Linda : Essie

Essie Exotic Liras

March 25, 2015

My top 5 spring nail polish picks

March 21, 2015

Hello ladies! Today I would like to share with you my top 5 favorite colors I tend to pick a bit more now, when the spring is here. They are all pretty light, pink, girly colors - because that's usually the color I wear, other than red and burgundy. I am sorry there are no greens or blues or similar, but honestly I don't ever wear such colors on my nails, I am just not a fan and I don't think they suit me. These, on the other hand, are totally my cup of tea! Let's see...

Three Essie polishes I love the most (from left to right):

WATERMELON - my top favorite one. This is such a pretty vibrant pink - red, a shade that is really hard to capture in it's complete glory. It is such an unique color and the formula is brilliant - one coat is enough for a very opaque and shiny color. If you want to try one Essie polish - this is the one I totally recommend.

CUTE AS A BUTTON - another well known Essie shade. This is another shade that is tough to capture its true shade. I would describe it as a orange - coral - pink mixture. This one needs two coats.

FIJI - you all know this one. Hard to work with it, because it can get quite streaky, but the color is amazing. White-ish/milky light pink, making your hands look polished and feminine. This is not your typical spring color, but I chose to choose it anyway, because it is really refreshing to wear shades like this sometime in between all the other bright colors.

And now for two Catrice polishes:

RASPBERRY FIELDS FOREVER (left) - this shade almost reminds me a little of Essie's Watermelon - in the bottle, but when applied on the nails, they look different. You can also see that from the swatches below. This is wonderful bright pink shade, in certain lights looking totally red! What is with all these color chameleons? It is not too much 'in your face' vibrant pink, it is just enough toned down to look perfect for my taste (I guess that is because of the red undertones). I really don't know why but I love to wear this on my toes. I guess I don't even have to mention that this on is another 'why do you look so different in photos than in real life' shades.

A GALLON OF MELON (right) - one of the newest additions to my collection, it has been released just recently. This I would describe as a coral pink, looking very pastel. In some lights it looked like a neon coral to me. The formula is not the easiest to work with - at least the polish I got, is pretty thick. It is no where near being sheer, but nonetheless you need to apply two coats, just to make it look perfectly even and not streaky.

And here are the swatches. As I mentioned before, not all the colors look the same in the picture than I real life, sorry about that. But still you can get the idea about how they look.

1 - CATRICE Raspberry fields forever

2 - CATRICE A gallon of melon

3 - ESSIE Watermelon

4 - ESSIE Cute as a button

5 - ESSIE Fiji

What are some of your favorite spring colors? Now that you know of my favorite shades, do you have any similar to recommend to me? I love trying new shades. :)

Thanks for reading! Have a nice day :)

Essie

How I keep my nails healthy - no breaking and peeling!

February 24, 2015

First some history. I could talk forever about for how long I was desperate and miserable because of my nails (first world problems) – probably for about 5-6 years, after I turned 15. When I was very young (12-14,15) and was first allowed to have my nails long, they were so shiny, healthy, happy, strong, I was never using nail polish, all natural. But after I began with high school and started living in a student's dorm far away from home, make up and nail polish happened. And nail polish is what destroyed my healthy nails. As soon as they grew for a few milimetres, they started breaking, peeling, literally falling apart. Evey time. Sad times.

So began the 'era' of buying nail hardeners. I tried so many I lost count. Usually I bought the nail base/nail hardener ones. I tried every one there is from Essence, Kiss, the expensive salon ones (CND, Micro cell), and when we got Essie in Slovenia I tried the Millionails. Maybe some of them did work, but only for the first third of the bottle, later it was just the same old story.

My boyfriend was always convincing me this is an obvious sign that I am not really healthy. That I need to eat more protein, start taking vitamins and minerals and all that jazz. Being a stubborn teenager, I was convinced there will someday be a new nail hardener that will save my life. So stupid. Should have listened to him from the start – he always knows best. About everything. I mean it!

So I did some research. What to do, what magic pills to take. There were many skin – hair – nails pills on the market, but all of them were pretty expensive. So I researched some more. This word 'biotin' popped on my screen a few times while browsing the net.

''Biotin is a coenzyme and a B vitamin and is also known as vitamin H. As a supplement, biotin is sometimes used for diabetes, brittle nails, and other conditions.''

Let's give it a try, I said. So I found some biotin pills, very cheap, and they had written skin and nails all over them. The pack contained 60 pills, one for each day. I started taking them every day. After about 6 weeks the first results where there. I noticed my nails are acting very strange – there was suddenly much less chipping and peeling. Lord behold, a miracle! I bought another box of pills, ate them all. So 4 months after the first pill, my nails were reborn. Healthy, strong, no peeling at all.

I can't even tell you, how happy I was. I thought I was saved. So of course I forgot about the pills. In about two months, my nails got really bad again. So I started taking the pills again. A few months and everything was OK again. This was about a year ago.

taken about a year ago

What about today? My nails are still very strong and much more healthier than a few years ago. From time to time a nail breaks, but no biggie, it mostly happens because of work. I still take the biotin pills, but only one or two a week. I don't think I will ever stop, because it is obvious that I can't be without them if I want healthy nails. Plus, I honestly think they had a very positive impact on my hair too – I color them red every 4-5 weeks, but I only see some split ends after about 10 months after I get a haircut. I am really happy about that, because I want to have really long hair.