Swatch: Essence's Colour 3 | Midnight Date & City That Never Sleeps

Yay! I'm doing yet another swatch for my favourite nail polish brand, Essence. I actually got this polish and a couple more together with my last Essence's polish, Chic Reloaded. So, you'll be seeing about a couple more swatches from Essence over the next few weeks. This time around, the nail polish is from a different collection and also range actually. This range is called the Essence's Colour 3 because there is two different nail polish in one bottle but you'll get three colour from the bottle.

Meet the two polishes | Midnight Date & City That Never Sleeps | Painted with two coats

Swatch: Essence’s Chic Reloaded

I started blogging seriously about a year back, and it all started with my passion for painting nails. I will always remember which was my first polish and who got that polish for me. Since then, I started getting more polishes, started applying them, photographing them and then uploading it to my blog. My blog then was filled with nails and nails and more nails. My favourite will always be Spongebob nail art that I did, which was a popular read. I can totally see why, it was too adorable! In fact, the online shop which I got the stickers used my picture too, but unfortunately she didn’t bother crediting me. Ouch.

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Anyway, I’m back to reviewing another polish which have been sitting in my polishes box far too long. It’s one from my favourite nail polish brand, Essence. I have always loved Essence because it’s so affordable. You can get a great polish with excellent formulation for less than RM 10. Such a steal, when compared to OPI, Colour Club and China Glaze which goes for more than RM20 per bottle.

This time around the Essence’s polish I swatched is Chic Reloaded, a gorgeous micro glitters holographic almost metallic nail polish. Can you visualize how beautiful it is already? Micro glitter + holographic + metallic?

 Chic Reloaded | RM6.90

Swatch: OPI’s Just Spotted A Lizard

I’m just going to start this post with a note first. I have actually bought this nail polish, a long long time ago. Approximately around the time The Amazing Spider-man movie came out in mid-year 2012. I know, that must have been months. No, it is months ago. =.= I have somehow never found the time to swatch this polish, until today I have decided, “Hey, I’m going to swatch this now.”

And I’m in love.

No, really. If you haven’t heard or seen the swatches for this amazing polish, you will fall in love with it now. This polish is actually part of OPI’s The Amazing Spider-man collection. Hence, Just Spotted A Lizard – you’ll probably get it if you watched the movie. Anyways, the polish is a gorgeous duochrome with a gold greenish hue. Just lovely.

Review: As always, OPI’s formulation has been pretty consistent with a smooth application and the usual thick brush. Two coats would be sufficient, but I like my nails to be painted with three coats, so my nails (as pictured) have three coats. It is a slightly metallic polish, so you can see the streaks but this is not obvious unless you start scrutinizing it. 

I think it’s worth noting that this polish is actually a dupe for Chanel’s Peridot. Chanel’s Peridot is just love love at first sight. I stumbled upon pictures of it, way back in 2011 and I just fell straight in love. (You can check it out here.)

Swatch: Essence’s King of Mints

About a few months back, I was going nuts trying to find the right shade of mint green polish. I have fallen in love with the colour, especially after seeing the colours on lookbook.nu. But somehow back then, the mint green colour trend hasn’t hit off here in Malaysia yet, and so, none of the usual nail polish brand carried this colour. :( Then, one day while I was at Watsons, I went over to the Essence shelves (This is the only way to get Essence products after the Coci Coci shops in Mid Valley and Lot 10 closed down). The products left for sale was almost miserable, Watsons rarely stock up on Essence’s products. :( But here I saw a polish which was named as King of Mints.

And in that moment, I thought I found treasure, literally. Haha, even though the colour wasn’t too promising from the bottle I still got it because it was named King of Mints and I, Carmen Hong has been looking for a mint polish since forever. There was only two bottles left and I knew I didn’t get it now, I wouldn’t ever be able to. So, I thought why not give it a try, it was only RM8.90 after all.

The colour was, frankly disappointing and isn’t anywhere close to being a minty green polish. It is a very dull colour, but it was actually a rather unique polish actually because it had a glazed effect after applying it. This effect is not obvious under normal lightning conditions, but once in the sunlight, you could see that little glazed sparkle.

I have always been amazed by polishes from Essence but for Kings of Mints, I am afraid I can’t say the same. Putting the colour aside, the brush itself is different from the usual polishes. This is probably because King of Mints is from a limited edition collection called Rock You, released way back in 2011. (See how slow Malaysia is? =.=’)

As you can see the design of the bottle is square-ish which is strikingly similar to Butter London’s design of bottles. I quite like a square bottle which is a nice change from the usual designs. But what I really hated was that Essence made the brush for this polish so ridiculously microscopically small. It was so difficult to apply the polish with such small and short brush. The second time I applied this, I learnt that to apply this polish smoother, you’ll have to take up more product to apply it evenly.

