Adventures in Matte Land

I was a little skeptical of the whole "matte thing" but being one not to shy away from a challenge, I found a girl willing to swap her Essie Matte About You on MUA.  Here are the results of my findings.

Butter London - Trout Pout with Essie Matte About You (Index finger layered with Essie Flawless then Matte About You.)

I hunted this down at Ulta.  It was the last bottle and looked like it could have been opened but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.  It is an absolutely gorgeous color on it's own but with a matte finish gives it a pretty interesting look.  I plan on experimenting with other brights in the near future.

L'Oreal - Waters Edge with Essie Matte About You

Waters Edge is supposedly an Essie Greenport dupe.  As I don't own the latter, I can only rely on pictures from other blogs and it looks pretty close.  I really like this family of colors (being a Pisces) and it also looked pretty neat as a matte, but I still prefer Trout Pout.  Incidentally, I also ordered ILF from Manglaze who happens to be the purveyor of fine matte polishes.  It's supposed to be a nice teal color so I'll be swatching that as soon as I get it (which I hope is soon!)

Formula wise, MAY is nice, not too goopy like Seche Vite can be and dries quickly, which from what I understand is typical in a matte polish.  I like that this type of topcoat allows you to turn your normally glossy polish matte as opposed to turning your matte polish glossy.  Anyways, its a nice addition to my top coat family and it will probably be one I'll be using frequently to "tone down" a lot of the bright shades in my collection.

Pop A Cork In It

So I finally succumbed and picked up a bottle of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper for myself after picking up a bottle for a friend in Brazil I'm swapping polishes with.  Its a flakie, not very iridescent -- very much like glass.

Anyways, I was originally only going to repaint my nails Because You're Worth It, but after I was done I thought, "hey I wonder what this would look like with Rock Candy on it," and decided to paint Orly Rock Candy, a pretty, definitely iridescent polish that's fairly transparent and makes for great layering.  It looked nice.  It "silvered" it up a lot and cast a frost on it without making it look 80s (everybody who remembers frost nail polish from the 80s knows what I mean!)  Anyways, trying to get creative, I decided to try Glass Slipper.

Here's how it turned out:

It dented my polish a little and made it look like it had wet spots.  But it also did remind me a little of champagne and those little bubbles that form from carbonation.

But I'm still not really sure how I feel about Glass Slipper.  >_<

Walgreens Haul

I don't normally buy a lot of things at Walgreens because I found them to be historically more expensive than other stores.  However, I was in search of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper and they happened to be on sale there so I thought, why not?

I'm glad I went.  I'm also glad I went to a Walgreens I don't normally go to because as it turns out, the girl in the beauty department was a nail enthusiast like me and was more than happy to help.

As you can see, I didn't get SH Glass Slipper but I did end up with a lot more...for a the price of two bottles of polish and a protein bar.

I managed to get my hands on the LAST bottle of clearanced out Seche Vite at that location (I now plan on scouring every other local Walgreens that has it in stock) for $4.79(!) and I got a bottle of Loreal nail polish because the girl swore by it.  I figured it has something to do with the Essie relationship and picked up a pretty bottle of gold that was not only $1 off, but another WG employee ahead of me in line gave me her Loreal coupon for another $1 off.

Here's the polish I bought:

 L'Oreal - Because You're Worth It

For some reason, the middle finger was really streaky and applied poorly.  I had to remove it and re-apply it to get it to look like the other nails.

This was a weird gold.  I've been wanting to try one and purchase Wallis earlier in the week on Ebay but this is a shade that I hated when I first applied it and have slowly grown to really love it.  Its a strong metallic shade that has a really cool tone to it, which really surprised me.  It almost feels like having a light gold foil on my fingers.

Application was streaky but 3 coats sufficiently cleared up the streakiness and opacity.  I have light tan skin with yellow-to-olive undertones so gold normally looks really nice on me but I honestly believe this might be better suited for cooler toned gals.   Either way, I loved the overall shininess of it all and I didn't regret buying it like a few of the other polishes I've bought in the past.

Retail price on the first display I found it on said $6.49 but it was on another display listing it for $5.99 with another $1 off from the Walgreens coupon.  Another Walgreens employee hooked me up with her personal L'Oreal coupon so ended up paying $3.99 for it.

All in all the nail polish WAS worth it -- meaning I'd probably buy another bottle once I ran out -- and of course you can't go wrong with 14 bottles of nail polish remover and Seche Vite for less than $5.