Case Study

Raw Umber nail polish!  Genius!

Essie Case Study

The second polish from the fall Brand New Bag collection.  Formula was Essie-like.  Which is to say, perfect.  I am totally digging this color,  because while it's fairly common in tubes of paint, I really haven't seen much like it in nail polish.

But of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  After I got a bit of tip wear (from ironing!) I added on a layer of Urban Outfitters Dust:

Dust is a silver large and small glitter in a translucent blue base.  I really like the glitter, but I'm not so crazy about how the blue looks over the umber.  I'm interested to try this one over a pale grey or lavender.  The color is more pronounced on my ring finger because I did two coats of Dust there, trying to cover up the worst of the tip wear!

Sunday

I had really intended to do more posts about the things we've been doing with our niece and nephew, but time has just been slipping away from me.  But yesterday we went out to the Morton Arboretum for a really cool event:  a Theatre-Hike!  The idea is that each scene of the play is performed in a different place, and the audience hikes from scene to scene.  So fun!  We saw The Wizard of Oz, which was a low-impact hike - perfect for our niece as she's not too fond of walking.  Or deep nature, as it turns out!  This play was done in two adjacent grassy meadows.

The Scarecrow, Dorothy and Toto

The Wizard, The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man,
Dorothy and Toto, and the Scarecrow

I'm hoping to go back in October for Night of the Living Dead!

On Saturday we ended up doing some errands after my niece's swimming lesson.  We ended up on Diversey Ave. and Hubby insisted we go into Urban Outfitters!  So weird!  I didn't know he even knew what Urban Outfitters is, but apparently he did! He wanted to look at the kitschy gifts.  But of course, my niece and I ended up at the nail polish display, and came home with these:

So last night we decided to try out the pinkish one, Afterhours.  We started with an 'underwear' coat of Essie Lion Around, and then one coat of Afterhours for her on her toes, and two coats for me on my fingers.

Urban Outfitters Afterhours over Essie Lion Around

So pretty and sparkly, but I know I'm going to rue the day I ever saw this when it comes time to take it off.  I put on 2 coats of topcoat, and it is still bumpy.  The formula was really thick and even after just one coat, you couldn't really see the Essie underneath, so I wouldn't call this a layering polish.  Two coats just made the color a little darker and gave some more depth to the glitter.

After our nails were dry, my niece said, "I'm really glad we bought this!"