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Essence Gold Fever, Make it Golden and Gold Fever Comparison

Time for my second comparison post - I actually have a lot of polishes in my stash that would be fun to compare, so for this I decided to look at these lovely glitter polishes.

A couple of weeks ago my wonderful hubby went to Berlin and when he came back he'd brought back a couple of Essence polishes. One of them was called Gold Fever and my initial thought was, hey I have that one from before they revamped the bottle. But then I looked closer at the bottles and then I realised something was a bit off.

You can see here why:

Left: The Gold Fever I already own. Middle: The Gold Fever my hubby bought for me. Right: Make it Golden

As the more perceptive reader may have realised it looks more like the bottle on the right than the bottle on the left. So is it a new version of Make it Golden, since that one got discontinued when they revamped the bottles?

Now take a look at this:

Pinky: New Gold Fever. Ring: Old Gold Fever. Middle: New Gold Fever. Index: MiG

As you can see there is definitely the same red and golden microglitter in the new GF but it also has different sized golden hex glitter in it as well - just like Make it Golden. So no, they aren't dupes at all but the new Gold Fever is a mix of the two old, discontinued colours. Do I like it? Yes I do. Do I prefer it to the other two? Not really, there are oodles of different manis in these three polishes together, which is a total bonus.

What I don't like is when polish companies discontinue a colour, change the overall look of it and give it the same name as before. It creates unnecessary confusion. Just look at the OPI MPJ debacle - really not worth anybody's while!!!

Oh by the way: the blue polish is Southwark from nails inc. ;)

Stamping Saturday

I recently started on a new polish adventure - I have started stamping. I was fascinated by it when I first got back into nail polish in 2009 but it wasn't until I purchased some Essence and Dashica plates last year that I gave it a try - and what horrible tries they were, two of them are featured in my 52 Week Challenge, you can see them here and here. And today I totally blame the stamper that came with the Essence plate. Which was absolutely useless. See, I also bought an XL stamper when I did my plate shopping at Dashica - and for some unexplainable reason I didn't use it.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to give stamping another chance after I'd been told how big a difference the XL stamper makes. And I have to say it really does make a difference, the images transfers more clearly and it is just easier to handle than a regular stamper.

Well onto my first stamping experience since those fatal stamps last year.

I wanted my two Enigma colours to last a little longer so they got stamped with some beautiful Dashica designs.
 
Here is delightful Ambrosia:

This design is large so I've only got a very small part of it stamped on my nail. And that is the great thing about Dashica's XL plates, they have a mix of big and small designs, so whether your nails are small or large you'll get something to match their size. This plate is Dashica XL Spd 35.

I used Essence Stamp Me Silver!! for this stamp

And on to the awesome Divinity:

 This design is from the Dashica XL SdP plate 32

I stamped with BarryM Watermelon Gelly - the Gellies are great for stamping!

 I've got tiny nails, so as you can see some designs just doesn't fit - but I do them anyway when they are as pretty as this.

I am so gonna continue stamping, it is really great for us nail art challenged polish fans :D

Challenge Week 7: Valentines Day nails

I am really late with this post due to different technical issues with cameras and what not. And then the girls needed some Mommy Time - and that has to take priority in my busy life :D

So I am not that in to Valentines Day which is mainly because it was never done in Denmark until 10 years or so ago. Suddenly it seamed florists, jewellers, chocolate manufactures and other businesses that could gain from this thought that we should fill their pockets on february 14th.

To me we should all celebrate our loved ones during the whole year instead of just remember it on one specific day. I'd rather have a daily kiss all year around than a bunch of flowers, or a ring, or chocolate on one day...you get my drift.

Now off the soap box and on to the nails. They aren't anything elaborate since I was using this challenge as a training session in both stamping and dotting tool skills. But I still need A LOT of practice but I am hanging in there and actually have fun every time I do a new challenge.

I used the following colours:
nails inc.: Devonshire Row
nails inc.: Oxford Circus
Kleancolor: Twinkly Hearts
Essence: Stamp Me!! Silver

Since I did the nail art on my right hand(I am a lefty ;)) I had to have my girls help me take the pictures. And they did PRETTY well I think :D

Unfortunately Oxford Circus didn't stamp as well as I expected, it is a seriously opaque colour for such a  light pink, but still the stamped heart on my middle finger ended as a big fail. The lips were a fail as well, but that is due to my stamping technique, which still leaves a lot to be desired, haha.

Devonshire Row is the most gorgeous dark pink-purple EVER.

A close up of my thumb since you can't see the details in the other picture. The silver dots are made with the Essence silver stamp colour.

These hearts were made solely with a dotting tool - and it is my first attempt.

The hearts on my ring finger are from Kleancolor Twinkly Hearts, a annoyingly gloopy polish that could be awesome but isn't, you really have to pick out the hearts and put them on the nail, 'cause they ain't going on the nail when you apply the polish.

So this was my Valentines Day manicure, hope you liked what you saw :D