YSL Spring 2013: Jade Imperial La Laque Couture

You know how you lose something precious and there is a hole in your heart that cannot be filled and it's a little hard to admit because jeez, it's just nail polish, but it's still true? That's how I feel about Rescue Beauty Lounge Diddy Mow. I've only ever lost two beauty products in my life and one of it had to be a limited edition, sold out indie nail polish of the most dreamy green ever. It's frivolous and #firstworldproblem of me, but I want to weep when I think about it.

Anyway, I impulse bought YSL La Laque Couture in Jade Imperial from their spring collection because it looked similar to Diddy Mow in the bottle. Pictured below with Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times because that's what I applied to the tips of my left hand (shown in top picture) and right ring finger.

Jade Imperial is a cloudy jade green creme. Application was smooth and could easily have been a one coater, though I did two. The formula is just a tad thicker than I would've liked, but in no way does it impede or mar application.

While there is no right or wrong when it comes to nail polish pairing, I think Jade Imperial serves well as a complement to this spring's palette of punchy pinks (I am willfully ignoring its dainty counterparts). I purchased mine for $25 from Nordstrom.

Products Used:
Shu Uemura Retractable Eyebrow Pencil in Seal Brown
Rouge Bunny Rouge Time Defying Foundation in Wheat Cream
Guerlain Meteorites Perles du Paradis
Le Métier de Beauté Peau Vierge Correcteur in Light/Medium
Le Métier de Beauté Eye Brightening and Setting Powder in Revive
Le Métier de Beauté Dualistic Eye Pencil in Tamarack
Dolce & Gabbana Femme Fatale Smooth Eye Color Quad
THREE Flash Performance Pencil Eyeliner in 08 Eye On
Annabelle Le Big Show Mascara
Suqqu Balancing Cheeks in 02 Mukuge
Paul & Joe Lipstick Case CS 006 and Lipstick Refill CS 080 Manège
Le Métier de Beauté Clearly Brilliant Lip Gloss
YSL La Laque Couture in Jade Imperial

Accessories:
Jennifer Zeuner Mini Bar Necklace
Catbird Alphabet Ring

Something Blue?

How do you know you have too many blue polishes (and that blue is so painfully obvious a current trend)? When you have more than enough of them to do a blue ombre manicure.

Here's what I have on each finger: 

• Thumb: Le Métier de Beauté Mint Bliss
• Index: Essie Turquoise and Caicos
• Middle: China Glaze For Audrey
• Ring: Le Métier de Beauté Bon Voyage
• Little: Le Métier de Beauté Aurora (from the Northern Lights collection)

I didn't purchase Le Métier de Beauté Aurora (I applied this at the counter) because I find it just a hair's breadth away from Bon Voyage. The latter is a true blue while Aurora has just a teensy drop of yellow in it. They're not exactly the same, but they're close enough that I know I wouldn't regret missing out on Aurora.

After this manicure, I made myself promise not to purchase another blue polish until leaves start falling again. My stash needs colors from the other side of the wheel!

Essie Navigate Her

This winter-going-into-spring has been such a green season for nails. I chanced upon a bottle of Essie Navigate Her some time ago thought "Dior Waterlily!" but that was just my memory playing tricks on me. They're not even two peas in a pod.

Dior Waterlily on index finger, the rest is Essie Navigate Her

Color descriptions baffle me, so I'm going to venture that Waterlily is a mint green while Navigate Her is muted lime. They both wear wonderfully. No chips at all on the third day even with vigorous package-opening (a job hazard) and though I took it off on that day itself, I am quite certain it would have lasted a full week with minimal wear, provided you use a good base and top coat (Rescue Beauty Lounge's in my case).

Essie Navigate Her officially retails for $8 (prices vary depending on where you look) and can be found at most pharmacies or select e-tailers. I found an Amazon listing for the entire Spring 2012 collection for about $33 with shipping.

For an even more budget-friendly lime green (no promises on similarity), visit Karla Sugar's recent post on Sally Hansen Green with Envy.

Essie Winter 2011: Luxeffects Collection

The Essie Luxeffects Collection is, in my opinion, the most exciting nail collection to hit stores this holiday season. It features five top coats of shimmer, flakies, and chunky glitters guaranteed to spice up any polish already in your collection. These are so. much. fun. If there is only one nail collection you look at this winter, I fervently hope this is it.

L-R: A Cut Above, Set in Stones Shine of the Times, Pure Pearlfiction, As Gold As It Gets

Productivity is all about hitting as many birds as you can with one stone, so I used one of my new Le Metier nail acquisitions as the base color. I'm glad there really is nothing new to add to the conversation in terms of the formula. It's everything you want in a nail polish. The only difference from my usual routine is since Je N'ai Se Quoi has a slightly thicker formula, I left my application at one coat instead of two. 

Je N'ai Se Quoi

Size comparison. Incidentally, Jaded Love (bottom) is an exact dupe for Je N'ai Se Quoi

Je N'ai Se Quoi

Now, the stars of this post. Please ignore the atrocity that is my ring finger and the injured pinky! I botched up my application on the ring finger and was in the process of fixing it, and I... fell down and scraped my pinky while I was coming out of the subway. Um, concentrate on the sparklies!

Set in Stones

Set in Stones

A Cut Above

Set in Stones and A Cut Above are top coats containing different-sized chunks of glitter. These are designed well in that the glitter spreads out evenly in one coat. In retrospect, the blue-green base is perhaps not the best to show off A Cut Above, but I hope you get a sense of how it performs on the nail. A friend of mine tried these on and worried that they made her look like a twelve year old. While I personally don't think so, I can see why she would be worried about wearing it to work.

