Essie, St. Lucia Lilac

I have a confession to make: I really like Essie.

I know, I know: Essie is a gigantic sheer pink + red junkie and never brings out anything interesting, or original. But I like Essie just the same. The formula is great and never does anything funky, and the brush is ideal for me to work with, for some reason: I always get cleanest application with Essie (not counting RBLs, of course, cause that just ain't fair).

Anyway, Lucia Lilac was a surprising buy for me. Yeah, I like colors, but I'm not really a pastel person. Too girly? Virginal? I'm not sure. I like my moodies--they go better with my clothes. But anyway, I liked the way Lilac looked on the shelf and a friend pursuaded me to take it along with another polish. So I did, and I really like the way it looks on me.

Indoors: these never come out well, for some reason, but it is truest to the color. At least, this is what it looks like on me most of the time.
Sunlight.
Shade.

Lucia is a two-coater. I have, again, no application issues with Essie, but I found the formula surprisingly thin and watery. Again, this doesn't bother me too much since it seems to translate into fast drying time, and it's still opaque enough by the second coat for the wateriness to be fine.

I have to be honest: the first two times I wore this color, I was sort of unsure about it. I thought the same things I usually think about pastels: too girly, too old lady, too--something, anyway, for me to wear.

Right now, I'm loving it. I think it's a sweet and lovely color, unexpected but still highly traditional--by that, what I mean is that it's close enough to pink for most people not to give it a second glance, but it's still eye-catching in its way. It's the color I'd wear to meet a boyfriend's parents, maybe. Or as a surprising choice on Valentine's Day, or Easter. It'd be a sweet pop of color against a floral spring dress, or an even more surprising pop in a sea of ladylike black and dove grey. I can imagine wearing this color day in, day out during spring and winter.
Far off.
Close-up.

And of course, I was bored (which was why I changed my Nfu-Oh in the first place. That and that constantly changing my nail polish seems to keep some of my lemmings at bay. I'm at a no-buy, which is horrid because the holiday collections are BEAUTIFUL this year and I WANT THEM ALL--anyway) so I decided to dabble a bit in nail art.

That's just a decal and then some prodding with the pointy end of the orangewood stick. Pretty dang painless. The black is Zoya Raven, which I haven't even -tried- yet: it's a Zoya that I picked up during the twitter fiasco. I also picked up an Indigo, Lael, Juicy, and Envy--and promptly gave them to my friends. I don't know why. I thought I'd get too much nail polish, and that's bad for some reason? On the plus side, my friends LOVE them. (Sigh.)

My lemmings still haven't gone away, but at least I can admire my nails until they come back full-force-- and then I can paint my nails again. If I hold out till November, I'll get my nail polish exchange present!

... And I'd bought Mint Candy Apple, so there's that to look forward to, too!