Essie Lapis of Luxury swatch

With on and off rain, I pick a dusty blue color, Lapis of Luxury, from Essie's Summer 2010 Collection.  While I love the color, the pictures are 3 coats below, and I still have some bald spots, so technically 4 coats are needed to make the polish opaque.  I don't like polishes that need more than 2 coats, so normally I wouldn't wear this, but I love the dusty ocean blue color.  Perfect for the end of spring and beginning of summer...

Essie Macks swatch

Macks was the very first Essie nail polish bottle I purchased, 2 years ago (believe it or not I've been Essie obssessed for about a year and a half now!).  This is a standard dark red, one could even call it a blood red.  Perfect application, and while more "wintery", I wear it in the summer as well!  It's a classic shade that I think goes with almost everything.  This is 2 coats.

American Apparel Butter Swatch

Sorry for being offline for over a week, but have been running around with baptism celebrations, birthday parties, etc.! Below are pictures of American Apparel's Butter, which is a pastel yellow, that looks just like, well, butter!  I tried a new nail salon which was lousy (dirty place, rude staff, and they did a crappy job with my manicure!) so right after I came home on Friday I removed it and put on Essie Macks (see my next post, above) instead.  But regardless, this a lovely color, not just for spring summer, but for all year.  It's a bit hard to apply though and you can see the bald spots in the pics below.  This is 2 coats.

China Glaze Electric Pineapple swatch

It's been pouring rain here all day and I since yellow is my favorite color, I decided to try a greenish-yellow color from last year's China Glaze Summer Collection (2011).  This is not lime, as it is a yellow, but does lean a bit green.  Obviously this isn't something you can wear everyday, but I think it is great fun and looks pretty good for a yellow!  This is two coats.

Essie She's Picture Perfect swatch

One of my favorite colors, and definitely my favorite of all of the lilacs that Essie has put out, is Essie She's Picture Perfect from the 2012 Resort Collection.  It is a blue-toned lilac, a darker and more saturated version of Lilacism (one day I'll show you swatches of that as well).  It also has some pink and blue shimmer which is more evident in the bottle than on the nail but if the sunlight hits your hands you may be able to see it.  She's Picture Perfect is brighter and less grey than Bangle Jangle (from Essie's Winter Collection 2011).

Essie Coat Azure Swatch

Despite the cloudy skies I wanted a "blue sky" color to brighten up my day, and so I chose Essie's Coat Azure from last year's Spring Collection for today!  The pictures below are two coats, it's a gorgeous color, and has a great formula due to the pearly-shimmery finish.  It looks great against my blue jeans as well!!

Essie Strawberry Sorbet swatch

It's Saturday afternoon here and instead of choosing to go to the beach I decided to do my nails as it's a cloudy, humid day and I'm feeling quite slow! This is a summery color, a strawberry, red-pink that looks good on both warm and cool skin tones.  I hate the typical summer coral, and all its red-orange variations, but this is a red-pink berry color that is just bright enough without being too blatant.  It looks great on toes as well!

Standard French Manicure using Essie Waltz & Blanc

So I decided that it was time to do a basic French manicure to show you here.  The line on my tips is Essie Blanc (a stark white) and the color on top (the rest of the nail) is Essie Waltz (a milky white).  This is a very clean, fresh look.  While I'm a fan of colors and hardly ever do French manicures, I think that it can look be quite refreshing and sexy to have on.  In the future I'll do a variation of this to show you using a slightly pinker base.

Essie School of Hard Rocks swatch

Good afternoon! It's 4pm here in Athens and I am lovin' the sunshine! Following on my green "theme" of the past 2 weeks I decided to wear Essie School of Hard Rocks from the Winter Collection 2011 which came out a few months ago (again, the fact that it's May and that this is considered a "wintery color" doesn't phase me!).  It is a dusty green, almost leans towards teal (has some blue in it) and is a bit greyish (it is not a forest green like Essie's Going Incognito).  I have it both on toes and fingers and it's a great color! This is two coats, but the pictures that I took today are 1 day old, so there is some chipping as I painted them yesterday.