I would like to apologize in advance for all of the apologies in this post. This is my first mani since being back at school, and this is what happens when I'm distracted by 37 (I counted) other things and don't have as much time to do my nails properly. In fact, the only reason I'm posting this one is because I feel bad that I haven't posted for a while :( Oh college, you sneaky devil you.
ANYWAYS, here it is. Essie's Mint Candy Apple is from the 2009 winter collection. Now, anyone completely obsessed with nail polish *cough* either knows or has heard the stories about Essie's old, watery, pretty terrible formula. This, unfortunately, is one of them. It was so thin and runny, a complete pain in the bottom. That is part of the reason my nails turned out awful (however, just a small small part of the reason :P). It was a pain to apply.
Pretty bottle shot!
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| Essie Mint Candy Apple $8 at various retailers |
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Now, when I say $8 at various retailers, I mean Essie is $8 at various retailers. Since this is an old color, I can't guarantee you'll find it anywhere other than online. I got mine from nailbeauty4u.com. This is a great website for finding older polishes for a good price. And I promise that they're trustworthy (they sell through Amazon).
Even though the formula sucks, the color is really pretty, but I have one or two other polishes that are the similar if not identical, so it's nothing super special. And since the formula is so bad, I would say to go ahead and try and find a dupe, it shouldn't be too hard.
The other factors that play into these terrible photos (I'm so sorry!) are:
1. Like I said before, school does not give me time to be more careful on my nails
2. This next photo is blurry because it was night time and my dorm has awful lighting, and the flash changed the color completely so I didn't use it
3. I had an accident with some other nail polish while making a franken polish (got my supplies in!) and I tried sooo hard to save my nails
Well, here it is...
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| Mint Candy Apple, indoors w/o flash |
Oh the humanity! I do like this color a lot though. It's kind of like a green-leaning blue (whatever that means). Nice and soft. I feel like it's a winter shade because it's such a cool tone, but since it's so light it can also be a spring shade. I used three coats for the picture above.
Now this was just the base of a mani that my boyfriend gave me an idea for (I seriously have the best boyfriend ever). He said I should bust out my crackle. So instead of doing a full out crackle I did a cute simple design.
So my cuticles look even worse here because before I would take a picture, yet AGAIN I had a mishap with a polish when frankening. I tried to save it yet again but you can see a tiny bit of the yellow on my pinky. When you don't look at it super close up it's really cute! Reminds me of super heroes for some reason.
Here's what I used:
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| Essie Mint Candy Apple $8, Sally Hansen Crackle Distressed Denim $7 (retailers), Stripe Right Paint Silver $3 (Sally Beauty Supply), Franken made by me :) |
I started with Mint Candy Apple, painted half of my nail with my franken, painted the other half with Distressed Denim, then used the silver striping polish down then center of them.
Close up of the franken!
Ooooooooh pretty, no? I've been dying for a bar glitter polish and I found some really pretty loose bar glitter at Sally's, so I bought a little container and tada! My own bar glitter :) That's what's great about frankening, if you find something you like but don't want to pay a bunch for it or can't find it anywhere, you can make it yourself! And the container of glitter was a lot cheaper than say OPI Fly from the new Nicki Minaj collection, and I can use it for more frankens!
Expect more franken posts in the future, and again, sorry for the terrible pics.
Happy reading!
Jenney
