Essie Batch

• Smokin' Hot - Break the rules with this stone-cold fox gray that burns hotter than any flame.
• Masquerade Belle - Fascinating, mysterious and seductive, this black ruby sparks the imagination and inspires intense devotion.
  
• Silken Cord - You've got the world on a string with this stunning risqué red wrapped around your fingers.
• Hot Coco - Paint on this tawny sepia and channel the roaring '20s for a look that's timelessly flawless.
• Luxedo - Suit up in this deepest plum and boldly go where no man has gone before.
• Going Incognito - Your identity may be secret, but your style and panache are impossible to conceal with this deep emerald green.

Which are your favorites? Or which ones are you looking forward to?

Today I will have a few swatches from Essie, including the Winter 2010 Collection's Going Incognito. :)

Essie Going Incognito

a foresty emerald green creme. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. I love this green! The formula and application was excellent. The color is really nice too! :)

Essie Sew Psyched

According to Essie it is a cashmere-soft sage pewter. It's more like a dusty deeper jade creme with a small shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. Awesome color! Formula and application is really good. :)

Essie Wild Thing

red fushia base with slight glitter. The swatch is 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat. The color is very chic. Excellent formula and application.

Essie Jackie Oh My

a pale off white with shimmer. The swatch is 4 coats and 1 coat of top coat. The formula was a bit opaque but the application was great. :)

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine

Franken #4

My last franken for now~ I wanted to avoid dark colors since I've made 2 black frankens. You're probably tired of seeing frankens right? :P Well rest assured, I won't be frankening for a bit. :)

Fraken #4

• 1/2 a bottle of OPI Natural Nail Strengthener (clear)
• 1/3 a bottle of Wet N Wild Tickled Pink
• some amount of Meerkat fyrinnae
• some amount of Gilded Wings fyrinnae

a dusty grayed out pink with purple and subtle gold shimmer. The swatch is 2 coats and no top coat. As I was mixing tickled pink with meerkat, it came out to resembled OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender except there was a slight silver shimmer in it. So then I wanted it to be different compared to Lucky Lucky Lavender (no shimmer in the polish) so I decided to add gilded wings which gave it a gold bronze shimmer also. :) the whole franken was hard to take a picture of because my camera couldn't pick it up as good. but I love it!! Please excuse the dry hands in the swatch picture, I've been doing a lot of catching up with my nail stuff! The last picture is a close up shot of the gold bronze shimmer.

another unnamed franken, and suggestions for a name are welcomed!

I hope you enjoyed and aren't tired of frankens! :P

<3katherine

TYxINFINITY♥

Laura, you are amazingly awesome. Seriously! First Hidden Treasure and now 2 other surprises in the package! I'm really grateful for your gift and I will return the kindness! :) When I opened the box, I was really confused because the packing was big until I opened it. You threw and blew me away!~ ♥ Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

And to share my happiness, I have swatches and pictures.

Essie Huckle Buckle

Very sheer dusty grape shimmer. The swatch is 3 coats and no top coat. As you can see it's really sheer, so maybe 4 coats would do the trick, or maybe using black as a base? Nonetheless, it's very unique and I haven't seen anything like this. I'll probably be back with more pictures, perhaps next week?

(1) indoors (2) indoors with sunlight (3) flash (4) indoors with Hidden Treasure

Zoya Kotori

I've done a swatch and review of this but still nonetheless a very beautiful nail polish. It's best described as a "dense bright blue shimmer superimposed over a sheer black base," (official Zoya website) however, it's very sheer. In my previous swatch, I believe I used 3 coats and no top coat and it was good but maybe it could've looked better with another coat. I'll probably come back with a re-swatch of this.

and finally Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure!

Irregularly shaped flakies with a sheer pearlish clear base. Swatch is 2 coats of Zoya Raven, 1 coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure and 1 layer top coat. Excellent for layering, especially with a black base, it reminds me of China Glaze's limited edition Halloween polish Fortune Teller. I don't own Fortune Teller but Hidden Treasure + black base certainly comes close. The difference I believe is that Fortune Teller has orange glitters and Hidden Treasure has flakies that shine in multiple colors (orange, green, etc). I LOVELOVELOVELOVE Hidden Treasure and I'm so happy that I finally have it (all thanks to Laura again, I could never thank you enough!)

(1) outdoors in sunlight (2) outdoors in shade
(3) indoors with flash

An extra swatch I have for today is OPI's Let Them Eat Rice Cakes.

It's from their 2005 Japanese Collection. It's fairly old, so it doesn't have the pro-wide brush, but that's okay. It is a pale pink creme with lavender undertones. It comes off streaky but after you put top coat you don't notice it. I used only 2 coats and 1 coat of top coat and it looked fine, but if you notice the unevenness, you could go for a third coat. It might be hard to find now, but nonetheless a very nice conservative color but you could do a lot with this one. :)

hope you enjoyed,

<3katherine