Nail Polish Stash Part 4- Essies and Orlys

Today's set of stash photos are of my Essie and Orly polishes... sadly I think that my Essies tend to stay untried for really long periods of time. I'm not entirely sure why, but they just seem to stick around in my untrieds drawer the longest...I've only tried maybe 7 of them so far...anyways...enjoy the bottle pics, and let me know if you want to see anything swatched/worn.

Some lilac polish comparisons (OPI Done Out in Deco, China Glaze Light As Air, OPI Do you Lilac it and Essie Lilacism)

Earlier today, someone was asking for a comparison between OPI Do you Lilac it against Essie Lilacism, and China Glaze Light As Air, so I decided to swatch them for her. Since I had done so and labeled them already, I've decided to post my comparisons of these 4 polishes. All of these were done with 3 coats, except Essie Lilacism, which was 4 coats (It might be opaque in 3, but I forgot to shake the bottle before I started applying it so the first coat was very runny) Light as Air, you can probably get away with 2 coats of..I was being kind of quick and sloppy with it, so I ended up having to do 3. The formula's pretty decent on this one..too bad China Glaze's brush sucks. I'll also apologize for the lack of cleanup..I got lazy.
The first comparison is between OPI Do You Lilac it, China Glaze Light As Air, and Essie Lilacism. Light as Air is the lightest of the 3, with a dusty quality to it that I'm fairly fond of (Dusty cremes are my favorite cremes) I did a full mani of it after these swatches..and sadly I'm not entirely sure it's a color that works well on me...my face is neutral..but my hands are fairly warm...I love it in some lightings..and in others not so much. It's closest to Essie Lilacism, though Light as air is definitely lighter and dustier than Lilacism. Personally, I like Lilacism's color more. The difference is most apparent in the picture below, but there's definitely a stronger difference in person. OPI's Do You Lilac it is not very similar at all to either of these two.. it's more vibrant and less cool toned, and much less of a pastel.
I then compared OPI's Done Out in Deco with the the two, since it's lighter and cooler colored than Do You Lilac It..it's closer to these colors than Do You Lilac It, but is still not a dupe of either color. It is again more vibrant than these two and possibly a bit bluer, though it does carry a nice dusty quality to it.

This ends my comparisons of these colors. Unfortunately I do not own Lucky Lucky Lavender from the Hong Kong collection, so I cannot compare it to Light As Air and Lilacism. I hope this satisfied somebody's curiosity.

Happy Chinese/ Lunar New Year! New Year's Konad and OPI Alice in Wonderand

Happy New Year Ladies! Here is my New Year's NOTD: China Glaze 2030 over Essie Love, Beverly Hills XX. There was no tiger plate, but I tried...lol. I'll apologize in advance for the flipped pictures..blogspot is freaking out on me..and refuses to upload them properly.

Today I have for you the other 2 polishes I bought from OPI's Alice in Wonderland Collection. First up is Mad as a Hatter. This took 4 coats to be fully opaque and was still bumpy after 2 coats of Poshe. I don't like this polish at all..it looks like a New Year's Eve party threw up on my nails...and not in a good way. Despite being a glitter polish, this one just doesn't shine.

2nd is Absolutely Alice. It's not so sparkly here, but really only because my camera couldn't handle the glare from this in sunlight. It's a beautiful polish, way shinier than China Glaze Dorothy Who? and although they're similar in that they're both blue glitter polishes, Absolutely Alice is much nicer to me. It's a vibrant blue glitter with a lot of gold sprinkled throughout vs the silver in Dorothy Who? and just gorgeous. It looks totally bah until you topcoat it though...as you'll see below. This is 3 coats, 2 coats of Poshe..and still kinda bumpy after it, but not too bad.

Despite the bad lighting in the following pictures, these are here to show you the quirks. This is what it looked like freshly Topcoated...nice and shiny
This is what it looks like before the topcoat. Note that it's dull and boring and kind of ugly...
I'm not sure if this had to do with my topcoat or not, but I've heard this happen to a few people with both Absolutely Alice and Mad as a Hatter..but they have the tendency to pop off in full pieces...Anyways..that's all for now..I did finish taking stash pics of my polishes, but I did also just order some Elizabeth Ardens, so I'll wait to post those after I get them...I will not be posting polish stash with my makeup stash however as the polish stash alone was over 100 pictures.

