Manicure Monday: Urban Jungle

When I had a massive tidy up of my nail polish collection a few months ago it turns out I threw away most of my autumn/winter shades. Booo. The only non-pastel shades I have are various shades of red (all of which are practically the same…) and a couple of greys, which is extremely annoying! Despite my best efforts to save money at the moment, I'm going to have to invest in some deeper reds and purples over the next few months - any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

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!