Review: Essie Twin Sweater Set with Art Deco Studs

Brace yourselves, I'm quite a mix of strong emotions today.  Ahem: WHY DO YOU HATE ME RED POLISHES.  I LOVE YOU AND YOU MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MY HANDS ARE BLEEDING AND THAT I TOOK PICTURES WITH A POTATO THAT CANNOT REGISTER COLOUR PROPERLY.  THIS RED IS BEAUTIFUL AND DARK BUT IT LOOKS THREE DIFFERENT SHADES HERE AFTER I SPENT 20 MINUTES TRYING TO FIX IT.  ONE OF THE SHADES IS BLEEDING.  THIS IS A LOT AND I WISH YOU WOULD BE NICE TO ME.  Also, studs are pretty cool, and I kiiiinda made it on the popular page on Instagram and I'm really excited about it :D

First things first, the polish.  Essie Twin Sweater Set is a crelly polish from the recent fall collection and it's just gorgeous.  I'm really into the browner reds these days and this one, despite needing three coats to be opaque, is shiny and awesome.  I couldn't just, like, leave my nails be, so I cracked out the wheel of nail studs I ordered off ebay x time ago.  I like to order things for $2-3 dollars from China on ebay sometimes.  You never know when it will show up and packages!  I placed a big blob of top coat - not Seche Vite - on my nails near the cuticle and pressed each stud deep into the polish.  I'd already put a coat of Seche Vite over the three layers so there was room to press, gently.  I kinda wreck it by immediately going to bed before it was really dry as I lost a couple but the ones that got to dry are still on.  THEN MY CAMERA JUST MADE IT LESS THAN SATISFACTORY.

I know you might be thinking that this isn't that bad.  But look at the difference in an INSTAGRAM PICTURE:

THIS IS HOW IT LOOKS IN REAL LIFE. RED.  SHINY.  NOT BLEEDY.  URGH.

Polish good, my photography and clean up abilities, not good.

So, something exciting happened to me last night.  I've been instagramming a bit lately and it's been paying off in the form of an account @fashinaddictx0 - with 686k users, no less - posted a picture of my recent mermaid nails with a credit to me that made it onto the popular page!  It's so exciting and I'm so happy everyone likes my work.  So after all the shouting, I just want to say I love all you guys <3<3<3

Yay!

My. Entire. Updated. Collection.

You know, I think my new declaration should be that I shouldn't make declarations cos it lasted, what, all of a couple days?  I get way too much enjoyment out of blowing things off so committing to a schedule is never a good idea.  So!  Let's go with "more" posts.  Since my last two manis weren't quite right, I thought I might as well show you my polish collection.  Conditional upon me showing you this, you must promise not to count them then work out the approximate cost.  I have low expenses and nail polish is my favourite thing to buy so...yeah.  The worst part is is that I have probably bought about 200 more polishes since I took these pictures.  And this is what my collection looked like in April 2012...

To give you an idea of how much of a problem I have, keep in mind that this table is the Ikea Norden table, extended, making it close to 7 feet long. Yeah.  It's that bad.  I even had to crack out a fish-eye lens because I couldn't fit everything in frame otherwise.  The bonus of the fish-eye is that it makes the table look like a tiny planet populated exclusively by nail polish...mmmmm.   I organised everything by brand but I really want to put them all in a rainbow now.  Can you imagine, a seven foot wide sparkly polish rainbow??  Took ages to this so it's unlikely to happen, but nice to think about.

And this is my baby collection, from April 2012.

The Verdict:  Of course I love this.  I'd be even crazier to spend all this time and money, if I didn't like looking at them all.  If there's something you want to see close up, just leave it in the comments and I'll do a macro version!