Comparisons: Strawberry Fields/Kimber & Smooth Sailing/Sklar

Ok, so I haven't ever done a comparison post before, but I've decided to do one and to kill two birds with one stone. Two recent purchases reminded me of other colors in my stash at first glance. So I figured someone else might be thinking the same thing without seeing them side by side.
First off is the last color I swatched, Skylar. I thought that this looked a lot like Essie Smooth Sailing (one of my favorites)! The are similar but after putting them next to each other I instantly knew these were very different. Skylar is more cornflower blue and SS is more periwinkle. Both have shimmer that is quite noticeable. Skylar has iridescent shimmer that shifts from gold to silver to pink; the base is lighter and more dusty. Smooth Sailing is more saturated, brighter, and its shimmer is silver.

The next two I thought looked like they might be alike are China Glaze Strawberry Fields, and Zoya Kimber. Even next to each other these look strikingly similar, not dupes, but close. That is, until you put them on... Both are warm medium pinks with gold glass fleck. Kimber has substantially more

 pigment, it's nearly a one coater. SF is pretty sheer needing 2-3 coats, and still coming out lighter. The formula on Kimber is wonderful, while SF is slightly watery.

So without further ado...pictures. Please forgive the state of my nails (I wasn't leaving them like this so I was a little lazy).

Left to Right: Skylar, Smooth Sailing, Kimber, Strawberry Fields

Top to Bottom: Skylar, Smooth Sailing, Kimber, Strawberry Fields

I have reviewed all of these except SF, so there are full swatches and write ups n the others. Being the polish collector that I am I have no problem owning all of these. The are all different enough to justify buying. My favorite blue between the two is Smooth Sailing, and pink is Kimber.

Citrus Fruit:-)

Hello again! It's the beginning of another work week... I have an exam for an insurance class I'm taking this morning, so fingers crossed! I was supposed to a bunch of studying yesterday, but I kept taking stamping breaks! I am looking forward to getting out today, since its going to be 86 degrees, wooo-hoo! I'll take all the nice weather I can get, tomorrow is supposed to be 57! Everyone here always wonders why we get sick so often, a 30 degree difference day to day and swings in wet/dry could be to blame... Or not, but its the excuse I'll use:-) Anyways for one of my stamping experiments today I was inspired by the sunny warm forecast and came up with this:

This is two coats of Sinful Colors White on White, with little citrus fruits stamped from BM 209. For the oranges I used Essie- Brazilliant, for the limes I used Orly Fresh, and for the lemons, I used China Glaze Sunshine Pop. I love Sinfuls basic black and white polishes for a base or for stamping. The colors of the fruit showed up a little more vibrant in real life, but you can get the idea. I think it's a cute summery look, and was super easy to do:-)

Essie- Navigate Her

Hello! How has everyone been doing? I finally made it to see Hunger Games this weekend, it's only been a week but I feel so late! I'm looking forward to another holiday weekend coming up and yummy dinners spent with our families...
I guess I have some explaining to do concerning my recent absence. Well aside from the usual business, I guess I've been in a polish funk. I haven't been in the mood to polish and haven't been particularly excited about putting anything on my fingers. I don't mean I don't like the current collections, in  the contrary, I love lots of new polishes. I just think I have been slightly overwhelmed by everything of late. My nails have not been growing well, I had to chop them down, and the budget I have for my new babies, I just haven't been able to make up my mind what to use it on. I am one of those old fashioned people who likes to shop in stores and not online, and most of the polishes I want are new Indie brands, but I hate sitting and waiting.....blah blah blah. You don't need to hear me vent!
Anyways... I did pick this up the other day. I don't have anything like this in my collection and its quite springy! When I think of Essie, I automatically think pastel. This is Navigate Her from the Spring 2012 collection.

This is a perfect 2 coat creme.It is a really pretty pistachio color. It self leveled beautifully, and dried rather quickly. I did get in a fight with my car seat and took a little chip out of my index finger but that is totally my fault and not the polish. I used two coats here with a topcoat of SV. This color is so appropriate for Easter week! Despite giving me slight lobster hands, I love it:-)

Essie- Smooth Sailing & Shine of the Times

Hi guys!  So I had to come back with something pretty to redeem myself after yesterday! I saw Smooth Sailing just sitting there and needed it on my fingers! I got this one in a set of four minis. It came with Brazilliant, Meet Me At Sunset, and Super Bossa Nova. I love Smooth Sailing, it's just about the perfect color. I love blue, I guess this is more like a medium periwinkle, but just right for my skin tone. It has a perfect 2 coat creamy formula, with just enough shimmer to make it different. It's not to light, not too dark, not too bright. Can you tell I like this one?

