Essie Splash of Grenadine

I've never bought an Essie polish before for a few simple reasons: the colours never really excite me, they're freaking expensive and come in tiny little 5ml bottles. But the polish fiend in me has always been dying to try one! Luckily, the fantastic Sarah from I Heart Cosmetics stepped in when I saw her last Friday - she handed me a lovely little bag filled with polishes and a few other bits that she didn't use or want! How sweet is that? Thank you Sarah ^_^;

So anyway, I was pretty excited to discover Essie's Splash of Grenadine in there as it actually piqued my interest a bit when I saw swatches. I will happily say I absolutely LOVE the colour although it was a right pain the arse to photograph accurately (the photo with flash is probably the best one, actually). It's a gorgeous, and dare I say unique mixture of purple and pink. Check it out...




The problem, however, lies in the formula. I was expecting a creme but found this to be more of a jelly. I needed a good 3 coats for proper opacity. If you like jelly-ish formulas, you should probably love this but I have a much breezier time with cremes! I've also come to the conclusion that I do not like the brush on Essies one bit - too skinny! But after some painstaking application, again, I can't deny it's a beautiful colour.

I also took this as a chance to get round to trying some of the water decals I got from Viva la Nails. If you're not familiar with water decals, they're kinda like those old transfer tattoos but for your nails! Awesome as hell in theory - you can check out how to use them here. I did my ring finger first because I figured if it was too difficult to face doing my whole hand then it'd look okay as an accent nail. I managed to persevere enough to do the thumb too, but got a bit annoyed after that! I might have just been having a clumsy day but I found it really tricky. The video says you should have at least a minute to place the decal on the nail before it dries, but mine seemed to dry instantly so I ended up having to stick them down to a wet coat of clear polish. Annoying!

Don't they look cool though? I've got some blue ones too, I hope to use those soon and have better luck the next time round.



Do you like Essie polishes? And have you tried water decals? What did you think?