Hey everyone! Happy Friday!
You may have already seen a sneak peek of this month's Nailstalgia on , but today I'll share the ~mysterious~ polishes! They are Essie- Splash of Grenadine and Essie- Turquoise & Caicos! These polishes originate from the same collection: the Spring 2010 Resort release. I couldn't decide which one to showcase, so I ended up using both!
Essie- Splash of Grenadine, Essie- Turquoise & Caicos
At the end of the day, for me, this look is mostly about Splash of Grenadine, so I have a swatch of that on for you as well.
Artificial light, two coats:
This is about as purple as a pink can be...without actually being purple. It's a cousin of my very favorite Illamasqua- Harem, mentioned/ shown here & swatched here, but just has a bit of a darker color value.
The formula was very nice! Essie can be quite hit or miss to me, but this one has a great texture, flows over the nail well, self-levels, and was nearly opaque in two coats! (You can see that I had some slight VNL at two coats.)
Nail art time!
I started with a base of KBShimmer- Eyes White Open on all nails.
On the thumb, index, and pinkie nails, I used Essie- Splash of Grenadine and Essie- Turquoise & Caicos to sponge on a gradient. Those two colors are not particularly good for gradients, just FYI! I had to do three coats of sponging (and wait for everything to dry in between) to get semi-even coverage and some blending happening. I think they are just a little too sheer and thin-textured.
For the middle nails, I applied skinny chevron NailVinyls (review here), and applied the two colors over top, working one nail at a time. You can see that shit kinda hit the fan on my middle nail, and Turquoise & Caicos escaped its rightful boundary! Argh! (I don't really care, though, as it wasn't too noticeable in person!)
The uber-cute decals are from (review here). I had a much easier time with them this go-round! I used tweezers to do everything to minimize unwanted transfer, and I was somehow able to get them to lay flat on my nails this time- so no bubbles! Really love the result! I mean, how cute is the flamingo????
Last, I applied one coat of China Glaze- Fairy Dust to tie everything together and add some sparkle, and then used Glisten & Glow- HK Girl Top Coat to finish.
(I did use acetone and ELF's concealer brush to clean up the cuticle edges, and you can see that it didn't completely even out the white base coat. For some reason, this happens to me a lot no matter how I angle the brush- it won't take away base layers and top layers evenly. Any suggestions? Help!)
All polishes used for this look:
Essie- Turquoise & Caicos, Essie- Splash of Grenadine, KBShimmer- Eyes White Open, China Glaze- Fairy Dust
I really loved this look, and was pretty sad to take it off!
Thoughts?
Have you guys tried Splash of Grenadine?
Suggestions for next month's Nailstalgia?
absolutely STUNNING mani! Love love love! Thank you for sharing XO
ReplyThese nails are so so cute and fun! Makes me want to go traveling now, lol.
ReplyThank you, Lisa! They do make me want to go back to Florida, haha!
ReplyAw, thanks lady!!!
ReplyI love this color combo! Splash of Grenadine has a very special place in my heart, it was one of my first ever nail polish (first I got a mini bottle from my mom and then my BF got me a full sized one) and my bottle is almost gone now. For some reason this color is not currently available in my country but as soon as it gets back I'm so getting a backup :)
Replysuch a cute and girly manicure, your nails look great!
Replyx
Very pretty - love the nails! :-)
ReplyThank you so much! It was a pretty girly look, I agree!
ReplyThank you!!
ReplyWhat a great first nail polish! I hope it becomes available for you soon!
Reply