My First Essie - Love, Beverly Hills xx

This is a bit early for Valentines Day but since everyone is getting in the spirit early I felt the need for a red.  I was going to save it for later this week but I fail at patience and self control reguarly.

As unbelievable as this sounds until this weekend I had never owned an Essie polish, or even used an Essie polish.  I was lemming for some Color Club and thought I would see if there was any left at Ross (our Ross is dingy and disorganized, it was a possible just not likely).  There wasn't any but I did find a tiny box containing a bottle of Essie Love, Beverly Hills xx which according to the box contains 24K gold.  It definitely had a gold shimmer in the bottle.  It was on clearance for three bucks and red. I have a long standing love affair with red polish and frankly on any given day of the week my toes are red.  For three bucks, what the heck? 

 

Love, Beverly Hills (2 coats) with top coat with and without flash

I used non Essie base and top coat so this is just the polish.  It seemed to apply well, covering in 2 coats though it did seem to dry slow.  I was pretty underwhelmed by the polish the night I put it on.  The next day in fluorescent lighting the shimmer and the sheer redness grew on me.  I think I read a description of this polish somewhere as being opulent.  I disagreed initially but after wearing it it for a while "opulent" seemed to fit.  It is a luxurious red.   I don't know how often I will wear it but it seems like a good color for my toes and "conservative" events where I want something just shy of being over the top.

Teal Appeal - The "Real" Teal

Ok so I have come to accept that my definition of teal might be more of a green blue than teal as I can't really find any "teals" that match my sweater.  Maybe my sweater is more peacock blue....whatever I wanted a nail polish that matched so I decided to mix my own. RBL Teal was pretty close to perfect, I just wanted a little more green and a tad lighter so I set out to make a "near dupe."


Materials:

• Sinful Colors See You Soon
• Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl
• New York Summer Amaranth
• Nars Thunderball eyeshadow (mine had sadly broke months ago so I figured I'd make use of the bits)
• Sally Hansen clear base (I don't remember which one I used)
• Ballz

1. Mix 1/3 of a bottle of See You Soon and 1/2 a bottle of Amaranth.
2. Add 30 drops of Tokyo Pearl
3. I then added 1/4 of the powder from my Thunderball eyeshadow to make the polish more pigmented and make the base more blue (See You Soon is blue glitter in a black base). 
4. I split this mix between 0.5 oz bottles and topped them both off with clear (one bottle was a gift).

The "Real" Teal

The color of the resulting polish was really close to the RBL Teal but, though lighter and greener.  It is also a shimmer.  Halfway through I realized I really wanted a creme but it was too late.  In retrospect I am glad it is a shimmer as it is pretty close to RBL Teal.  The shimmer gives it a different look and makes it more of its own color.

 

The "Real" Teal with flash (left) and in sunlight (right)...well cloud light, I hate winter.

A close to perfect match!  I could have added a touch more blue but I wanted to stop here.

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments.

Teal Appeal - Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away

Number two on my list of polishes on my search for the perfect teal was Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away.  Well it was the second one I decided to test, between finding it and it arriving at my doorstep I stumbled on a few others, more on them later.  Don't Teal My Heart Away is significantly lighter and greener than RBL Teal so I was hoping it would be the shade I was looking for.  I hadn't tried Diamond polishes before this one so I wasn't really sure what to expect, their web site swatches frankly suck. Luckily there are MANY other nail polish crazed bloggers out there and I was able to find several good swatches.  

When the polish finally arrived (it took almost 2 weeks, though they shipped it the day after ordering) I was thrilled.  The color was a lot lighter than I was expecting in the bottle but as soon as I got it on my nails I was struck by how amazing it looked and how well it applied.  Seriously, I could have done just one coat and been thrilled with the color, the polish just flowed off the brush.  A word of warning, I like thicker polishes so this might seem thick to some people initially.    

 

Don't Teal My Hear Away (2 coats) and topcoat

So there I was with probably the most amazing color I have ever worn on my hands, admiring them, showing them repeatedly to my husband (even he agreed it was glorious) and then I realized that as perfect as Don't Teal My Heart Away is, its still not the color I was looking for.  Still not the elusive cowl neck sweater teal, so I have to keep looking.  I am ordering 3 bottles of this stuff.  This is officially my new favorite polish. 

After two days I chipped the polish but I wasn't ready to take it off yet (unheard of) so I painted over the chip with a fresh coat and then topped all of my nails with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie.  I have a love hate relationship with Nail Junkie, up until this point I love it in the bottle too much to franken with but I hate it on. I think this is the perfect solution.  It was raining so I had to photograph inside and you can't see how amazing this reflects the light. 

  

Don't Teal My Heart Away (2 coats), 1 coat Nail Junkie and topcoat

Close up of Nail Junkie over Don't Teal My Heart Away - I am not sure whose blog I saw the circular close ups on but its brilliant and I am adopting it so you guys don't have to look at my gross cuticles.

If you aren't familiar with  Don’t Teal My Heart Away or the Teal for Toes Ovarian Cancer awareness movement you should check out their site here.   Diamond Cosmetics donates $.25 from each sale of “Don’t Teal My Heart Away” to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.