Product review: Essie matte nail polish

Okay, so I don't do this very often, but every once in a while I find a product that I really love, so I decide to share it with you. Today I'm talking about Essie's matte topcoat. (Later this month, we're gonna be talking lip stain. Woohoo!) Anyway, I realize I'm a little late on the matte nail trend, but better late than never, right? Right.

So you can buy actual matte nail polish in a variety of colors, but I say, why limit yourself when you can buy the topcoat and make EVERY nail color you own a matte color? The Essie topcoat is called "Matte About You." I think you can probably buy it in drugstores, but I got mine on Amazon for about $6. And I can tell already that I'm going to go through it fast. Here's what it looks like over OPI's "Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine!":


I love how smoky and sultry it is! And it makes my nails feel silky smooth. A coworker suggested I try it over hot pink, so I grabbed a suuuuper old Wet & Wild shade I had lying around:


Also pretty rad. Now, let's break it down:

The Pros
- It. Looks. Awesome!
- It dries super fast.
- A little bit goes a long way, so even if I'm constantly using this, the bottle should last a decent amount of time.

The Cons
- It's prone to chip. A friend suggested a workaround, but...
- It's time-consuming. So I basically have to paint a base coat, two color coats (although looking at those pink nails I think three would have been better), a clear topcoat, then the matte topcoat. And then every other day, I reapply the top coat. (Otherwise, the matte rubs off and the color gets glossy again.) This protects takes forever, because you have to let each coat dry. And adding extra layers on top means the polish gets pretty thick. But with this method, I can get chip-free matte nails for about a week.

The Verdict
Yes, there are a few minor inconveniences to this matte topcoat. But honestly, I'm thinking they'd apply to any matte topcoat, and overall, the end result is just too cool to pass on. I give it two matte thumb(nail)s up!

Please note that I was not paid, perked or otherwise compensated to do this review. Essie did not ask me to write it. I just really like this polish and wanted to share it with you all!

Aimless and wandering

Wearing: Minted by Revlon and Mink Muffs by Essie
I don't usually do posts that are just about my nails, because I rarely do more than just a solid color or a solid color with another solid color party nail...but I got a lot of compliments on this mani, and I didn't have another outfit post lined up, so here you go. I guess I was kind of craving mint chocolate chip ice cream when I did this style :)

In other news, I've been feeling kind of restless and weird lately, with a healthy dose of "life is awesome" thrown in to keep things from getting too depressing boring. It's been unseasonably cool around here lately, which is a welcome break from the hottest summer on record for our area, but it also kind of bums me out because that means fall, and then winter, is approaching. Winter is just the worst, if you ask me.


Anyway. I got off on a weird tangent today. I think it's because I shared a much-needed bottle of wine and some equally-needed tough love with my friend Allory tonight. Those three things — wine, tough love, Allory — in combination tend ot put me in weird, but good, introspective funks.

Introducing...the kitty's name!

You ever have one of those mornings where you wake up exhausted, despite a full 9 hours' sleep, and you contemplate using a sick day except the magazine goes to the printer the day after tomorrow and it's nowhere near ready so you pretty much have to be at work so you drag yourself out of bed into the shower and some clean clothes take some groggy outfit photos and prepare to head out the door sans coffee because your doctor says you reallyshouldn'tdrinkthatstuffanymore--

{deep breath in}

No? Just me? Okay, here's a funny cat video compilation instead. It pretty much explains why we named our kitten Spazcat McGilicutty (Spazzy for short).

Spazcat McGilicutty from Emma Frankart on Vimeo.

Now imagine those antics every evening and half of the night. I blame myself. I accidentally only bought toys with catnip in them. And apparently her scratch thing has catnip in it too. So she's pretty much constantly tweaked out. Sorry, Spazzy.

And for those of you who aren't cat people (what?!), here's my most recent mani:

I'm wearing Sand Tropez by Essie as my base color, with Blue Slushie by Opi for Sephora (the Glee line) and some neon orange that I've had for years and years.