Essie Wicked... I think?

Ocean State Job Lot is a store in New England that is just like a small discount store with a... dingy kind of feel? Don't picture TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, or something like that. It's like a little less nice than Big Lots. There's no dressing room but they sell some clothes. They literally sell everything. Cosmetics, books, food, clothes, kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff, toys, everything. But anyway, they're constantly getting new, random stuff. This is where I get polishes from collections that have just been discontinued. For example, Revlon Carbonite was here, Wet N Wild Bloom polishes, and they sell Chi polishes as well as OLD Maybelline polishes. I don't know, a ton of random stuff.

Anyway, wandered myself in and found a whole box of Essie polishes for $3!! Oddly enough, 90% of the bottles were labeled "Clambake", and I don't think any of the polishes were actually Clambake. The rest were labeled "Geranium" and "Downtown Brown" (which I think was legit). Some where salon bottles, some were retail bottles, some were in between. So I picked some colors I like and ultimately determined this one was probably Wicked.











2 coats Essie Wicked
1 coat Poshe

Wicked is a gorgeous deep dark blood, maroon-y red creme. Not so dark that it looks black. It's a pretty sexy red, actually.

The formula was great thankfully, as I tend to have bad luck with Essie's formula. This polish is SUPER glossy without top coat I also didn't want to put one on! I did not have problems with cuticle flooding. It's on the thinner side, but a good thinner. Very happy with it.

China Glaze VIII with Glitter Tips

As much as I'm not a huge fan of vampy colors, it's winter, and winter is the time for vampy colors (for me anyway)! I don't like when deep colors just look black, so I decided to add some glitter to China Glaze's VIII to help dress it up a little and maybe pull out some of the purple.















2 coats China Glaze VIII
1 coat Poshe
Glitter Tips with Ardene Princess Cut
1 coat Poshe

Now, the glitter is kind of in a gradient form. I didn't use anything special for this, just the brush. I was initially going to just cover the nail in the glitter, but figured I'd mix it up.

The method I used was EXTREMELY easy and you do not need any other supplies besides your polish. I just painted the tip thick with the glitter, wiped the brush on the sides of the bottle to get as much glitter off the brush as I could, then I took the brush and lightly brushed the glitter towards my cuticle. I went over the tip again to make sure the glitter was heavier there. That was it! I did top it with Poshe again because while the glitter dries pretty quickly, there were clear streaks from the base of the glitter. The Poshe just helped smooth it out.

I went a little too heavy on my index finger but didn't feel like fixing it. I was also doing this is very poor lighting so I didn't realize how thick the glitter was at the time. Lol. I did not drag the glitter all the way to my cuticle. I stopped a little bit before that. Had my lighting been better, I would've gone further. But after my index finger getting too much glitter, I figured I'd keep it safe!

Snowflake with Bundle Monster

I wore this back in December. My boyfriend suggested it to me, so I went with it. I'm finally posting it because I am trying to be more diligent about posting, and because we finally have some decent snow!! I wanted to post more snow-y nails when it started snowing, but we are clearly getting a much later than usual start on snow. So anyway, onto the nails!!








SNOW!!



2 coats Orly Royal Navy
1 coat Poshe
Snowflake stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM14 and Konad White

Royal Navy is such a fall back blue for me. I love wear this color!! It's so versatile, so unique, so just gorgeous! Shawn (the boyfriend) was a little specific about the color blue for this, so I immediately pulled Royal Navy.

I like this nail. It's simple, wintery, and quick enough to do. Plus I'm a big fan of that snowflake stamp. I wore it once earlier this year and I can't say you won't see it again before the year is up!

Up All Night with Orly Twilight

I picked up Orly Twilight and Shining Star at Sally's on clearance at the end of this Christmas season. Got 'em for $2 each! I wanted to try Shining Star on Enchanted Forest because I love gold and green, but I've really attacked you guys with Enchanted Forest as it's one of my favorite polishes. I had on Up All Night and I figured it might look pretty with Twilight.













2 coats China Glaze Up All Night
1 coat Poshe
1 coat Twilight

Twilight is an interesting TOP COAT. Yes, it is a top coat. I saw a couple of reviews on MUA rating this polish low because I don't think they realized it was meant to be a top coat. But as a top coat, it's actually very pretty.

The formula was fine. It's a top coat, hard to screw that up when it's something simple like this. It did not smear my polish underneath. You could use a light touch and get just a little shimmer, or go over it a few times (which is what I did) to pull out a lot of shimmer.

China Glaze Up All Night

Sorry I've been MIA. No excuse other than I've been very busy and it's difficult to find time to upload photos. I have to do it at my parents house because they have a desktop I'm used to working with and I'm currently using a Mac and it drives me nuts to crop and tag on. So I only upload photos when I can get to my parents. Anyway...

I picked up Up All Night a couple of yeas ago at Sally's when it was on clearance. I grabbed it along with some polishes from the X Collection (VII and VIII). I've worn it here and there since, mostly in the colder weather because I tend to wear "appropriate" colors for the season. It's a pretty nice, basic polish.

Direct Sunlight








Not direct sunlight






2 coats China Glaze Up All Night
1 coat Poshe

Up All Night is a deep, dark blue that I actually don't think tends to look black. You know how some vampy, dark colors just look black when you look down at your hands? This boarders pretty dark in some lights, but I never noticed it truly looking black. The bottle has a shimmer that doesn't translate clearly on the nail and it looks like more of a creme finish with some extra shine.

The formula was fine. I found that it's not perfectly opaque in 1 coat like I'd expect colors like this to be. Not a problem, though. It looked amazing after two coats and I will never complain that a polish requires two coats. That's like a standard. The consistency was great. On the thinner side so it was very workable, but not so thin that it would flood cuticles.