Favourite Spring Nail Polishes

Spring has sprung which means it's time to start wearing some lighter shades on my nails. I've chosen six of my favourite shades which I know I'll be wearing throughout the warmer months. 

I'll do a little overview of each polish so you can get an idea of opacity/coats etc. 

From left to right: 

Essence - Exits On Your Right (Under $5.00 AUD)

This is apart of the relatively new 'Ready For Boarding' collection by Essence. I saw this shade and immediately picked it up because I hadn't seen a pastel green that wasn't a mint. I found this is a lot more of a yellow toned green and it looks great on against tan skin. This polish is best with three coats to achieve an opaque finish. 

NYC Color - Bluebird ($2.00 AUD)

I seem to have a real problem with buying blue nail polishes. I have so many so it was hard to choose the ones I know I will wear most in Spring. I chose Bluebird because it's such a lovely pastel blue that I think pretty much suits everyone. You need a good three to four coats to make this one opaque but it's so worth it once it's on. With a good top coat I find these polishes last up to five days (probably more if you're not a nail picker like me) I found this polish at Woolworths, they have so many shades and are all $2.00! 

Essence - Via Airmail (Under $5.00 AUD)

This is another from the 'Ready For Boarding' collection, and the darkest of all six polishes. This polish has a great consistency and needs about two coats to get decent coverage. I just really love this polish and I don't own another one similar. 

China Glaze - Sweet Hook (Under $12.00 AUD)

This is the perfect pastel purple, I ordered mine from OzSale when they had one of their China Glaze sales going. I've worn this polish countless times and it always gets compliments. It goes on easily and looks best with two to three coats. I absolutely love how much polish you get in a China Glaze bottle which means I can wear it a lot. I'm also pretty sure Sportsgirl does/did a relatively good dupe for this which I have owned in the past, so if you're looking I'd definitely check out Sportsgirl. 

Nails Inc London - Bag A Bachelor (Free) 

I got this for free in a Cleo magazine in July, this shade is just a pretty girly pink. It isn't the greatest formula and I needed four coats to get a nice finish but the colour is worth the pain of applying it. 

Rimmel - Apricot Punch ($5.95 AUD)

This colour looks completely different in the bottle to how it actually appears on the nail. It looks like a muted orange in the bottle, but comes out as a relatively bright orange on the nail. I love this colour and like all Rimmel polishes they have a great formula and are extremely reasonably priced. 

So those are all my nail polish picks for Spring I'm sure I'll do some more of these posts because I feel like my nail polish collection is constantly growing. 

Have you tried any of these shades? What's your pick for Spring? 

Essence Stay All Day Cream Shadow Review

Taken in natural light no flash, top: a few coats swatched, bottom: blended

I'm back with yet another cream eyeshadow review, something I can only imagine you will be seeing a fair bit of on this blog - can you say obsessed? Today's eyeshadow is an Essence one from the Stay All Day line of cream shadows. I swatched a fair few of them and was really taken by this shimmery gold one in the shade 'glammy goes to'. I think the worst part about this product is the name -  can Essence tell me where Glammy goes? Anyway this pretty gold shadow is another new favourite of mine and I can see myself wearing it a lot more. Now to what I think of it

Price:  I bought this at Priceline for $5.95AUD

Packaging: These come in a plastic tub, which isn't as sturdy as the glass but it doesn't really bother me. I'm not a huge fan of the design on top of the lid but I do like how essence keeps most of their packaging fairly simple. I will say this eyeshadow was extremely hard to photograph - that's my excuse for the horrible pictures. 

Pigmentation/Formula: They're not as rich and creamy as the colour tattoos but they are soft and extremely pigmented, and easily blendable. 

Where you can buy: I bought this at Priceline, Essence is stocked at Target as well but mine doesn't stock this range

Wear Time: I wore these for around five hours before the colour started to fade, I would highly recommend wearing a primer underneath these shadows. I guess you can say these stay all day, I did need makeup remover to get it off but the colour did fade a bit by late afternoon. 

Overall I really enjoy this cream eyeshadow and I'm actually planning on getting a few more. For $5.95 in comparison to the $11.95 of the Colour Tattoos I think they're a steal and a great dupe. They have a decent range of colours and I actually saw a few shades similar to the colour tattoos so I might do a dupe post in the future. I love that these shadows are cheap but have great pigmentation and texture, I think they're definitely worth checking out if you're looking to try out cream shadows.