Sephora Lip Service Lip Deluxe Sampler and Essie Mint Candy Apple

When I went to return the Stila Smudge pot set the other day, this set caught my eye in its place. It's a gift set of 8 lip products from various brands retailing for $38. 3 of the 8 items are full sized items too..so it's a pretty good deal. It contains DuWop Private red (deluxe sample size), Smashbox Lip Enhancing gloss in Sheer (clear gloss, maybe 2/3 size), Sephora Nano Lip Liner in Beau Bordeaux, NARS Velvet MAtte Lip Pencil in Roman Holiday (Full Size), Korres Guava lipstick in Wine Red (Full Size), Cargo PlantLove Botanical Lipstick in Muir Woods (Full Size) Tarte Vitamin Infused lipstick in Hatha (sample), and Laura Mercier Lip Color Creme in Pink Champagne (sample)Flash
No Flash
Swatches (L-->R): Du Wop Private Red: supposed to be a color changing lipstick. I don't really notice any real color change. It's a pretty red..unfortunately I don't feel like I love it...or hate it... it's got a good texture, is nondrying, and smells like Smarties candy.
Sephora Beau Bordeaux Nano Lip Liner: Reddish Brown. It looks kind of mauvey in the swatch picture, but I don't see any of that on my skin
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Roman Holiday: Kind of a silvery pink. It looks like Pepto Bismo against my lips and skintone, but it'd probably look lovely on a lighter girl. It has an odd scent I can't quite place, but nothing too strong or lasting
Korres Guava Lipstick in Wine Red: Cute Pink-Red. Very good texture and moisturizing. I like this color best in the set and think it could be flattering for a wide set of skin tones.
Cargo Plant Love Lipstick in Muir woods- Sheer Mauvey Pink with an emphasis on sheer. Has a somewhat mild waxy scent. I find this color somewhat drying.
Tarte lipstick in Hatha-A nice pink with copper shimmer. It's a really cute color and decent formula.
Laura Mercier Lip Colour Creme in Pink Champagne- Mauvey Pink...a cute neutraly color and very work appropriate. Has a nice emolient feel to it too.
I was messing around with Private Red earlier..so I cropped out a lip swatch of it. It's not quite this warm RL:
Overall the set's really nice and would make a great gift for someone. Personally, I feel like the colors are a bit off with my skintone..but then again my skin tone's made another change and I'm now really warm, so I have to go through my stash and figure out what will work on me again.

Today's NOTD is from Essie's holiday collection. Mint Candy Apple. I found the formula a bit streaky..though thinning it helped a bit. # coats gave a smooth, opaque result:

Nail Polish Stash

So it took me a while, but I finally figured out how to add an email subscription box..so there it is..to the right of here. Today I have pictures of my nail polish stash for you. I didn't label them, but if you want them labeled, or just have a question about what a specific polish is, I'd be happy to answer your question. Also, the font I used to label my pictures has changed. If you find this is hard to read, please let me know (I guess it doesn't matter for this post though) The polishes are, for the mst part, sorted by brand and color.
Here they are in their drawer...the China Glaze and Misa boxes are empty..the Zoya boxes have polishes in them: OPIs..I'm missing Russian Navy

Sets of mini polishes...I really like these because I don't use a single color too often

extra minis
China Glaze:

Mini China glazes

ORLYs

Mini ORLYs

Finger Paints

Nfu Oh polishes..these are Korean polishes I got off FabulouStreet.com for $12.50. They're only about $7 in Korea though, so if you have a friend who's in Korea or going to Korea..ask them to get these for you..they're very unique and pretty.

Essie

Zoyas. This is by far my favorite brand of polishes. Right now Zoya is doing a "polish exchange" where you send in your old, unwanted, or empty polishes and they'll send you new Zoya polishes for a Shipping and Handling charge of $3 each...it may seem gimicky, but they'll dispose of your polishes properly for you. The exchange site is http://www.zoya.com/earthday

Color Club and Misa

LA Colors Art Deco and Nabi

MAC and CHANEL. I'm not a huge fan of MAC polishes, but I liked these colors.

Sinful Colors and Claires

Konad and Misc

Misc