Essence "Stay With Me" Long Lasting Lipgloss review

I was at Utla recently and as I was browsing I came across the Essence display. I've never had anything from that brand and never really read or see anything on the brand. I was drawn to the Stay With Me glosses because they looked like they would be great cream finishes.

I personally don't like glosses with glitter in the because the texture isn't my fav and once the gloss has worn off the glitter still remains. I don't mind shimmer or glosses with sheen. My favorite is cream glosses. I think they look best in the summer and compliment most lipsticks better.

The finishes in the glosses on display were all creamy with tones from milky pink, coral, plum and red. While the color selection isn't huge, there is still something for everyone. As far as I know, this brand is only sold at Ulta stores and the Ulta website. They retail for $2.29 (which is an odd amount) and are 0.13 FL oz. That is a great price for the amount of gloss.

Now onto the swatches!! I picked up two of them.
#03 Candy Bar and #06 Berry Me.












Candy Bar is on the left and Berry Me is on the right. As you can tell, they are can be applied sheer but can really be built up. They would look fab over lip liner. I have a neutral liner called tiramisu from Rimmel that is a peachy nude that would look great under Candy Bar and any pink or berry liner would compliment Berry Me wonderfully. These glosses are very smooth and not sticky. I will say they are tacky enough to stick around. The lasting power is a few hours which I don't mind reapplying. The Berry Me color fade offs into a nice "just had a Popsicle" kinda stain which I enjoy.


The applicator takes some getting used to but isn't hard to use.

I hope you try these if you are on the fence. They are great and cheap so they are a win win for me. I plan on getting some more!

Water Marble Manicure

Hello all!!

I'm back with a manicure I had done recently. The water marble technique that I had always wanted to try but I could never get up the energy to try it. It's not the kind of manicure that you can quickly do. It takes some serious prep work to pull off. I will link the video that helped me out the most.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=ziUBMEzshgo

You will need the following:

Scotch tape
ROOM temperature water
Multiple nail polishes
Q-tips and nail polish remover for touch ups.

A few tips that were helpful to me was to peel the tape on and off the back of my hand so it wasn't so hard to pull off after pulling out if the water.

Another was to use a paper cup because nail polish will collect on the sides of whatever container you use. So using a small paper cup is easy clean up.

You will also want to keep a paper towel near by to wipe whatever tool you are using to swirl the colors. It can be quite messy but keeping a paper towel on hand will def help keep the mess at a min.

Don't paint a top coat on right away because it might ruin the design that you've created. That was a mistake I made when I was practicing. It muddled the colors together and ruin some of the swirl.


Also, have fun with the base colors. Marbling options completely open up once you start playing with the base color.







My base color for this manicure was a light pink and I used various OPI polishes for the marbling but there was a teal, gray, fushia, baby blue, etc.





If you have tape, an old water bottle full of water, and some time to practice this is def something I think all nail buffs should try. It's a great way to use those polishes we all buy cuz they are trendy but get long forgotten. Watch jens video for the step by step. She inspired me to try it so hopefully everyone else checks it out!!

-Nicole :)

Well, well... Look who is back!!

It appears that I only update this blog once a year which I apologize for. I fully intended to update often but it is more work than you would think.

Anyhow, I saw a video on YouTube a few months back on a Cupcake Manicure and this was my take on it. I hope this simple post will get me back in the swing of things. I have a few ideas for some posts I want to get up. Stay tuned!!


P.s. Here is a lil something sweet I found in my miso soup recently.


Stay happy an beautiful!

-Nicole