Essie's Shine of The Times dupe comparison

Something I've been meaning to do for awhile is swatch polishes that are very close in similarity to the ever popular Shine of the Times by Essie. If you hadn't heard, that polish was discontinued sadly. You can still order it online here and there, but it's becoming more difficult to find.

I also got my old camera going, and boy is there a difference in quality of pictures! I missed it.

I used the following:

• Maybelline ~ Onyx Rush
• Essie ~ Shine of the Times
• Color Club ~ Snow Flakes
• ELF ~ Fairy Dust
• Sally Girl - unnamed?

I threw the Sally Girl in there for the hell of it, because it'd look weird to only swatch polishes on 3 out of 4 main fingers. (Excluding the thumb.) It's similar  though it doesn't have any orange tint to it. Just blue mostly, and it's tiny flecks.

As you can tell, Essie is still the winner by far. Application was the best, one semi thick glossy coat and you're good to go. No struggle, no gloop, little mess. It pretty much applies itself!

Color Club comes in second place, good application, though you don't get as many flecks compared to Essie's. You could probably get the same amount if you wanted to do two coats.

ELF was pretty crappy to be honest, it applied okay but it has a funny smell. It looks so watered down compared to the others that I don't think it's really worth the $1 unless you want many many goopy stinky coats of it.

And the last one I threw in, the tiny Sally Girl, I would actually rank it above the ELF polish though it's not a dupe for SOTT (Shine of the Times!) at all.

I got some more pictures of them as well, so check out the rest of them below!

White with flakies and green snowflake accent - snowflake tutorial

I used several different flakies for this! (Read: A lot.) I sorta collect flakies. And was mostly playing around with making a snowflake tutorial; I didn't expect to compliment the snowflake middle finger with white. I love how subtle the flakies are over white, it really goes with the snowflake.

I also cut my thumb nails they were starting to bend when I went to bed and as I slept. :/

But anyway! On to the tutorial!

Here are the polishes I used... there was a few fingers where I put a similar polish on top because the effect wasn't as strong as I wanted it. (IE: I combined the some what crappy ELF flakie with the Color Club Snow Flakes.)

• Pure Ice white
• Thumb: Studio M: Covered in Diamonds
• Pointer: Novelty snowman flakie
• Midde: CQ'sCobalt again with China Glaze SnowGlobe and random white striping brush
• Ring: ELF flakie with Color Club snow flakes on top (much better with CC)
• Pinky: Candie's White Noise

Maan. This is going to be ~fun~ to remove! Haha. I did use a striping brush entirely for the snowflake, which is why the polish looks kinda thick-ish.

The only polishes you need for the snowflake alone are a white striping brush, a holographic glitter, and a green base if that's the route you want to take. I'm including the other polishes since I put a ton of flakies on the others.

1. Start by removing old polish, letting dry, and applying your base coat. I use Orly's Bonder. Then apply one or two coats of your base color. I'm using CQ - Cobalt which is a dark-ish green. It needed 2 coats to not be streaky.

2. Let dry a bit. I usually apply a top coat after a few minutes, just for extra insurance on chipping and such. Not to mention, at this point I usually forget I had to pee and i go do that after it's mostly dry. After that, put on two layers of the glitter you want to use. I used China Glaze's Snow Globe. Any glitter that's not too large and not TOO distracting will work. You still want the snowflake to show up. :) (I contemplated using Finger Paint's Santa's Magic but it's wayyy too much, I think, not to mention it's silver--white wouldn't show up as well!)

3. Glitters usually dry relatively fast so no need for top coat, just wait a few minutes. Next, take your white striping brush and apply three lines like so.

4. Ok. Next... you're wanting to make V shapes coming really near the top. You still want to leave a portion of the top poking out. I've seen designs of snowflakes with multiple "V"'s on each "branch" if you will, but I messed it up multiple times trying that. :/ Maybe it's because my striping brush polish is a bit on the thick side. (All of them are -_-)

5. Finish the V's on all 3 branches. Take your striping brush and make a circle (half circle actually) on the bottom of the branches. Fill it in with the polish.With the striping polish, because it's thick, give it a few minutes to make sure it dries properly before applying top coat or you'll smudge it. ALSO. On the original photo I posted, I made little dots at the very top of the branches. It's another way to design snowflakes, but I didn't like it. Would have turned out better if I had a finer tipped brush, I think. Top coat usually smooths it out, too and makes the snowflake white not look as thick and bumpy.

