In the meantime, however, I've taken inspiration from the chill in the air and the growing Christmas excitement and used one of my favourite Essie polishes this week: Urban Jungle. The icy white reminds me of snow and practically screams 'winter', so I felt it was a November-appropriate shade, despite being in Essie's summer collection.
I've blogged this before in the summer, but it's such a favourite that I just had to use it again. It's a beautiful alabaster orchid shade with subtle pink undertones that add a real depth to the overall colour. Urban Jungle was perfect in the summer with a tan, but the cold, icy white looks brilliant in the winter too as a direct contrast to all of the deeper tones dominating the trends at the moment. Unfortunately it's out of stock in all of the places I normally buy nail varnish, but Debenhams have it, and it's (annoyingly) 10% off...
(IMAGE SOURCED FROM www.boots.com)
I love this! I'm trying out shorter, slightly squarer nails at the moment too which took forever for me to file evenly and make sure they weren't wonky! As I know I'll be doing a lot of baking in the next few weeks - and potentially a lot of work with pastry - I knew long nails are incredibly impractical, so hopefully these will be a lot more manageable. I have to admit too, I really like the shape! Product-wise, I bought the Oxygen Base from Soigné a few weeks ago and have been trying it out with the last couple of Manicure Mondays. I adore the lack of a traditional nail polish smell, and it's protecting my nails from stains wonderfully. It's in the sale at the moment for £6.50, so I'd say it's definitely worth investing in.
The formula is fantastic - Essie always achieves a neat finish in two coats. The first is always very streaky but the second leaves a glossy effect that really doesn't require a top coat (I don't have one on in the picture above). It dries quickly and is pretty hard to smudge - perfect for me!
So what do you think: do you like icy whites in the winter? Or are you a fan of more traditional shades? Let me know in the comments below!
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