The Nail Files - August Update

First of all, I want to get this little annoyance out of the way. I swear that I went into this open-minded. Essie is not my fave polish brand, as a lot of their colors tend to skew weirdly on my yellow skin tone and I find some of their light colors can be very streaky, but I do have a few favorites in their brand. And I know that J Crew loves Essie. After promoting Mini Shorts in their catalog and on their website, they are now actually selling 2 other shades online, and in some stores, per the website. The colors are: Eternal Optimist (spiced tea rose) and One of a Kind (poppy red kiss)

At first I was really excited – oooh, special J Crew colors. You may be wondering: where did I get the color description? From the Essie site…because both colors were part of the 6-color Spring collection. Am I the only one a little irritated by this? Am I wrong to feel a bit duped by this? The colors have been out for a while, and now they’re being hawked on the JC website. And they aren’t even the featured color all over the August catalog (which could be Mini Shorts – and oh, by the way, that has been retired – it’s no longer on the Essie site). Although, I will admit that a spiced tea rose is perfect for all the JC tea rose fans.

So given that 95% of my conversation on this blog is about JC or nail polish, I was excited to try them. Not so much anymore. If you really want to see what they look like, check out Community Nail Polish gallery – they really are a fab resource for colors IRL and I love their search function.

Next target - matte nail trend…. I’m sure you’ve all heard the buzz about matte nails for the fall. Essie has their Matte About You top coat. Orly has a matte top coat as well. OPI has an entire matte collection, taking some of their classics and reinventing them as matte. My first thought was “Sweet, I can let my nail polish get totally dull from the sunscreen buildup at the beach and I’ll be oh-so-chic and right on trend.” So I can understand the matte top coat. What I cannot get behind is the matte polish that you are supposed to use without base coat or top coat, no lotion. Seriously? Am I allowed to do dishes in the matte polish, because I don’t think hubby is going to buy the rationale that he needs to do all the dishes because it would ruin my new chic fab matte mani. Or am I just too old for this trend? I suspect that’s it. What are your thoughts?

Now, let's talk about some colors I love...

My fave polish (um, of the week) – especially for the beach – is OPI Tickle My France-y from Fall 2008. It’s a nude with some pink/gray/lilac undertones depending on light and skintone. It suits my late summer love of muted colors in prep for fall. It works with my I-swear-I-was-wearing-SPF-50-but-it-tanned-anyway skin. I honestly don’t know and seriously doubt if it would work in the dead of winter.

My other pre-beach-purchases-just-waiting-for-fall nail colors were Essie Fall 2009 Chinchilly (“granite gray”, which doesn’t even seem to be on the website) and OPI Fall 2009 Here Today Aragon-tomorrow (“wear this emerald before it says adios”). We are headed to the river next week for a few days, so I will probably wait until after that to sport the OPI Aragon shade to save my mother from having to look at it – she’s not a fan of the dark & vampy – but oh, it’s so pretty! Will definitely post that one as soon as I have it on. And I have my fab friend Sherry dispatched on a Dior polish mission today, assuming she goes to Tysons. Will report on that as well.

Now, speaking of pedis...I’m off to stick my toes in the sand.