Overall, I don’t really like this polish as much as I liked the name, which was disappointing really. But nevertheless, I’ll still get more Essence polish when I can, because I know the brand has been usually consistent with its other polishes.

Swatch: Elianto’s Turquoise

Like the neon pink polish I got from Elianto (read the swatch review here), it was natural for me to expect that this polish would have the same formulation. My expectation was a reasonably logical one but yet I was, somewhat disappointed by it. Read on to find out why. Before that, some pictures. The polish may have sucked but it is still a gorgeous colour. I am usually not a fan of blue or any shade of it, but with this Turquoise polish, I wondered why I hadn’t gave this colour a chance before. Haha.

Review: Before my first coat of polish, I saw that the formulation wasn't too thick and I had assumed that it meant that the polish would be easy to apply since it's not too thick. Only to be proven otherwise after applying the first coat. It was super mega streaky like i-want-to-cry-and-throw-the-polish-away type. Yes, I did get that frustrated.
Even so to the point that I removed the polish and then re-applied it again just to see if the polish was really that streaky or it was just my nails. Still streaky, so I ended up painting 4 coats of it and then hoping that my Seche Vite will be able to smooth out the imperfections, which thankfully it did.

Guess what, that isn't the end of this terrible polish experience. Later in the evening (I painted my nail in the afternoon), I realised that my nail colour have turned a bit more yellowish than its original colour. I'm guessing this happened because of the Seche Vite top coat. But then again, the Seche Vite top coat has never made any other of my polished go yellow, only this one. So I'm thinking it must be some kind of a reaction. Hopefully.

But it could also be the polish because before applying them, I saw a layer of yellow which I assumed was a layer of oil which is normal for polishes that have been kept for some time.

This picture taken under fluorescent lightning.

 

In the pictures, you won’t see any of the yellowing, because I took the pictures before the polish changes colour. I still find it hard to believe that the polish could actually changes colour, but I guess it happens. I think it is probably similar to how oxidation makes colour changes as well. It could be because of that but I cannot be too sure.

 

To be honest, lately I have been having naked nails because I am too lazy to paint my nails. I’m not happy about it because I know how painting nails keep me happy but sometimes, my manicures are quite tedious coupled with the shoots that follow to get nice pictures. So, I’d rather leave it naked. :s But I’m beginning to paint my nails again, because I do need that dose of happiness. :D

Till next time, lovelies! xoxo

Swatch: Essence’s Choose Me

I love Essence nail polishes, I just wish it’ll be so much easier to get them here. About a few weeks ago, I found out that the COCI COCI shop in Mid Valley which carries the Essence range have just been closed down. So, the only way to get these polishes are from selected Watson’s outlet. But then, Watson is always running out of stock for Essence polishes. Sighs, I wish I have gotten more of the polishes and kept them.

So, today’s swatch will be from Essence, called Choose Me!, which was aptly named because I was looking at all the nail polishes and I ended up picking this because the colour caught my attention. :)

Review: As you can see the polish appears to be more of a glitter polish, and it is one, but it has very fine micro glitters instead of the huge ones. The formula is amazing and consistent with the other Essence nail polish I swatched earlier on (read it here), which is smooth and easy to apply. It also helps that the brush is flat and large making it even easier to apply the polish. And what is even more surprising was that it pretty easy to remove considering it's a glitter polish. I usually stay away from them but this one was too gorgeous not to try on when I saw it on the shelves.

A close up on the polish, you can see the micro glitters here.

Under the direct sunlight.

Taken indoor, under indirect sunlight.

For more pictures, please check my Facebook album; Nail Art, Swatches + Mani.

Swatch: Elianto’s S12 (Neon Pink)

Like I mentioned in the previous Swatch post; the black polish from The Face Shop, I rarely shop for new polishes at shops like Elianto, The Face Shop or even Etude House which used to be my favourite places to get new stash. For Elianto, the main reason why I didn’t like their polishes previously was because I really didn’t like formulation. Of course I am not comparing them with OPI, seeing that it is a different league all together. But even for the RM5 price tag, I would expect at least a decent polish, non-streaky and thinner formulation. I used to get tonnes of air bubbles whenever I apply the Elianto polishes.

