Stamping and gradient over Essence 182 Hello Rosy

The gradient is barely visible here, but under sunlight the yellow/gold particles of Kiko 640 really pop out! I stamped a nice geometrical pattern with Kiko 328 and it kinda looks aztec/pre-colombian to me, it reminds me of The Road to El Dorado. It's the first time I stamp over a sand effect polish and I am not disappointed at all, it was easy. The only downside is that you cannot fix your design with topcoat.
I love this pattern, the only problem I have is that the design on the plate is much bigger than my nail (not only longer, it's wider too) and it's hard to restamp always the same portion of the design. Ah well, it's still a nice mani so I wont complain.

Essence 182 Hello Rosy (Sparkle Sand Effect) review

When I saw the Essence display with all the new products, I had a moment of "I want this and that and that" but since Cosmoprof is near, I decided to limit myself to this polish that I really, really wanted. Like, since it appeared in the preview. It looks like a strawberry smoothie and I love it! This is two coats of polish.
It's as awesome as I imagined, with a pink base and darker glitter that distribute themselves quite eavenly. I love this shade of pink, it's a bit darker than Kiko 375.
The texture is the standard Essence liquid sand one-not too gritty ( less than the new Kiko ones) but more than the very first Kiko sand polishes.
Drying time was good, and I had absolutely no application issues, the big brush is perfect for my nails.
Overall vote is A, but I still can't say anything about duration.
What do you say, have you already bought anything new from Essence? 

Green Gradient

Of course, as soon as I said "look, it's sunny, I'll better take a pic of my nails", the sun went away.
Anyway, I hadn't done a gradient nail art in a lifetime so I figured out it was time to try it again. I probably can do better, but I'm still satisfied with the result. I'd love a more blue-to-green effect rather than a dark teal-to-green, and also some other color combinations...
Here I used two Essence polishes, L.O.L., a personal favourite, and 03 Life is a Freeride, from the old Snow Jam LE. If you look at the teal part closely, you can still see the shimmer, and it's something I love.
I'm probably going to add something to this gradient, like a cracking effect or I could use Sephora's arty pois top coat..

Grey and pink swirls

Don't you just hate when you do a nice nail art, take a pic and see all the small mistakes and imperfections brought to light? Like the line left by the Seche Vite on my middle finger... anyway, here's a nail art done yesterday evening while rewatching Hunger Games: Catching Fire in search of an inspiration.

Effie Trinket is my spirit animal

I wanted to use Kiko 328, a simple cold-toned grey, and Effie's outfit, which looks more lavender or blueish according to the light, was my inspiration source. I wanted to recreate something "round", no hard edges, and fluffy. The grey is reminiscent of the outfit and the pink of her makeup. Plus, I just really love grey and pink together, I think they look fine.
The swirls were stamped using Kiko 617 and 618, the pink is Kiko 375.

Dramatag: my top 5 showcase products

As soon as I saw the last Dramatag I wondered "Do I have any product with super awesome packaging?"

The answer was yes!
I love, love the Naked Basics packaging. It's simple, yes, but I love how it feels at the touch, it's almost soft and smooth, and you can feel the embossed name with your fingers.
An old Kiko blush from the Fierce Spirit LE (Last summer's), with already a small scratch. Still, the "oriental" mood of the packaging is quite pretty and it looks nice on my makeup shelf. It's not much travel-friendly and it's huge, but I'm not going to complain on the size since it's my favourite blush, I don't want to think that one day I'll hit the pan.. sigh.
The Neve Cosmetics blush in Starlet from the 20's inspired LE was one of the products that, well, let's just say the packaging had quite a part on the purchase- that, and the fact that I didn't have a matte blush yet. I ended up with a very lovely blush, that can be easily blended and so it looks nice even on my skin tone.
The Essence highlighting pearls from the Me & My Ice Cream LE aren't so practical in their daily use, but their box is so lovely you'd expect to find candy in it!
The Kiko Loud Night Bronzer from the Dark Heroine LE has one of the most awesome packagings ever. The image on the cover reflects the Blade Runner atmosphere of the whole LE in the best way possible, and somehow the name Loud Night really fits. The cover makes me think of city lights seen when driving a car or running, due to their flashiness, but they could be the lights of a night club as well. See, when a product makes me think of stories, it's a good one. Ah, and it's a pretty great bronzer too!

Camellia petals nail art

In my parents' garden there's a camellia (in Italy known simply as camelia), and last week the flowers had opened their petals in all their magnificence. Our camellia makes fuchsia and rose with fuchsia stripes flowers, like the image above kindly supplied by Wikipedia, because I forgot to take a picture of our own. As pretty as they are, they last only a few weeks, sometimes even less, which is a real pity. When I was a kid I used to play with those flowers a lot, because when they're fully open they weigh too much and fall from the plant, especially when they're already decaying. Sometimes they just lose petals, so that part of the garden is filled with petals in a very fairy-like atmosphere.

This is my tribute to those petals, done with Kiko 284 (I had forgotten the amazing quality of this polish!) and Essence's fuchsia tip painter over Ben & Cherries from the Me & My Ice Cream LE. It really looks like the real thing, so I'm quite satisfied with it!

Sci-fi fishtail nail art

Aka my very first fishtail nail art. The base is Sinful Colors Snow Me White, the other two colors are Pupa 001 and 002 of the Cosmic Beauty LE. I topped everything with an old, discontinued top coat by Catrice called Prismatic Effect, that adds a blue-ish shade. On the white it's nicely visible but nearly impossible to capture in photos.

It's called sci-fi fishtail because of the colors (shiny white, grey.. they're all colors that make me think of spaceships) and because I did it while rewatching Judge Dredd on tv xD.

And I'm afraid that's all for today, and sorry for the tipwear..

Kiko Cupcake Nail Lacquer 648 & 656

New LE nail polishes from Kiko! As they did with the mirror and the liquid sand last year, this season we have glitter toppers (nothing groundbreaking imho) and those new liquid sand polishes. It was love at first sight when I saw swatches.

They're supposed to look like cupcake frosting. The bottle with the white cap is really cute, and those polishes have an interesting finish.
Matte, they have a base color and particles of other colors in them. Formula-wise I have no complaints, they require two coats for full opacity but dry quickly.
648 is supposed to look like ananas frosting: it's pastel yellow with orange(more) and brown(less) particles.
656 is supposed to look like pistachio frosting: it's pastel green with dark green(more) and orange(less) particles.
Now, the only problem I have with these is that they don't remind me of cupcake frosting at all.
648 reminded me of a potato soup at first, then of rice with saffron and mushrooms, and 656 of a vegetables soup... if it's pistachio why should it have orange particles? I am confused..
Probably they would look more "soft" if layered on a white base, maybe with just one coat. The problem is that the colored particles don't distribute evenly with one coat, sometimes even with two... as you can see from my pinky.

Final Verdict:

Do I like them? Yes, the effect is quite unique and I have nothing like them, and I'd love to try new colors, probably the pink/violet/orange ones will look more like cupcake frosting? yet, the one that intrigues me mostly is 647, Jasmine...