Clean it up and bam, relatively easy snowflake tutorial! :)

And just because I hate to make a second post on the same mani, here is what I did with the rest of it (I was originally just going to do one finger.)

CURSED HAIR!!!! *FLAIL*
1. Novelty snowman
2. CQ Cobalt, China Glaze Snowglobe, striping polish in white
3. ELF polish below Color Club SnowFlakes
4. Candie's White Noise

This is Studio M Covered in Diamonds.

My FA at a cloud mani

Base: China Glaze - Pelican Gray
Edge of cloud: Sinful Colors - Gorgeous
Black: Sinful Colors - ?? (name sticker peeled off!)
Flakies on top of black: Nfu - #40

I hated this before I put a top coat on it. I'm pretty sure it's because I usually don't like shimmers, and the top of the clouds (the blue green) was a Sinful Colors shimmer one I have't touched in the year+ i've had it. But it's grown on me a lot and i'm disappointed at the way the gray polish applied. It was China Glaze's Pelican Gray (i think something nail related may have accidentally mixed with it--my biggest fear), and for some reason it just did not want to apply right. Oh well. I used a Nfu green/blue flakie on top of the black Sinful Colors. One of my goals is to get better lighting so I should have better swatch photos at some point. Whenever I get a desk lamp going. Which may be a bit but it would be sooo nice not to have dulled down photos just because of my crap indoor lighting!!

Like I said, this grew on me. But I went to bed with my nails like 90% dry, so I have a few smears and my nails have gotten much longer than they look--you get tip wear a heck of a lot faster which sucks. I think I did ok though. I wish some of the nails came out a little more round-ish, but no real complaints besides wishing I used different colors.

China Glaze Traffic Jam with Candie's White Noise

I was very intrigued when I seen Candie's White Noise in Khol's. Heck, I'm always intrigued by flakie glitters especially by uncommon brands. So I got it. I had a coupon as well, combined with the two t-shirts I got, this polish was essentially free. Original price is $8. I'm not sure I would buy any others from that brand at that price, but there was another glitter I may go back and get eventually.

It's a very very pretty bar glitter. Application was easy but my nails got tip wear faster just slightly easier, even though Traffic Jam doesn't usually get tip wear/minor chips that easily when worn alone.

As I sit here and put labels on my blog post, I suppose it's not so much holographic and more of a flakie. So I worded that a bit wrong but you get the idea. It's more of a blue green bar flakie really.

I wish I had gotten more decent pictures of it, but at least I got some of the bottle this time, heh. I like that there is also little tiny micro glitters in with it as well. :)

Brown with Gold stripes + white hearts and Zoya's Limited Edition 18K gilty

Love this. I had no idea where I was going with it, it started off as testing my new gold polish I got from a $1.89 Walgreens sale. (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure brand.) Thought it was too light for my taste, so I thought it was the perfect time to try my striping tape I ordered. Sooo. I added Essie's Little Brown Dress on top of it after applying the tape. In the process of doing this, I smudged the lines a little and I'm a perfectionist. Sooo. I added little white hearts using my white nail polish striper. Thank god for stripers! Heh.

The next day after I had done this mani, my pre order of Zoya's Gilty Pleasures 18K gold flake top coat came in. Perfect timing, as it goes very well with the mani I had did. Of course I had to use it, ended up putting it on my accent thumbs. :-)

Sorry bout the tip wear. I hate Essie polish, it tends to chip fast for me.
Must be a weak formula. :(

Broken glass manicure

Ahhh i loved this so much. The biggest downside was that it was hard to clean up properly around the cuticles because the black polish I have is super thick, not to mention the clear base the flakies come in are usually fairly gooey as well. I still liked this manicure a lot though. I LOVED how much all the flakes stood out against the black color. I was doing it MAINLY to swatch what I do have, but yeah.

Here is the "swatches" if you will, compared on top of black polish with the names of the polish under the photos.

Essie's Shine of the Times + Nfu #40 flakie combined.
This one changed colors--a lot. Different lighting did different
things, which is pretty cool.

Tokidoki - Sandy

Studio M - Covered in Diamonds
Not the best picture of it, and it's a bit bubbly
because it's REALLY FRICKEN THICK POLISH.

lol cat hair. my thumb, which had Essie and Nfu.
Shows the changing flakes better.

Slight crap lighting. Lol at the little flake on my middle finger, I had to file it off.

There we go!