topcoat; I had been wearing the mani a while when I took them. Overcast natural light:
Artificial light (Ott light) – the colours are truer in this photo, as the previous ones make them seem a little darker than they are:
Multi-Coloured Glitter Comparison
When I reviewed Soulstice Spa’s LA in October, I mentioned that I would do a comparison with several other multi-coloured glitter polishes I have. It’s been a while but here is that comparison. I don’t own the famous “original” glitter of this type, Deborah Lippmann’s Happy Birthday, but here are the ones I do have.
From left, OPI Rainbow Connection, Soulstice Spa LA, Essence Circus Confetti, NYX Girls Carnival, Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. Click on any of these photos to see more detail in the larger versions. And please excuse the pink-stained nails! All of these polishes have clear bases and any pink or orangey colour you see is just the evidence of my most recent manicures.
Here they are at one coat, thumb to pinky in the same order as above: thumb OPI Rainbow Conncetion, index Soulstice Spa LA, middle Essence Circus Confetti, ring NYX Girls Carnival, pinky Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. OPI and Essence are clearly the densest of the bunch, followed by the Soulstice.
At two coats:
And at three coats:
As mentioned above the OPI and NYX are denser than the others, and the Essence and Wet n Wild are least dense. The OPI is different in that it has larger hex glitters in addition to the small and medium.
Colour-wise, the Wet n Wild is the most different among them since it has fewer colours and lacks any yellow or warm-toned orangey red glitter. It’s also my least favourite of these polishes for that reason. The Essence polish has more pink glitter than any of the others, including some lighter pink, and has some darker blue as well. NYX Girls Carnival is missing the light pink and dark blue of the Essence, but also has small cool-toned cherry-red glitter that the others aside from Wet n Wild don’t. OPI Rainbow Connection and Soulstice Spa LA are similar colour-wise to the NYX Girls but without the cool-toned cherry red. I’d say the NYX also has a higher concentration of yellow glitter, and the Soulstice has a lower concentration of pink glitter. The yellow glitter in Essence is a paler than the yellows in all the others, more of a gold.
My picks from these are, well, the denser ones/ones with the most yellow glitter – NYX Girls Carnival and OPI Rainbow Connection, followed by Soulstice LA!
Vegan Claws 
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