Essence's Free Hugs Nail Polish

Hello friends! Long time no talk! Excuse my short absence - sometimes, inspiration just isn't there. I'd rather wait for the funk to pass than write a crappy review! However, today I'm really excited to talk to you about this Essence nail polish I picked up.

While I was visiting my boyfriend's family in a small town in New Brunswick, I stopped at a Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up Tylenol as I had a splitting headache. Luckily, since I always detour through the beauty aisle (anyone else do this?), I ended up on an Essence display I had never seen before. Where I live, the Essence display is quite small and limited, but this small town had a massive Essence display with a ton of different nail polishes to choose from! Because my boyfriend and his dad were waiting for me in the car, I hastily picked up two colors, one of which is the subject of today's post!

Free Hugs, Two Coats. Excuse the dry cuticles.

Free Hugs is a gorgeous pepto-bismol-y pink. Now I wouldn't normally say Peptol Bismol has a nice color, but here, I think it works. The polish is vibrant without being neon, and a true pink. However, I do think the color does pull a little coral in some artificial lighting. The color does not have any shimmer, and the polish needed two coats to be opaque. It dries really fast, so you actually have to be careful not to take too much time during application or the polish can become gloopy. The wear time is great - I've had it on for two days (with L'Oreal base coat and Essie top coat) with no chips and a tiny bit of tip wear. That's excellent for me! I have to say, this isn't the first Essence polish I've fallen for - I'm constantly impressed at the quality of these polishes. And at $1.99, you really can't go wrong!

Cheap taupe nails alert! Essence's Walk of Fame swatches and review!

I picked up Essence's nail polish in Walk of Fame for a whopping $1.49 a few months ago. Essence has been putting out quite modern colors for excellent price and value. And how exciting that Canada gets them too!

Walk of Fame was a bit thick in its formula and dried very fast, so application wasn't the smoothest I've ever used. However the wear time was quite good, and the color was very flattering on my skintone. It does dry darker than the color appears in the bottle, but that didn't bother me too much. It seems to be in the same family as OPI's You Don't Know Jacques, but I don't own it to compare. My ring finger was accented with glitter from Sally Hansen's Gem Crush polish in Big Money.

I've purchased great nail polishes lately and can't wait to share them with you!

Movie of the week: JCVD. I've been looking into classic action movies lately (partly in preparation for The Expendables) and JCVD was king of the black beast in the middle of this endeavor. It basically tells of the story of Jean-Claude Van Damme (as himself), a washed up action hero, who is caught in a situation which expects him to act like the action hero he so often depicts. Of course, Mr. JCVD is not the characters people expect him to be from his films, and has a hard time handling the situation. This movie was a heartfelt look at how cruel the Hollywood scene can be. It was truly a great movie, even if you don't have any attachment to Jean-Claude Van Damme as an action hero like my boyfriend does. Also, I want to marry Jean-Claude Van Damme. He has seriously given me a lot to think about with this movie.

Pop-tart mani! When glitter goes rogue...

Since my week was almost entirely taken up by putting on an event for high school girls, I thought it would be a good week to try the "glitter/jelly" mani that's been floating around various nail blogs.

Here's my take on it:

I used 1 coat of Joe Fresh Coral, and 1 coat of Essence A Lovely Secret, then two coats of Milani Gems, then 2 coats of Essie Waltz. Needless to say, this took foreverrrrrrr. And then, because the mani was so thick, it came off in sheets in a couple days. Either way, I thought it was cute! People at work were intrigued by it and thought it looked like pop-tarts, hence the name of this post.

My cuticles are so dry lately! No matter how much I moisturize, I still have cuticle issues. I've been using a Nuxe hand cream lately and it has been working wonders - fingers crossed for decent cuticles!

I hope you enjoyed this post. I'm not big on nail art/nail glitter/fancy and complicated water marbles. Sometimes the need to be creatives kicks in - it's not very often though!

Hope you all are having a good week. Mine was pretty much one of the busiest week of the year at work. But it's alright because it's over for now! I get to relax this weekend, finally! Cheers to that!

