Showing posts with label Brand: Essence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brand: Essence. Show all posts

Adorned Nails: Essence Time For Romance



I'm wearing one of the new-ish nail polises from Essence. If I remember correctly, I got it the same time I got some of those Catrice polishes that you've seen, such as Rusty But Sexy and Khaki Perry.

I'll keep this short. Essence Time For Romance: glitter-ful with also hexagonal glitter flakes in a burgundy/dusty rose jelly. If you love blings, you would love this. I've got four coats on here and application was all right.

The following photos were taken in sunshine.






More information:
Essence website


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Adorned Nails: Catrice Iron Mermaiden



You won't be mistaken if you think you've seen this one here before. Remember Essence Where Is The Party?? As far as I can tell, Iron Mermaiden is a twin but with a much funkier name. Where Is The Party? sounds so teenybopper. Iron Mermaiden, definitely hardcore.

I will describe Iron Mermaiden much like how I had described Where Is The Party?. It's a metallic duochrome (or trichrome?) of dark green and purple/silvery lilac on the nails. In the bottle, you can catch flashes of aqua.



There is however a difference in application. The formula for Where Is The Party? is thicker and it works as a one-coater. Iron Mermaiden, on the other hand, has a thinner consistency and needs at least three coats for opacity. For both polishes, you will get the same results in the end. I'll let you do the math.

Where Is The Party? - €1.29 for 5ml

Iron Mermaiden - €2.49 for 10ml


I doubt you would have noticed but you're looking at one coat of Where Is The Party? on the little finger. All the other fingers have three coats of Iron Mermaiden on. It's hard to tell the difference.

Let's see how Iron Mermaiden looks with some stamping. I've used the gaudy purple of Catrice Forget-Me-Not and one of the Essence Nail Art Stamping Design Plates with the so-called full nail designs.


I have two things to say about the plate:

1. It's pointless telling you the name of the plate because Essence has a ridiculous way of naming them. Essence has issued about five or six rectangular plates to-date but each of them has either the name 01 have fun! or 02 style it up!. It appears to be a case of packaging material overstock, I think.

2. They are supposed to be full-nail designs but they can't fill a whole nail. Ironic. It doesn't work for the thumb and it won't work if you have long-ish nails. The designs are really made for little girls, not for senior citizens like moi.

I've chosen the circle design with retro vibes. Due to the small size of the design, I had to stamp twice on the thumbs. It wasn't easy connecting the two stamps. Then, I added a thick French tip with the same polish.





It's hardcore gone retro.


My previous features on:
Where Is The Party?
Catrice Forget-Me-Not


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Adorned Nails: Paint Drip


The black base of Essence Grand-Plié in Black looks pretty cool with the sparse coral glitters but I felt that it was calling for some nail art: paint drip. However, instead of doing it on the usual nail tips, I've done it from the cuticle side of the nails.


I think I saw paint drip nails for the first time last year on Majolica Majorca's website. It was their Fall In Girl Collection and the model, Minami Hinase (I think), had on a black polish with red paint 'dripping' from the nail tips. As I wasn't sure if it was best done with a brush or a dotting tool, I did an online search recently and found this useful video by the talented Sokolum79. I've adapted her method somewhat: 1. My paint drips from the cuticle side. 2. Her method involved more dotting than dragging and mine is more dragging than dotting. You will end up with more or less the same results.

I used:


Base coat (not shown)
Black polish - Essence Grand-Plié in Black
Orange polish - Sephora Mangue L21
Dotting tool (I bought mine from Essence)
A non-absorbent surface to put a blop of polish on
Clear top coat (not shown)

Here's how you can do paint drip nails (in reverse - cuticle side):

1. Apply two coats of the black polish over a base coat. Let that dry.


Note: It is better to complete all the paint drips on one nail before proceeding to the next nail.

2. Carelessly add the orange polish to the cuticle side of the nails. Don't worry if it's messy. You will clean it up at the end.


3. Place a blop of the orange polish on a non-absorbent surface (I've simply used a plastic surface here).


Dip the dotting tool into the blop and then draw/drag an orange line down from the orange 'mess' painted in Step 2. The bigger the dollop of polish on the dotting tool, the easier it would be to draw/drag a line.


If you still have polish left on the dotting tool, then you can end the line with a dot. If not, go to Step 4.

4. Dip the dotting tool again into the blop to extract more polish and then add a dot to the end of the line just drawn.


5. You will need anywhere from two to four drip-lines on each nail. Try to vary the length of the drips so that they look random.

6. Wait for the orange polish to dry (that may take a while as the dots and such have been thickly applied).

7. Clean up the cuticles.
Please refer to my post on the Essence Nail Polish Corrector Pen to see how I clean up after applying nail polish.


8. Apply a clear top coat and you're done!


I have tried this (reverse) paint drip manicure twice. That would explain why the drips in the very first (hand) image above do not correspond to those in the subsequent images.

I'm not big on theatrical stuff but I would imagine that this nail look would be great for a Halloween party.

This is how paint drip nails look from a distance.


I have a couple more images of these paint drip nails over at Witoxichic.


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Adorned Nails: Essence Grand-Plié in Black



Essence Grand-Plié in Black has been doing its rounds in the online circuit, so you would surely have seen this before. I finally got round to wearing mine this week and this is my take on it.

There were five nail polishes in the Essence Ballerina Backstage Collection, four of which I found unexciting. This Grand-Plié in Black was the only one I thought worth purchasing. I can't say that it is the most captivating polish I've ever seen but relative to the other four, it did have a tad more character.


Grand-Plié in Black is a black semi-jelly polish with bits of coral glitter floating around. The glitters are not densely packed, so you do tend to see more black than bling-bling. Subdued with just a tiny bit of spark. I can almost understand why they've named if after the most utterly boring (but essential) exercise of every single ballet class.

The formula was on the thicker side, which didn't exactly make applying a breeze. The best thing to do was to just apply it without first draining some polish from the brush. I thought it worked best by applying it thick (to avoid drag) and that way, you could do with just one coat, or the most two. I've got on two here.

As you can see, the glitters are quite sparse but I think the polish is pretty enough. I'll have to try some layering on it one of these days.




Grand-Plié in Black is featured in my Catrice/Essence Papagena, Muse And Ballerina Giveaway which ends in a few hours. Have you taken part?


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