Isn't this pretty! I still need to find a full size bottle, because this is one I will want to wear again and again! I will also like to have a real brush! These tiny bottles never have the same brushes and are always a pain to use! They also make it look like I have giant hands, hahaha! I wore this two full days and on day three, it was still looking pretty good, so I decided to try Shine of the Times over the top. I wanted to see how it would look over a lighter and cooler colored polish. I think I like this better than over the red!

So now that I got this off, I will finish my Electro-Pop's and get to some more frequent posts! There are so many new colors and products coming out that I'm excited about. So what are you guys looking forward to??? Let me know and I'll try and feature some of them!

Essie- Fiji & China Glaze- Fairy Dust

Hello:-) Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I spent a good amount of time Saturday happily doing laundry in my new washing machine! Yay! You don't realize how much you really need these things until something breaks! I never thought I would be so happy to be washing clothes! It's the little things sometimes:-) We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing at home watching football, and going to my nieces baptism. That brings me to my girly mani, in baby pink!

 This weekend I thought since we were going to Lola's baptism, Fiji would be the perfect pink:-) Fiji is a really light pastel, with a nice creamy formula. It was a little streaky on the first coat but evened out nicely on the second. It was very pretty on it's own, and I apologize for not getting pics of it by itself. But I wanted to try CG Fairy Dust, and haven't been able to make up my mind what to put it over, so this I though would be perfect. FD has is loaded with holo micro glitter suspended in a thick jelly base. It went on a little thick, but it wasn't too hard to control. It needs to be that thick to keep the shimmer evenly distributed through the polish. I liked Fiji, and I loved it with Fairy Dust. It was so pretty and not so stark as Fiji was alone.
I have to say, capturing the effect FD had was really hard! You have to trust me that this is way better in person! You know what it looks like? A shimmery little pink tutu, the kind with glitter on it!

Essie- Shine of the Times

Hi again! So I hope everyone is staying warm! It seems like winter hit all of a sudden and even though it should have been here a while ago, none of us were really ready for it.

So today I have Essie Shine of the Times. I will be featuring this again soon. I plan on swatching it over several colors so that you can see how it changes depending on what it is worn with. But for today I have it over a Petites color which I really like but cannot figure out what the name is... I don't know if it had a tag that came off, or if it never had a name in the first place. Anyways its a really nice rich wine-red color. I used 2 coats of that, then one of SOTT. I was really excited to get my hands on this. I had wanted Hidden Treasure for a long time but hadn't been able to get my hands on it. I have always loved how flakys looked in the pictures I'd seen, so you can imagine how thrilled I am with all the choices in recent collections!

This one is the traditional red-gold-green flaky. I wore this for my weekend wine tasting. I wore it matte, but am showing you glossy as well. For the Matte top coat, I used Hard Candy- Matte-ly In Love. I used two coats of this because I've never used it before, it didn't look fully matte with one, and I've heard matte polish wears differently. I don't know if this was necessary, but that's how I did it...

Here are the glossy pics, I just slapped topcoat on over the matte...

I like them both ways, I was torn. But looking back at the pictures, matte is definitely cool, and I think I prefer it.

Essie, Brooch The Subject

Hi again:-) I am exhausted tonight so I'll keep this short and sweet. It's Friday and I'm not used to being back working full weeks, on top of that both my husband and my son are sick. So momma need to get some sleep!
I have here Essie Brooch the Subject. When I first saw this at Ulta, it looked like a dead on match for my skin, aka, mannequin hands! The fluorescent lights must distort colors more than I thought because this is not even close to the same tone as my skin. I am far to pink. Despite the mismatch, I really like this as a nude. It was really creamy and covered really well, this is two coats (no top coat). A top coat would I'm sure give it more shine!

The first picture is closer to what it looked like in the store, but most of the time it looks like the second two.

Essie- Cocktail Bling Preview

Hello! Sorry about being gone the last few days, you know how people get in spring? Wanting to get all the cleaning and house stuff done, well I'm that way in the fall. I guess I'm preparing for Upstate New York's wicked winter! I have been cleaning, rearranging, purging, and going insane! Once I start, I cant stop until I feel like I've accomplished something.I think its timer to sit down and take a break, for the moment!I do have some new swatches for you, I'm getting the pictures together and they will be ready starting tomorrow!

These are the press pictures Essie released from their winter collection. I haven't seen them in stores yet but I've seen some pictures from pros that get early samples. Its a very subdued and sophisticated collection. Not as fun as the barrage of glitter headed our way, but maybe that's the point. It might be a nice break!

bobbing for baubles

a deepest darkest sapphire

size matters

a blazing hot ruby red

bangle jangle

a lavender amethyst

school of hard rocks

a midnight malachite

cocktail bling

a precious pale gray jewel

brooch the subject

a creamy cashmere cameo

So, what do you think?