I knew, Elianto released new polishes, about sometime ago and they also increased their price by 50 cents, if I’m not mistaken. I still didn’t have the confidence to buy their range, but luckily my sister’s friend have gifted her with this Neon Pink polish from Elianto recently. I couldn’t resist swatching it, since it was sitting nicely and tempting me to. Previously, Elianto named their polishes but they now go by codes only, and the packaging is still similar with the previous one.

Review: Compared to the previous formulation, it seemed to have improved a lot. It's now so much easier to apply and the product is less thicker, enabling thinner coats to be applied. But fear not, it's not too sheer and I have three coats on. As you can see, it still gives a pretty even coverage. The brush is also big in size so it's very easy to apply and maneuverer it around. It also doesn’t have an overwhelming smell, which was still acceptable to me. Overall, I love this polish and the colour is amazing too.

Swatch: The Face Shop’s BK901

I don’t actually remember when was the last time I got a nail polish from The Face Shop, it could have been that time when I would drop by shops like Etude House, Elianto and of course, The Face Shop too. But after a while it seems like the colour selections were rather stagnant and there wasn’t any new shades. I moved on to Sally Hansen’s range after that, if I’m not mistaken. Click here to read about all the previous nail polishes swatches, whether they were worth getting or for any new shades. :)

But I needed a new black polish after my Etude’s one got so difficult to apply since it was quite some time since I got them. I read on one of my friends blog that The Face Shop black polish was really good, it wasn’t too sheer and that was one of the main criteria I look for in a black polish.

Review: There is really nothing much to a black nail polish, like I said earlier, the only thing I look for is one that is not sheer and gives a pretty good coverage. Seeing that that is my only criteria, I would say that The Face Shop black nail polish had achieved just that. I painted three coats and the result is as above, pretty even and nice. :) It was also smooth to apply and with a fairly big brush. So, if you’re ever considering a black polish to try to get the one from The Face Shop.

Hope you enjoyed the short review and the pictures! :) Thank you so much for reading this post, and do look out for more swatches.

Swatch: Sally Hansen’s Flirt

I’ve always been a fan of Sally Hansen Xtreme series, I have the gorgeous deep blue colour; Blue It and Green with Envy, a funky happy green one. And now I have another amazing colour to add to my collection, Flirt! Thank you Yuberactive for sending me the polish.

When I first saw the colour, I couldn’t tell from the bottle what colour it was. It didn’t help that when I first applied the polish, it was in a rather low yellow-ish light. So, I thought the colour was somewhat more to the black goth polish type. Which is actually what the colour looks like for most of the time.

However, under the sunlight, it is a different colour all together. You’ll see a shimmering dark purple/magenta colour which is actually really pretty. But this is only limited to when there is sunlight. In the absence of that, the colour would appear as a rather boring, flat dark coloured polish which I think is a waste.

Application wise; it was easy to apply like the others in the same series. However, there was a minor defect in my brush which probably is a unique case. Other than that, it was a nice nail polish, three coats for even coverage. Pretty easy removal as well, although it may leave a slight tint on your nails.

Swatch: Majolica Majorca GR319

Instead of my usual lip pose, I decided to try with just one. This picture have been edited, hence doesn’t show the actual colour of the nail polish. :)

 

You’ll probably know Majolica Majorca is famous for its make-up products; especially their mascara. Bet you didn’t know they had nail polish as well. I didn’t as well, but this nail polish was gifted to me some time ago and I never did a swatch on it. Why? Simply because I hated the dark green colour. I thought it made my nails look exceptionally old because you can see that I favour bright or pastel colours. But I decided to give it a try again, when I saw the bottle in my collection.

 

Review: As you can see from the picture above, it is a compact sized nail polish. There is only 3ml in that bottle. Despite the size, I find that the brush is big enough to glide easily and paint my nail in just three simple strokes. It is easy to apply, despite it being a slightly older and opened nail polish. For this polish, three coats would sufficiently give you a nice coverage. (I painted three coats). I have only two coats on my thumb, so the colour is a lighter green. The polish is not a single flat coloured one, but it actually has slight glimmer in it. You can see them in the pictures. Overall, I would say that this is an average polish.

By the way, I’m not sure if you noticed but the three pictures above were actually taken under artificial lighting (I used  fluorescent). Heh. I’m trying to use a different kind of lighting to shoot my nails so I depend less on the sunlight. I kind of like it because it gives the impression that I shot using a black background when in fact, I didn’t. What do you think?

And the last two pictures were of course taken using the sunlight. :) So, do you think the colour is a bit too old for me? Or you really love the colour? Would love to hear from you girls!