Maybe it's Maybelline.

I love Maybellines, especially the old express finishes with the grey caps.  There is something so nostalgic about them, and I really love the bottle shape. With that said, I don't know if it's a coincidence or if I'm a nut job but the gold cap express finishes seem to always be streaky and it pisses me off to have to thin a brand new bottle of polish. 

Every time I apply a gold cap express finish and it streaks horribly across my freshly prepped, clean and shiny, lovingly base coated, unsuspecting nail, I think really LOUDLY in my head, "MAYBE IT'S NOT FUCKING MAYBELLINE!".  Yeah, I can think to myself in different volumes, and yeah that is the first official full force F-bomb on mah blog.  I think it went over quite well.  Seriously when a polish ruins 20 minutes of filing and moisturizing, base coating and prepping, I strongly consider walking into my kitchen grabbing the hammer out of my pot holder drawer and taking it to every shiny surface in sight.  But I don't because that would mess up the rest of my manicure.

In all honesty, some of the grey cappers streak too.  I just need to point a finger at something and those ugly ass gold caps are just gonna have to take the blame.  Somebody has to take the fall and it's you, you hideous gold caps.  Maybe if you weren't so GOLD and gaudy you could have flown under the radar, but Noooo you just had to be loud and stupid and GOLD.  Is this EGYPT Maybelline?  Are we in King Tut's tomb?  Last time I checked, The answer was NO!  So, stop gold plating random things that AREN'T JEWELRY. 

Maybe I'm wrong and Maybelline is 100% on point.  But my toothbrush and shoe laces aren't gold plated so I'm pretty freakin sure this isn't Egypt circa 1333 BC.

So, in this ONE isolated instance do not listen to me. The grey cap Maybelline express finishes are capable of streaking just as bad as the gold ones. 

 This one applied awesome.  2 thin coats to achieve bottle color.  Purdy.  This is like the ONLY heavily orange based red I can wear and have my hands remain normal looking.

I kinda liked this color but was it worth 4 coats to cover the streaks?  NO!  Was it even worth typing the ridiculously long and STUPID name so I could post it?  Kinda, because I wanted to tell you guys how hard it was for me to type "blet" when all I wanted in the world at that moment was to type "BLEH!"

I think this swatch reveals what a pain this was to apply.  It was wierd.  Streaky and runny at the same time.  But only 3 coats.  I bought this polish because in the store it looked like a creme that would perfectly match my skin tone.  I got it home to find it was a pinkish, yellowish, nude SHIMMER.

This took 5 coats to be opaque, but it's not meant to be opaque so its ok.  But good LORD it is SO streaky.  It's like trying to apply polish with a brush a 4th grader made out of pine straw at summer camp.

I have a love hate relationship with this one.  LOVE- because it looks VERY close to Ruby Pumps. HATE- because it looks VERY close to Ruby Pumps.  This is the closest ruby pumps dupe I have found but who cares. Maybelline can't touch it because Ruby Pumps is RUBY EFFING PUMPS, it is THE red glitter. Nuff said.

Vampy Comparison

Some of my favorite polishes are vampies, really dark red toned jellies or creams. Since a lot of the time online swatches seem to run together for me it makes it hard to decide which ones are similar, which aren't, and which ones I really want.

So, I did a comparison of 4 of the vampies that I think seem the most similar and most popular from swatches online and the bottles alone. 

Above from left to right we have China Glaze- Evening Seduction, Lippmann- Maneater, Zoya- Casey, and Misa- Love Bite.  These look really similar in the bottles as they do in a lot of swatches I've seen online.  But this is really decieving, because they are really not all that similar.

Ok, here they are on my nails in indoor lighting. Right away Maneater jumps out at me as the most different. It is clearly brown with barely any red in it at all. The next one that is the most unique is Love Bite. It's much more red and has the most jelly-like finish. Casey and Evening seduction are really close except that Casey more of a jelly and ES is a straight cream.

Here they are outdoors in direct sunlight.  Now I really see Love Bite and Maneater standing out from the rest as totally different. Maneater looks almost totally brown.  We can also see that Casey and ES really are very close, save the finish, even in direct sunlight. They both have a strong undertone of plum and a deeper burgandy. 

So none of these are dupes of eachother. 2 are close but not dupes. 

Here are swatches of each polish alone. You can really see how these could get jumbled without a side by side. 

For me the must haves from this are Love Bite, and Casey. If I had known that Maneater was so brown I totally would have passed on it.

Pastels and Nightmares

Want to hear something ridiculous?  See I'm a mind reader, I totally knew you did!  I have this recurring nightmare that is positively insane.  Let me tell you about it. 

My nightmare goes like this- EVERYTHING is on sale and I only have five dollars and some change.  I frantically run from booth to booth in this flea market-like hodge podge of stores that carry nothing but nail polish.  I am armed with a basket that keeps BREAKING and I never have a scrunchie to keep my hair out of my face.  The whole dream is me having a massive panic attack over what I will be able squeeze into my $5 budget and fixing the basket constantly while searching the ground for things that have fallen out of it.  All of this always takes place while my family, mom, fiancé, step daughters, all watch from the sidelines saying things like "she's gone over the edge", "this is it for her", "how sad".

Yeah...Now that you know just how gargantuan of a freak I am, let's get back to business.  Today that "business" is Essie. 

Essie hasn't really been on my radar very much in the past.  I'm not sure why exactly.  Maybe it's all the sheer pinks and reds you have to sift through to find something good?  They just haven't been a brand that is on my mind with "have to have it" authority. 

I have gotten several Essies at flea markets for incredible prices and I will say this about Essie- She knows how to do red people!  But beyond that I have only had pastels and such from her that are basically bleh.  Lots of coats, just boring.  So armed with that information, when I was at Ulta last weekend and found a bunch of Essie on sale I got some more, anyway.  Knowledge is power people, unless there is a sale.

What is it about great deals that makes me buy things I don't want?  Can you guess what Essies I got at Ulta?  MORE PASTELS.  Will I ever wear these longer than it takes to snap a photo?  Nope.  Does that really bother me?  Nope.  Because apparently, I collect Essie now.  News to me.  I guess it only takes 5 or more bottles of one brand sitting on my shelf to convince me that I "collect" that brand and therefore will buy as many as I see as long as they are on sale.

I did get one that I really like and will probably wear.  Or at least say I will wear it with sincerity if anyone asks which no-one will, so I'm golden. 

A very warm red/brown creme.  This was 3 coats.  Say it with me gals, "I will totally wear this one!"

 

I received this in a swap from the most awesome person I have met on MUA to date.  I normally am not into pinks but I love this one! 3 coats.

Muted grayish blue with subtle shimmer.  It reminds me of fog.  I remember when this collection came out and I know I wanted this one but for the life of me I can't remember why.  But who cares because now it's mine! 3 coats.

I had no idea you loved Beverly Hills Essie!  Thanks for the info, dude!  But shouldn’t a polish with this name be a grayish green shimmer?  Say, the color of cold hard cash?  3 coats. 

This is 4 coats.  I'm not loving it.  But I am going to do this polish with some black chevron tips and a white stripe.  It's going to look killer.