Essence Wake Up!

I think I have found my perfect spring orange. Essence's Wake Up is a clean, stylish and very bright orange. It is very red based, but I quite like it this way. I'm pretty sure it's very close to A Roll in the Hague by OPI from the Holland collection but I do not have it to compare. From a quick online peek, they look very similar.

I'm so happy I picked this up - I had been looking for a great spring orange nail polish after the failure of Essie's Brazilliant, and at $1.49, this was the perfect solution. As all the Essence polishes I have tested so far, the formula was great and opaque in two coats. As previous mentioned in other reviews, the Essence formula dries quickly so you do not have time to mess around with the brush once you apply the nail polish. But the plus side of this is that it dries quickly.

I find the color very shape-shifting. Sometimes it appears red-ish and others it's a neon orange. Either way, I love it!

This color is included in my giveaway so don't forget to enter!

 

I thought I'd share my new ring acquisition as well. I got it from this seller on Etsy and I LOVE it. I absolutely love wearing it - I find it balances out the chunkier rings on my hand. Plus, it's dainty and cute!

I've gotten to do a lot of new things this week - things I thought I'd never have the chance to do. And while I do complain about having the short end of the stick at work sometimes, I do find solace in new and exciting experiences I've gotten the chance to take. I'm lucky really.

Hope your week has started on a good foot!

50 Follower Giveaway!

You guys, I am so excited.

I have reached 50 followers! And while that might not be exciting for some, I am beyond the moon that I have 50 people reading my blog regularly. That means the world to me.

I started this blog as a way to focus on good things in a difficult time. I found it fun and rewarding to be able to put my thoughts out there, on the nets. And there you go, a year and a bit later, here I am, still at it!

In order to share my excitement, I want to do a giveaway! Here is what I have picked out for you guys!

-  a Rouge in Love lipstick by Lancome of your choice! (To facilitate your choice, there are excellent swatches here at KarlaSugar.net!)
-  a Color Club nail polish duo
- 3 Essence nail polishes

Please fill out the Rafflecopter in order to be entered in the giveaway! You have to be a follower of my blog through Google Friends Connect (GFC) or Bloglovin' in order to be considered and you need to leave a comment in this post letting me know what your preferred Rouge in Love by Lancome lipstick shade would be if you won!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway ends on May 4th and the contest is open internationally! 

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts/reviews/musings with you! Good luck!

An Essence discovery and a thank you!

Now that Essence has made its way in Canada, via Shoppers Drug Mart, I have been a bit obsessed. It's been the perfect excuse to get nail colors I wouldn't normally go for. At $1.49, the price is comparable to something you would find at the Dollar Store, but the quality isn't.

Essence's You Belong To Me reminds me of the beach - it's turquoise but softly so. The formula was good but dried quickly so application had to be done smoothly and fast. The wear time of this polish was excellent. Just as good as an Essie or OPI polish in my opinion. The swatches are two coats of You Belong To Me with one coat of Seche Vite. This polish is NOT sheer and doesn't work for layering/sandwiching glitters (by failed experience).

My apologies for the black flecks on my ring finger c/o my new bottle of Seche Vite. This picture is most true to color.

You can see a bit of the shimmer running through the polish in the bottle above. Sadly, this did not translate to the nail. You can see it if you look VERY closely but that's about it.

 

I really liked wearing this polish. It was cute and summery. And the best part of this? I got my money's worth with paying $1.49, regular price. If you're not a bright color wearer and you feel like trying something new, this would definitely a great way to dabble into bright colors. Plus, it would look really great with a coat of glitter! 

I want to take the time and thank Dovey at Cute and Mudane for including me in her Friday Five. Thank you so much! And thank Mr. Lovey for me, since it was his idea! ;) 

That said, welcome to any new subscribers! I'm very happy to have you! 

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty uneventful, just how I like them. I did go see Cabin in the Woods which was... definitely interesting. I think I liked it... it's such a strange film, I'm not sure what to think of it yet! My boy and his friend loved it though!