Essence: Choose Me!

Hey Essence, you don't have to ask me twice. I saw this beauty on the shelf at Ulta and put in right in my basket. Choose Me! is a turquoise shimmery, foil-finished beauty that flashes green and has flecks of silver shimmer. From what I've seen on other blogs, it's a dupe for Zoya Charla, but I don't have that one to compare.

This is two coats, no topcoat:





As you can see, I definitely could have used a third coat, but I didn't mind the VNL here for some reason. The formula was great, especially for a $.99 cent polish. I've been wearing it for three days with no topcoat, and it looks as good as the day I put it on.

Essence, I choose you.

Happy painting!

Part 2...Color Club Alter Ego Collection: Swatches and Review

Today I have part two of the Alter Ego Collection: Keep it Under Cover. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by these. The shades are vibrant and textured, and a couple of them are unique. This is obviously the portion of the collection that was designed for those who like to be bold and daring. Check it out:


Masquerading. Pale greyish-blue frost. This one is odd. First of all, I saw it in the bottle and totally expected it to be sheer. It just had that look to it. Yes, I prejudged. This is a one-coater yall. ONE COAT. Also odd is the texture. I don't think I've ever seen a finish like this. The formula was pretty thick, but not difficult to work with.




Secret Agent. Rich purple frost with purple shimmer. Two coats. I apologize for my fingers, but I couldn't get my camera to pick up the purple no matter how hard I tried. I had to adjust the color to make it color accurate , which resulted in Incredible Hulk fingers. I plan to re-swatch and get some sunlight pics tomorrow if it doesn't rain. This one may be similar to China Glaze Coconut Kiss, but with one difference; in indoor lighting, it looks a little dusky/smoky, which I like.




Alter Ego. Silver with gold (?) flecks and foil finish. Two coats. This one looks like your typical silver foil polish, but the goldish flecks make it unique for me.






Ulterior Motive. Vibrant fuchsia with blue shimmer and foil finish. Two coats. I absolutely love this one. It's just...so gorgeous. I also thought this one would be on the sheer side, but it wasn't. The blue shimmer is very visible on the nail. This one is unique for me as well.





Total Mystery. Royal blue with fuchsia shimmer. Two coats. I love this one too, but not as much as Ulterior Motive, the yin to its yang. Unfortunately, the pink shimmer refused to show up in my pictures, but it is visible in real life. May be somewhat similar to Orly Lunar Eclipse. By the way, this was the only one I used a topcoat on. It dried almost to a matte finish. I used the Color Club Vivid topcoat that came in the set.








Finally, the winner of the collection.

Alias. Purple shimmery foil duochrome that flashes green and gold. And I probably still didn't describe it right, but it's awesome. May be in the vicinity of Orly Out of This World.






Formula-wise, these were much better than those in the first part of the collection.

Final verdict: I think Color Club did a great job with this part of the collection. None of them were boring to me, and a couple were unique. I think they could have released this as a stand alone. I would have paid full price for Alias, Ulterior Motive, Total Mystery, and Alter Ego. I don't have anything like any of them in my stash.

What do you think?

Happy painting!

China Glaze Zombie Zest and Confetti My Favorite Martian

Today I have two gorgeous, glittery greens. Like my alliteration? :-) Anyway, first up is Confetti My Favorite Martian. This one has a green jelly base with tons of mossy green, grass green, and yellow shimmer.

Three coats, no topcoat.

Natural light:



Sunlight:


As you can see, it leans more yellow in the sunlight.

I got China Glaze Zombie Zest at Sally the other night; they had all of their holiday polishes on clearance for $1.99. Zombie Zest was part of the 2010 Awakening collection for Halloween. This one is so awesome. The base is a swamp green jelly, with green, gold, and blue microglitter. In the bottle, it almost looks like it could be a duochrome, but it doesn't translate on the nail. The best part? The foil finish. Behold:

Three coats, no topcoat.

Natural light:




Sunlight:


Indoors:




I know they were going for Halloween and zombie-like, but this polish actually reminds me of pesto. I happen to love pesto, so that's alright with me.

Formula wise, both polishes were just fine. Since they're jellies, they need three coats for opacity, but both were easy to apply and the consistency was good enough that the three coats weren't too thick.

Happy Painting!