NoTD: Essie Dive Bar

Another nail post. Today's nail polish was Essie Dive Bar, a dark almost teal-y blue. 

I've been craving dark colours lately because spring is right around the corner and come September 1st, I'll be reluctant to wear them anymore. It happens every year, even though it is perfectly acceptable to wear them, particularly at the beginning of spring, I just feel like I should be wearing pastels etc. So expect an uncommon (or what will be uncommon) amount of nail polish posts while I frantically go through as many wintery colours as possible in the next week or so. 

Natural Light

Back to the topic at hand, Dive Bar was not my favourite to apply. It was probably more to do with my application than anything but I found that the formula was inconsistent, if that makes any sense. On some nails it was fully opaque with the first coat and on others it was super sheer and streaky and the brush would immediately remove the polish just applied when doing the second stroke to cover the whole nail. I'm not the greatest at explaining things, if you can tell. I don't know why this happened as I used the same method for removing excess polish and I think I'm just going to stop here because I'm rambling and you've probably stopped reading by now anyways. I used two coats with three coats on a few uncooperative nails. 

Artificial Light

Colour-wise, it is absolutely gorgeous. The base is dark but not so dark that it looks black in dim lighting, you can still see that it's got a blue tinge to it. Overall, after a second coat the polish looked perfect so despite my application woes, I would definitely recommend picking up this polish not to mention it comes with a fabulously low price tag. 

I bought this polish from Transdesign.com for $4. 

~ Sam

Chanel Diwali

Another post? Am I on a roll or what?!

Today's post is of the Nail of the Day variety. Chanel Diwali is a limited edition from the Bombay Express de Chanel collection. 

Gold is not a colour I usually wear on my nails because it doesn't look too crash hot against my pale skin but I had high hopes for Diwali because a) it looks mildly silver in tone in certain lighting and b) it's Chanel and I have a bit of a hoarding problem when it comes to Chanel nail polish. 

Natural Lighting

Unfortunately I'm not convinced I can pull it off and I'm not thrilled with the finish either. It's perfectly opaque in two coats, which is great and all, but I was hoping the finish would be reminiscent of Graphite in that it has the most stunning, super sparkly finish but alas, in most lighting it looks like a plain old gold metallic. I'm not huge on metallic finishes so this is a pretty big minus for me but in really bright lighting, it is quite pretty. 

Artificial Lighting

Overall, not my favourite purchase ever but not hideous. If I had tried it beforehand, I can't say I certainly wouldn't have still purchased it but for those who might have missed it, don't feel like you've missed something spectacular though I can't help but think this would look amazing on people with darker skin.   

~ Sam

P.S. Sorry about the picture quality but I can't find my camera charger so all photos are currently being taken with my iPhone. Hopefully I'll find it soon and you won't have to endure blurry photos too much longer! 

Take Two and Chanel Pirate

Hey there, so lets try this again. I’m a full time university student so don’t expect frequent posts, should anyone decide to follow this blog. I’ve started this more for myself as a way to track my makeup collection and beauty purchases and *hopefully* keep my spending to a minimum. I recently cleared out a bunch of makeup I didn’t want/use anymore but I still have a crap-load more than anyone actually needs. 

For my first post, I decided to swatch one of my favourite red nail polishes (yes, this blog will extend to nail polish as well), which is Pirate from Chanel. 

Red is such a classic nail colour and I certainly own my fair share but this particular polish is a beautiful bright red jelly that is the perfect shade to be worn year round. It’s not so bright that it could only be a spring/summer polish but it’s also not too dark or vampy that it could be considered a winter only shade. 

It has a jelly finish so it looks gorgeously shiny and, I don’t know, squishy I guess? This picture is two coats and there is no visible nail line in real life. The top coat used was CND Super Shiney. 

Wear-wise, I find this to be one of the longer lasting Chanel polishes on me however I don’t feel super comfortable giving my opinion on wear-time as all nail polish, and I mean all nail polish, tends to last no longer than a day on me without chipping.  

Chanel polishes are something I’ve fairly recently fallen in love with and have been racking up a bit of a collection and I have to say Pirate is pretty high up my list of favourites. 

I would say that if you’re not intimidated by the price point and own nothing similar, I would absolutely recommend it. 

Well that’s all for today. Hopefully I’ll get another post out soon but we’ll see how we go :)

~ Sam