Essence - You Rock! Collection

Yesterday I posted old Essence spam. And today? More!
I found another bunch of swatches hidden away in the depths of my computer. Even though this collection is no longer current, I can't just delete them without posting them.

Aren't these bottles cute? The lovely Caroline from Good Lack Nail sent me these probably 2 years ago when I was a total swapaholic. But don't ask me why I swatched them right away and then didn't post them.

Essence - Cut off the Beige 
Really interesting beige/taupe shade with shimmer. 

Essence - King of Mints
Blue-turquoise with shimmer.

Essence - Let Me In Pink
Standard pink creme. I can see in the photo that I don't think the formula was very good. It is showing off all the imperfections in my nails at the time. (What was I doing to them?! They look so damaged!)

Essence - Speed of Light Blue
Light blue, shimmer visible in the bottle but not really on the nail. Nice fresh and clean shade.

Essence - Love Peace and Purple
The star of the collection! A dupe (or very close to) Chanel's famous Paradoxal.Very strong purple shimmer in the purplish gray base. Lovely!

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Again, no idea why these ended up on the "cutting room floor" or maybe "swatching room floor" for so long. They are really nice polishes! 
I think I might go put on that last one.
But after I watch the finale of How I Met Your Mother and bawl for an hour.

Essence Swatch Spam

I hope you're in the mood for swatch spam...
I just stumbled upon a folder that was totally stocked with swatches of some of the old-style Essence Color&Go polishes. I think I took them two years ago! Obvi the pics aren't my current standard but they are pretty decent! Good enough to post for sure.

Essence - High Spirits 
Dusty army green with silver shimmer. Really like this one which is why I put it first.

Essence - Gleam In Blue
Light metallic blue, kinda frosty.

Essence - Black is Back
No description needed. I like to use this black because it doesn't stain the way my old go-to black did.

Essence - Glamorous Life
Ooooh, pretty glass-fleck pink.

Essence - In Style
Tealish blue shimmer. Lil' bit frosty.

Essence - Luxury Secret
Gunmetal gray metallic shimmer. Kinda frosty too but that is more hidden with the metallic finish.

Essence - Modern Romance
Semi-sheer peach with pinky shimmer. 

Essence - Make It Golden
Gold glitter and shimmer topcoat. Very lovely.

Essence - Nude It!
A nice neutral nude.

Essence - Time for Romance
Pink glitter and holo glitter in a sheer dark pink base. In this picture it's layered over a metallic pink I think.

Essence - Ultimate Pink
Standard pink creme.

Essence - Wake Up!
Bright orange creme.

Essence - Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Yellow creme with some subtle shimmer. 

Essence - Walk on Air
Royal blue creme, a biiiit jelly.

Essence - Walk of Fame
Nice neutral taupe creme.

Bonus swatch:

Essence Nail Art Topper - Hello Holo
Some nice holo glitter in a clear base! Not as small as the glitter in, say, CG Fairy Dust, so this gives a different and more obvious glitter effect. I'm a fan!

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Phew! That was a lot of swatches. I just remembered I did a spam of these before as well - see that here.

I miss the bottle and brush of these old little Essence polishes. I have so many. At one point I had a list of them all and I was going to try to get all of them... But then they changed the bottle and I said "f'get about it."

Ruby Wing - Eternal

Today I'll be sharing with you a polish that really is not appropriate for where I live. Why you ask?
Because it changes color in the sun. What sun? I know not about this sun you speak of.



Ruby Wing - Eternal is a UV-activated color changing polish. In the above Instagram video I used my UV lamp to show the change because it is winter. Sad, sad winter. Never ending winter. Sigh...
Anyway. The polish at first is a suuuuper bright turquoise that totally freaked out my camera and made my skin look weird and the polish look streaky but it really wasn't.

And then when you're out in the sun...

Dark purple! The change is SO quick and intense. I always expect color changing polishes (be it thermal or UV) to not change too much. But this is crazy! Really strange to watch. I immediately had to show my mom. Hahaha.

When you come out of the sun (or the UV lamp) it changes back really quickly too! That made it hard for me to get photos, actually, where I couldn't take pictures while still inside the lamp, obvi! You can see the purple starting to change back in the above photo where I was trying to compare the color.

And here it's almost back to the indoors color. Isn't that a strange shade?
Best part is, I got this one on clearance. Duh. 

Verdict: I am totally impressed with the effect of Ruby Wing polish. What is usually just a cheap novelty is actually a really great product! I have two more of these interesting gems in my stash (glitters!) that I am definitely going to have to try soon! Or maybe I will wait until July when I have real sun... Blerg!

The Lacquer Legion: Lucky

March's theme for The Lacquer Legion is Lucky!

I thought about lucky things, like lucky charms, and I was this close to trying to base nails on a pair of lucky underwear I used to wear to my best friend's hockey games in high school... But A) I thought that might be weird (however apparently I wasn't above telling you about it) and B) I can't really remember them.

So I kept thinking, and realized that the luckiest thing in my life is my dad!
He is seriously lucky. He always wins on scratch tickets, poker games, even the lottery! (He hasn't hit the big one yet... But I sure hope its coming.)

I decided I would get him to choose three random numbers corresponding to my polish stash list. So he picked from 1-1279. The three colors he chose turned out to really go well together!

#396: Color Club - Warhol
#519: Essence - Nude It!
#777: Nail-Venturous - Evil Barbie

I wasn't in the mood for anything too intense, so I did a base with the nude polish, added two pink nails plus a pink stripe on the thumb, and put the glitter on top. Voila! Easy but eye catching manicure with a fun idea behind it.

Not gonna lie, I was a little worried he would end up choosing orange, purple and brown or something. But he truly is lucky I guess! I hope I've inherited some of that lucky touch. Especially for my microeconomics final next month... That sucker is gonna need a lot of luck.

I hope you guys liked this mani! And don't forget to share yours on our Facebook page, or anywhere on social media with the tag #LLlucky.

Maybelline Brocade Collection - Lavishly Lilac

Hola! Remember I'm Feeling Sashy from yesterday? Here's how I wore it!

Maybelline - Lavishly Lilac
I added two accent nails in this beautiful glitter from Maybelline's Brocade Collection. It only needed two coats for full coverage on top of my purple base, but you may need three on a bare nail.

The glitters in this collection are really different, with blends of different glitters and shimmers, creating a really unique look. Don't you love it when you see a new polish in a display and can honestly say you don't already own something like it? I actually bought three of them... Haha.

I also added a quick gradient to my thumb to complete the look. I just did the gradient with the polish brush - making sure there was very little on the brush to blend the glitter down onto the base.

Don't these polishes go well together?

Did you pick up any of the Brocade glitters? At only 3 or 4 bucks a piece, they're pretty hard to resist! I'm itching to wear the green one now... I think I will go put it on!