Pure Pearlfiction

Pure Pearlfiction

As Gold As It Gets

Pure Pearlfiction and As Gold As It Gets are my runner-up favorites of the collection. After all, you know my love of layering! These two polishes are like silver and gold snowflakes, featuring tiny bits of shimmer to add some very interesting dimensions to your base color.

Shine of the Times

Shine of the Times

Shine of the Times is my favorite of the collection, featuring a top coat of copper/gold flakies! Again, the blue-green base is not the best to show this off but I can't stress how great they look, not to mention super fun! Shine of the Times was my first experience with flakies and I have to admit, I might be hooked. I need more of these.

Essie nail polishes retail for $8 at physical retailers, but you can get them at a lower price from select e-tailers. I bought all five of mine as a set from Amazon.

Essie Winter 2011 Collection: Cocktail Bling

Here are the six shades of creamy Essie hues for your fingers come snow time. 

L-R: Brooch the Subject, Bangle Jangle, Cocktail Bling, School of Hard Rocks, Bobbing for Baubles, Size Matters

Some nail wheel swatches. I would do it on my fingers, but I didn't want to ruin the manicure I got during the event. Size Matters is a dark red cream, Bobbing for Baubles is a rich deep navy, School of Hard Rocks is a muted forest green, Cocktail Bling is a creamy gray with blue undertones, Bangle Jangle a lilac, and Brooch the Subject a mannequin nude. A note: during the event, a couple other bloggers got Brooch the Subject manicures and it ended up looking different on both of them.

As far as I could tell from swatching on nail wheels (can I please just thank the genius who created these? They make life so much easier), all six of them feature the stellar Essie formula. Most of them were opaque on one application - but if you know me by now, you'll know I'm a loyal two-coater regardless. 

I chose Cocktail Bling because I thought it looked the most interesting out of the bunch. In the bottle and nail wheel swatch, Cocktail Bling comes across as a straightforward light gray but when placed on the nails it takes on a baby blue + gray tone. Some days I think it leans gray and others I'm convinced it leans blue. Either way, it's so pretty almost every girl who had more than five minutes of conversation with me this week complimented me on my nail color. I suspect Cocktail Bling might take after Brooch the Subject and look different on different fingers, but I won't know till more swatches hit the Web. 

Cocktail Bling lasted on my fingers for seven days with the most minimal of tip wears. On the eighth day, a small portion of polish chipped off my pinky, but the rest are still very much intact.

Essie Winter 2011 Collection will be available in stores and salons this month, no word on the exact date. Based on my experience with just about every Essie seasonal collection, I'd keep an eye out for the Essie stand in your local pharmacy/salon. Without fail, they disappear at an alarming rate.

The products in this post was given to Messy Wands by the company during the event. 

Meeting Essie Weingarten

I've been very blessed in my beauty blogging adventures. I love hearing the agony/glee of friends and readers who tell me now they have to have a blush, a lipstick, a Le Metier palette; Messy Wands was nominated for an award by Lucky Magazine (still can't believe it) during the Fashion and Beauty Bloggers conference (FABB) last September; but most of all, I just love doing it - the writing, photographing, planning, thinking what to feature next... This blog has taken over half my life, and I wish it would take up more.

But really, never have I imagined to get an e-mail from Glamour inviting me to a bloggers' breakfast where I get to meet Essie Weingarten. I mean, Essie Weingarten in the flesh?! You have no idea how many times I reread the e-mail, pinching myself, Googling it to see if it was some sort of a scam (of course it wasn't. but still!). Disbelief aside, I wasn't about to let that opportunity slide. Class be damned (well no, like the proper student I am I asked for my professors' permission), I woke up at 3.30a.m. and got on a 6a.m. plane for a one day trip to New York City. 

The event was held at the tenoverten (112 Reade St) salon, a calm oasis amidst the rampant construction happening around it. I went in and was greeted by breakfast and handshakes and the sight of other bloggers (I was too overwhelmed to mingle. sigh) and this amazing wall of Essie polishes.

Then, a manicure using my choice of the Essie Winter 2011 Collection colors! Halfway into my manicure, I noticed Essie walking into the spa. She went from blogger to blogger (there were about ten of us there) and spoke to each and every one of us. I couldn't move from my spot, but couldn't help craning my neck to hear her speak. Essie was an animated speaker, and I wanted to catch every anecdote. 

What I loved most about meeting her was finding out how approachable she was in person. There was respect and certainly a sort of reverence when we were speaking to her, but it was also like a few girls sitting around a nail salon, just chatting away. 

From the way she talked about her products, to refusing to answer when asked which of her colors was her favorite (though she conceded that Ballet Slippers had a special place in her heart), her passion for polish shines through every story she tells. I'm a stranger to the interviewing (or effortless casual talk) game, but I did ask her if she still had every Essie color ever created. She said they have a library of every color they've made, but for the some lost in a fire in 1991. Oh what I would give to visit that nail bank.

I'm glad I got to meet Essie. This is a woman who's been doing her job for decades and still loves every minute of it. She told us she wanted to thank bloggers for doing what we do, but I wanted to thank her for the inspiration. As a graduating senior trying to plot my future within the coming months, fearful of making a misstep, ending up at a job I might loathe, I can't express just how happy meeting her makes me.

Me and Essie Weingarten

That's me with two hours of sleep after a harried trip from Boston. I wouldn't have published it if I didn't have Essie pointing at my manicure, which makes this photo absolute gold.

Like the timid mouse I am, I waited till all the other bloggers left to ask Essie for a golden nugget or two, and here is what she has to say to us newcomers: Stay true to yourself, be authentic and follow your own voice. With that you'll succeed.

I have photos and swatches of Essie's Winter 2011 Collection coming up next. Many thanks to Glamour Magazine and Essie for this opportunity.