piCture pOlish Marine Comparisons: Essie, Zoya

This is a comparison post for piCture pOlish Marine. Similar polishes shown here are Where's My Chauffeur, Naughty Nautical, and Wednesday.

Pictured above is two coats each of Zoya Wednesday, Essie Where's My Chauffeur, Essie Naughty Nautical, and piCture pOlish Marine.

Marine is a lot bluer than Nautical and Wednesday, where as Chauffeur is in the same line of teal but a few shades lighter. Nautical also has a faint shimmer. Wednesday is a lot dustier looking than the other shades.

Link roundup:

- Purchase Marine from piCture pOlish
- 2013 Blog Fest nail art featuring Marine

Nail Mail! Pt. 1: OPI, Essie, Zoya, Sephora by OPI

These are some new additions to the family :D

Above is Zoya's Arizona, Lara, and Perrie. 

Above is Zoya's Avery, Daul, and Godiva.

 Above is Zoya's Wednesday, Shelby, and Reagan.

Above is Essie's Play Date, Bikini So Teeny, Naughty Nautical, and Where's My Chauffeur.

Above is OPI's A Butterfly Moment, I Theodora You, Funny Bunny, and Matte Top Coat.

 Above is Sephora By OPI's Hi Def, Break a Leg-warmer, Arose Beyond Shimmer, Keep Me on My Mistletoesies, and Under My Trenchcoat.

Essie Mint Candy Apple

Mint Candy Apple is a part of Essie's main line after being released for the holidays a few years ago.

The formula is ok, a little on the streaky side and needs 3 coats to even out.

It is much greener and slightly chalkier than China Glaze For Audrey.

Essie Neo-Whimsical

I finally found it! The perfect baby pink. It's not bubblegum, it's not lavender, but right smack bang in the middle. But there's a catch...

Neo-Whimsical has one of the worst formulas I have ever come across. Why do you do this Essie? Are you happy to release a polish this bad and have your name on it? 

This is three coats here and in places you can see streaks and slight bald patches. I've tried a variety of different bases but nothing seems to help. I absolutely adore the colour and love it to pieces when I wear it, but it chips within the same day.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've had Mod About You, Pandamonium Pink and a few others but most are too chalky or too yellow.

Blast of Essies!

Ruby Slippers

Cute As A Button

Mademoiselle

Love, Beverly Hills xx

Chubby Cheeks

Nice is Nice

Flawless

Flirty Fuchsia

Jazz

Shifting Power

Greenport

Borrowed and Blue

Sag Harbor

Shelter Island

Blueberry Crumb

NFUOh 084

Today I've got NFUOh's 084 to show you. 084 is a mainly purple glass fleck shimmer but it also contains gold and blue. It does have a tint of purple in it's base but it's quite sheer. So it could alter your nail polish underneath if you layer it up a bit.

Here I've layered 084 over bare nail, Essie Sexy Divide, Color Club Wild at Heart and OPI Ink.

I wasn't able to see 084 in the sun as the polishes I used as a base are quite reflective themselves. But in the shade you can see what a pretty effect 084 has on the purples.

Like a lot of the other shimmers and flakies, 084 doesn't look all that great on it's own. You can also see the slight tinge of purple it gives.

With two coats of 084 you can see the sparkle of it more over the purples here. My camera wasn't actually able to capture how pretty it looked in the sun.

And again in the shade you can see how lovely 084 is over these purples. It reminds me of a not-completely-black OPI DS Mystery.

More NFUOh posts to come!

Essie Borrowed & Blue

Here we have Borrowed and Blue from Essie's wedding collection this year. First of all, I'm sure just the name would make it a huge hit. Can you imagine all the brides with their baby blue toenails? Or fingertips if they are daring! I think it's quite nice really, but I don't quite understand how it's borrowed? Unless you are borrowing the shade from someone, you paid for it, you own it.

As much as I love baby blues, this one left me wanting more. Perhaps it isn't as creamy as I thought it was. It is a very chalky pastely blue.


It's quite close to Color Club's Take Me To Your Chateau and Blue Light, but it definitely has that starkness to it that those two don't.

Essie Nice is Nice

Oh my gosh I have been trying to post this for days! But blogger keeps freezing on me. Today it finally it let me upload the photos :D


I was humming and harring for quite a while, trying to decide whether to get Nice is Nice or Lilacism. 


Nice is Nice definitely has more red in it, making it more violet where as Lilacism has the blue in it making it lavender. 


I am thinking maybe I should have gone with Lilacism. I think Nice is Nice is too pink for my liking. It reminded me of three other polishes I have which I have pictured at the end of the post. OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, OPI Panda-monium Pink and Orly Lollipop. Nice is Nice definitely has that little bit more purple/blue in it compared to those three though but they are definitely all from the same family. 

I didn't have any issues with the formula. Just typical Essie. I used two coats here, fairly good coverage all though it could go streaky if you do your coats too thin.

I absolutely adore the colour but I am not sure if it is right for my colourings.

These three spring to mind being imilar.

Lollipop

Lucky Lucky Lavender

Panda-monium Pink

Naturally Clean by Essie

Naturally Clean is Essie's go at remover. I was quite excited to get such a large bottle as a freebie *glare at OPI* and the packaging looks nice and fresh.

