Thursday, August 11, 2011

Essie Ballet Slipper

Please file this one under "Cult Favourites I Don't Get" because I don't get it.  Why it's so popular, I mean.

The colour is typical, Upper East Side Rich Girl Pale Pink, but the formulation is...
... a hot mess.  And that is a total dealbreaker for any nail polish, I don't care how beautiful the colour is.

See, Essie nail polishes tend to run on the thin side, which is frustrating to many but can work wonders for French manicures (more on this later).

Ballet Slipper was meant to be worn on the whole nail but I used to wear it all the time as a French tip colour.  It looked very natural, almost like I wasn't wearing nail polish at all, which I loved.

This trick might not work on those who are very, very fair-skinned because the colour will look pink on you, but on anyone medium-toned or darker, this colour works as a great, very soft, very natural-looking French tip colour.

I know some people who are dead set against French manicures because it looks stripper/pornstar-like, and I can see what they mean because I'm reading Jenna Jameson's autobiography right now and she sports French manicures in every shot where her nails are visible. But I have to say that French manicures only look porny if it's done on thick, fake nails. 

French manicures done on natural nails - particularly when softer tip whites are used instead of stark whites - look very classy and pretty in a timeless way.  That's why I've always loved them.

So I used to love Ballet Slipper as a French tip colour - however, the other day I decided to try it the way it was meant to be used - as a full nail colour - and was super disappointed.  See, because the formula is so runny and sheer (and Essie also doesn't self-level as well as some industry stars like OPI and China Glaze), I had to apply literally five thick coats of it to achieve a decent level of opacity.  That just will never dry, and the fact that I'm really hard on my hands doesn't help, either.  As predicted, they were completely ruined by the end of the day.

For the photos done right after my mani though, they look great!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You have a visitor from Konstanz Germany! :)