Essie Shearling Darling winter rose nails

Hey everyone! Do you remember a few weeks back when I was participating in a holiday nail art contest held by nailpolishcanada.com ? Well, thanks to all of your votes I won week 2 for my holiday underside mani!  Thank you so much to all my readers and also to Nail Polish Canada for the sweet prize pack!  I never won a nail contest before!! Here’s what they mailed me…

2 Enchanted Nail Polish – Hello New York & The Youth
Butter London 2 pc Double Take Ice Duo – Bluecoat Lacquer & Leccy Topcoat
China Glaze 3 pc Dash Of Dazzle Set
Zoya 6 pc Zenith Collection
Essie 6 pc Shearling Darling (Winter 2013) Collection
OPI 10 pc Take Ten Mini Set

I’d like to show you my Essie pics first since that was the collection that I’m really excited about. For today’s manicure I used the following four polishes from the Essie Winter 2013 Shearling Darling collection: Mind Your Mittens, Warm & Toasty Turtleneck, Shearling Darling, and Parka Perfect.

Prior to this prize pack,  I only owned two bottles of Essie so getting the entire 6 piece winter 2013 Shearling Darling collection was really fun for me!  I wanted to do some nail art that incorporated all 6 colors but that manicure didn’t turn out very blog-worthy.  It was good for me to test out those polishes though- to see which ones are opaque enough for some nail stamping, and also to practice with the Essie brush.  I’m not used to applying Essie so the combination of the runny formula and the skinny brush kinda threw me for a loop.  The first mani came out really messy but I think I got the hang of it by the second manicure.  Slow, thin coats did the trick.  Here are the final blog-worthy nails:

For these nails I used the above-mentioned four polishes along with my MoYou London Pro Plate 04 for a romantic rosebud pattern.  It’s funny, it looks like I used one design for all my nails, but I actually used two different designs: one stamp imprints the roses, and the other stamp imprints color OUTSIDE the roses.  For the maroon nails it may appear like I stamped light colored roses over top of the dark color.  But really, the nail is painted the lighter color, and then I stamped the dark maroon over top.  This worked out well since dark colors stamp much better than light colors, but I still get the effect of light colored roses.  Does that explanation even make sense ? I hope someone out there sees what I mean. LOL

Do you notice how these nails coordinate with my blog-header?  That must be why I like them so much!  I’d also like to add that I’m happy to have 400% more Essies in my stash now!  Thanks nailpolishcanada- this collection is so warm and luscious!

Do you girls own any of this winter collection?