Essie comparisons

Here's a comparison of some Essie whites: Marshmallow, Waltz, and Allure! I bought them all on separate occasions, because I thought I was getting one level of opacity by looking at the bottle and then it turned out when I got home that I was completely wrong! So if you're in the market for a sheer white polish, hopefully this will help you decide which you want!

One coat

2 coats

Clearly Marshmallow is the one to get if you want something that can be an opaque white. Waltz is sheer but much more opaque than Allure, which is really just a wash of color. They're all fairly streaky; since Marshmallow becomes opaque it wasn't too big a deal, but the other two need fairly thick coats to even themselves out.

NCAA Tournament Nails, take 1!

This past weekend was the beginning of the NCAA tournament! As I've talked about before, I'm a HUGE Kansas fan. My husband and I watched both rounds with his boss, who is a descendent of Phog Allen, and if you know who he is, let's be friends! :) So here are the nails I rocked for the whole weekend.
Yes, that means I didn't do St. Pats nails. Basketball is WAY more important to me!!


I started with 2 coats of Essie Waltz.

Waltz is a really pretty sheer. I also have Allure & Marshmallow. Allure is a super sheer wash of barely-color; Waltz is more opaque; Marshmallow is practically-opaque white. They cover all 3 of the levels of coverage I could want really nicely.

Then I reached for some blue & red glitter! A lot of people weren't super pleased with the Muppets glitter, because they weren't opaque, but that's my favorite kind of glitter. I love to layer & sponge & play with glitter, and the clear-based glitters are really great for that!

I used Gone Gonzo & Gettin' Miss Piggy With It for this. GG was actually significantly denser than GMPWI, which I found interesting... but I'm not sure if that's true or if I just shook it up a little more vigorously and got the glitters re-suspended better.

This isn't a sponge gradient; with glitter, I find it much easier to just put a large dollop at the tip, spread it across (kind of like a french!) and, after wiping all the excess off the brush, use short strokes to spread it down the nail a bit.

We played on Friday & Sunday, so I wore Waltz by itself on Thursday & with the glitter for 3 days, and when I took it off Monday morning it was still flawless. These nails made it through two games, one of which was a freaking nail biter (though thankfully, not literally! I think I've really truly broken the habit!), AND building a Melmer (pictures of that coming soon!), which I find so impressive. I really really loved how this looked. It was exciting but still very lady-like, and my nails looked incredible.

And here are a couple pictures from my dslr; I tend not to take pictures of my nails with my dslr, as I don't have a macro lens, and my point & shoot is really high quality, but for some reason I actually did take a couple this time!

Are you rooting for a specific team this tourney? And do you do your nails to show your support?