Christmas Manicure: Julep Leighton and Vanessa

Christmas manicure time! I know I'm behind (perpetually), but since it's technically the 6th day of Christmas today, I'm not that far off. In my family, probably one of the most important parts of Christmas is just being with each other, in addition to church, food, and of course gifts. We draw from the Scandinavian side of our heritage and so Christmas Eve is a big deal-- we have a big meal and open presents and then go to church. Of course, we pretty much do the same thing again on Christmas Day (except for the church part-- we like to spend the whole day in pajamas). I wore the same plum colored dress I wore to a wedding in October (we had a huge debate as to what the actual color of the dress was, though I am currently forgetting what we decided on). Here's the mostly final look:

Since it was Christmas, I decided to go with a silvery manicure to match my jewelry and the wintery feel of the season (as opposed to when I wore it in the fall, which was more gold/bronze). To do this I decided to use Julep Leighton and Vanessa, which I had just bought during one of Julep's sales as part of the "Silver Belles" collection, along with a dark charcoal grey shimmer, Kim.

Leighton is a basically a liquid silver polish. Julep, in fact, describes it as a "pure liquid silver will have you shine at any holiday party." Vanessa is round multi-color iridescent glitter in a clear base. Unfortunately, I had issues with both these polishes. Leighton is decently pigmented, but like many metallic polishes, it's easy to see the brush strokes in the polish, especially if you have too much polish on your brush. I felt like I had a lot of difficulty controlling this polish-- I either got too much on my brush or too little and I couldn't get either one consistently. You only need about 2-3 coats, depending on how thick of a coat you use, but I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration while applying this polish.

Sadly, Vanessa was also a pain in the butt work with. Gorgeous, yes, but the formula was extremely thick and almost gluey. Yuck! I'm also fairly certain it started to eat away at Leighton when I layered it, which is annoying. However, I can't tell if it actually ate away at the base polish, or if it's just glitter sitting on the polish that hasn't caught the light and so just looks flat. Since Vanessa is such a thick glitter, it eats top coat and you'll need at least two layers of top coats to give this a smooth, glossy finish. 

I used the Julep base coat and Essie Good to Go top coat.

First up, I've got Leighton by herself.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light:

And then Vanessa layered over Leighton.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light:

I was really enamored with the idea of this manicure, so I'm sad that the polishes I decided to use were so frustrating. Boo! I think it looks alright, but it was annoying that there seem to be pits in base color, even if maybe there weren't actually. I have the feeling this might look better over the other polish I received in this set, Kim, which is a darker grey. When I swatch Kim, I will try again with Vanessa. I'm not giving up yet! In hindsight, this manicure also seems maybe a little more like a New Year's Eve manicure, but I still think it's pretty-- for either holiday!