THE SMELL:

To me it smells like typical hand soap. It is a nice change as most removers can have quite a strong smell to them. This scent is pleasant to work with.

THE FEEL:

Naturally Clean kind of feels like an acetone-free remover to me. It does remove polish quickly but not much of it. I also managed to still have a tiny bit of polish and base coat left around my cuticles after I had finished. I didn't really like that as then I have to go back and scrub them with more remover to get a completely clean nail.

THE PRICE:

I found it at Radius pharmacy initially and they didn't have a price on them because they were free but I did find it at Smith & Caughys and it was $15. Zoya's is about $18 if I remember correctly and the large refill $40. No idea what OPIs is priced at, I do remember being shocked at the price awhile ago though.

IS IT WORTH IT?

I think there will always be people who like different things, I still prefer Zoya but others may love this one. The smell is really nice and soft but I feel like it doesn't quite get my nails as clean as Zoya's Remove. I will probably use this one as my 'travel remover' as it is quite a nice little size and won't be overly upset if anything happened to it.

Essie Sexy Divide

Sexy Divide is a sexy colour indeed.

It goes straight to my Top 20. It applies as beautiful as it looks. This is three coats here. Although it goes on really smooth, it leaves little patches so three coats was necessary to cover them all up.

I will be wearing Sexy Divide a lot this summer, might even need a back up!

Sexy Divide is a deep purple base with magenta, purple and blue shimmer. A real surprise from Essie! Who knew the queen of sheers actually knew this kind of polish existed?

I thought it was pretty funny that on one of Essie's collections that the tag line was "Never be afraid of colour" XD

Essie Top Coat "Everyday" Review

Well, I thought it was about time that I posted a review on this one.

I received it free when I purchased two Essies, when they were just released not too long ago in New Zealand.

I thought "Wow! Great! A new treatment to try", sadly I have only had mediocre/crap results from Essie's "Everyday" Top Coat.

The reason I type everyday like "Everyday" is because that is what Essie has on the box. I don't really understand what an everyday top coat is? Do you have to apply it every day? That could get annoying especially with the results I have been getting...

THE FIRST TIME

The first time I used this as my top coat was with Orly's Top 2 Bottom as the base, 3 coats of Essie Chinchilly and then one coat of this top coat.

I finished this manicure hours before I went to bed. I maybe started it at 8pm and went to bed around 12 or 1am. When I woke up there were bubbles on some fingers and not others, tremendous sheet marks/dents/you name it. I was so disappointed. I mean, how long does a top coat need to dry? 5+ hours? 

I thought it might have been the Orly base coat.

THE SECOND TIME

The second time I gave it a test run was 3 days ago. I still have that manicure on.

I used Orly Top 2 Bottom as the base once again, 2 coats of Essie Sexy Divide and one coat of this so called everyday top coat.

Drying time seemed to not take as long, but then again I did my manicure in the morning, not before bed. (I wonder if that makes a significant difference?). Well, it worked a little better this time. Although Sexy Divide is a dark colour so I can't see exactly how many bubbles there are but I can see the shape of them when I look super close at my nails in the light. 

One thing though that annoyed me was denting. I could dent these babies for two days straight. 

VERDICT

Am I doing something wrong here? The box only says to apply over last coat of my Essie polish. When I was choosing which treatment to recieve free at the chemist, I made sure there weren't drying drops or something to go with it like the Zoya system (unless we just don't have them here), nope nothing to aid the drying.

I'm sorry Essie, but if I have to buy an Essie basecoat just to make this crap work, I won't be using it or buying it. 

To me, you shouldn't have to go through that much effort of trying to figure out how to make the top coat work to its full potential. I mean Orly's Top 2 Bottom has been working miracles since first use, with every brand (sorry I can't stop raving about this stuff).

I'm sorry this is such a negative review but I think I will stick with my Seche Vite or Orly Top 2 Bottom for now. But of course I will keep reviewing this one and others :D

Mint Green & Deep Purple Comparisons

I did a little more digging through my folders and found these :)

Mintys: BYS Kung Fu Blue, Essie Mint Candy Apple, MAC Peppermint Patti, Chanel Jade

Purples: OPI Black Cherry Chutney, OPI Visions of Sugarplum, OPI Gotta Go Grape, Essie Sexy Divide

Well I had better make some breakfast before it turns to lunch time :D

Essie Mademoiselle

It has been the longest time since the last time I wore a sheer pink! And as boring as it seems... I am quite enjoying it :)

This is Essie's Mademoiselle. One of their bestsellers I think. 

It really is a beautiful sheer pink. I am wearing three coats here only because I accidentally added a bit too much to my thumb... It looked so nice as two coats as well, a crisp clean nail pink. 

First coat was a little streaky for me though. The formula is really good, not too runny, not too thick. Just right.

Not really too much to say about a sheer pink... :)

China Glaze Spellbound

This is a mani I had done when I first received Spellbound, the day before I had already worn it over a dark purple and wanted to try it over something different.

I couldn't decide whether to do black or white... so I went with both!

With Spellbound I dragged it down half-way on the nail towards the tips. I did this twice.

This manicure lasted almost 3 days! Before I got tired of it :D

Happy Valentines!