Growing out... 22 days of mani's and growing

So as I was writing, I'm growing my nails out. It's been going on for 3 weeks and I'm so impatient with them! I don't want them to get super long, but I kinda wanna see how long they'll get before they give in and then find a more permanent length. I figure that if I let them grow for another 4 weeks I'll have them at my ideal length.

 So here they are at day 1 with Essie's Maximillian Strasse Her from the spring collection. I really love this color although I would like it a little brighter. This was an easy 2 coater, finished off with Essie Good To Go.

Ok, so I did a lot of mani's lately, ok? Here we have day 2 and 3 coats of Essie Spaghetti Strap, one of my favorite naturals. Application isn't that great though as it was streaky. Again Essie GTG on top.

 Day 6 and Essie Go Ginza, also from the spring. It reminds me of a more lilac version of Fiji which I really love. 2 coats could have done the job but 3's such a magic number. Felt like the formula got a little sticky/lumpy towards the end though....

 Day 9, Essie Fifth Avenue. What a great bright red, not too much orange, not too dark. Great coverage. Mmmm.  Feel like Essie does a lot of very very similar (almost indistinguishable) bright reds like this one. Ie Snap Happy from Winter 2012.

 Day 13, sporting Essie's Fiji! A classic. I can imagine myself wearing this in Fiji. (Yeah, that's what we call marketing I guess). Also has great coverage. At this point I have really worked the nail file (I use a glass file, I think it really help protect my nails) for the square shape. I love the square shape because I think it gives such a clean, crisp look that is easy to maintain.

On Day 15 (it was a Monday!) I felt like doing a french mani. Used Essie Blanc and the Essie protein base coat (think it was discontinued?) and a top coat and that's it. I still haven't figured how to do nice french mani's with anything than this basecoat as I do the white tips first and then paint over with the base coat - it gives the nail a nice, natural color (my nails a little stained but it still looks acceptable) without discoloring the white tips. Do I need to get started on some tape? Ugh.

 Day 17. Here's my new favorite red, a real classic: OPI's Big Apple Red. As mentioned previously OPI is wildly expensive. My first investment in OPI was therefore the Best Of set with 10 colors which was a great buy at 'only' 50 francs! I really really love the OPI formulas, I will be buying a lot of OPI when I make it back to the US in a couple of months.

 Day 20. Essie's Where's My Chauffeur? which I recently bought on sale from the winter collection. In the bottle it looks much more similar to Turqoise & Caicos than it is - it has way more blue and is somehow more muted - and much less jelly than T&C which I usually put on 3-4 coats of. It was very pretty, but I just happened to stumble upon an OPI sale later the same day...

 Day 20 - yes, I did my nails twice in one day. Shhh, don't tell. But it was so worth it: OPI's On Her Majesty's Secret Service from the Skyfall collection was on sale and completely blew me away. This is such a refined gorgeous glittery shade I couldn't stop looking at my nails. I will wear this one a lot, I just know. It's a grey-ish smokey shade altogether but the base is a not so overwhelming grey-blue jelly packed with tiny glitter in many colors. It has a little bit of blue, green and silver, gold ish. Sorry, I'm just babbling, I'm sure there are much better descriptions of this color out there, not to mention swatches. None the less: I completely loved this color.

Day 22. So this is taken today wearing OPI Lincoln Park after Dark. My fingers are kind of at an angle that doesn't allow complete view of their true length, but I think the difference comes across - my nails grew and didn't break. :-)