Pink Wednesday - Essie French Affair

It's Wednesday which means it's time for pink polish.  Today I have for you Essie French Affair, which is the namesake polish of Essie's Spring 2011 French Affair collection.  I got this polish as part of one of Essie's mini sets, 4 mini bottles from a particular collection.  I was looking for a nice pastel purple for Easter, and this just came along in the collection.  I probably would never have bought it except the set was on clearance at Beauty Brands so I got it 50% off.

Bottle in the shade, the sun picture washed it out too much.

French Affair is what I would call a petal pink, almost bubblegum but leaning very slightly lavender.  A dusty Barbie pink, all in all a very pretty color, I got a few compliments from complete strangers on this color.

Sun

shade

The swatches are a base of Seche Retain, two coats of polish and a top of Seche Vite.  The formula on this one was ok, I seem to be having issues with almost all of Essie's polishes in terms of formula.  It wants to pull and streak on the first coat, and the the second coat doesn't want to self-level very well unless you put it on really thick, which leads to dry time issues.  The polish itself seemed of a good consistency coming out of the bottle i.e. didn't seem really thick and gloopy thus requiring thinning or really thin and runny.  It was a good consistency which is why I was surprised that it gave me so much trouble in application.  Unfortunately this seemed to be a going trend with all of the Essie polishes I have swatched recently.  It won't keep me from using the colors I really like, but it was a bit frustrating.

And since I never seem to be able to leave good enough alone, I present to you, for your viewing pleasure, the Essie French Affair funky french.

shade

 

For this I just added Orly Butterflies to the tips and another coat of Seche Vite.  You can see a little bit of shrinkage on the end of my pinky finger, but it's not really noticeable without the macro setting on my camera.

So there you have it, Essie French Affair and a funky french with Orly Butterflies to close out another Pink Wednesday.  I should have the other three colors I have of the French Affair collection posted in the coming days, stay tuned.  Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

China Glaze 108 Degrees (I'm a closet pink lover)

Today, I present China Glaze 108 Degrees from their Island Escapes collection for summer 2011.  I have to admit, that at first I didn't really want this color, I love pinks but I had lots of them.  Then I heard everyone talking about how they are having difficulty finding it in their local stores so I figured I better snatch some up while I can.  I am so glad that I did, this polish is absolutely gorgeous, I didn't want to take it off.  This is one of the few manicures that I have done that a guy, and older guy (late 40's) actually complimented me on.  I've never had a guy compliment one of my manicures before.  Sure, guys notice women's nails but I think it is considered "un-manly" to actually acknowledge that they notice them much less say something out loud about them.  It threw me for a loop and actually took me a second to say thank you because I wasn't sure I had heard him right lol.  So here we go.

shade

108 Degrees lives up to it's name, this is a hot hot hot color, it is so gorgeous.  It's a fuchsia jelly with pink and purple glass flecks in it, in the sunlight it is stunning, heck it's stunning even in the shade.

OK apparently I didn't get a sun shot, boo!

I found the formula on this polish to be good, it is thin but easy to get on the nail, the above pictures are with Poshe and Essie Beam Up base coats and 2 layers of polish,l there is no top coat, I'm not sure why, but there isn't.  There is a visible nail line with only 2 coats and I'm betting there would still be a slight VNL with three thin coats.  VNL doesn't bother me so it doesn't lessen my love of this polish one iota.  However, I did find a cure for the VNL

tips are Orly Liquid Vinyl

I put a coat of Seche Vite on after I did the tips, amaaaazing!

I can't even begin to describe how good this looked with black tips on it.  When the sun caught the glass flecks in the 108 Degrees it was mesmerizing.  I do have to say that 108 Degrees looks great without top coat, but Seche Vite took it to amazing.

I got more compliments on this manicure than any other including the compliment from the middle aged guy at my weekend amateur radio gathering.  108 Degrees will definitely be a go to color for summer, it's amazing, I'm going to have to go buy a second bottle, I like it that much.

Until next time.

I knew it was the glitters fault

Ha, I got in-focus pictures of my mani today, it just required being overcast.  So here we go.

stupid french nail guides, put them too high on my nail

This is Orly Royal Navy, which is a royal blue jelly polish with microglitter, it's so micro that it's almost unnoticeable once on the nail.  Ring finger is one coat of Sinful Colors Out Of This World (not to be confused with Orly Out of This World), and then I did a Scotch tape mani a la Chloe's Nails, and put 2 coats of Royal Navy over it.  Still wasn't enough bling for me.  I added inm Northern Lights silver on the tips and all over the ring finger.  Can I just say Northern Lights is a-maze-ing, the glitter is so micro and seems to really spread out on the nail, but the colors it throws off...I find myself staring at my nails while slowly moving them up and down and side-to-side.  there seems to be every color in the rainbow in there.

The shinies, they distract me.

I put a coat of China Glaze Love Letters on the french nails before putting on the Northern Lights, everything has a Seche Vite top coat.

Here are some blurry pictures of the sparkle.

I see red, orange, blue, yellow-ish

green, pink-ish

Peanut came out to help take pics today and to roll in whatever dirt he could find on the deck

Maybe I will take a short video of it in the sun tomorrow, hmmm.

That's all I have for today, next mani will be my GLBT Pride one, but it's going to be so sad to take this one off.