Blue and White Paisley

Now is the time when all the major and indie polish makers are releasing absolutely gorgeous winter and Christmas collections. Being the utterly broke fool that I am, this only leads to hours of browsing through teaser photos and swatches, while I sigh heavily at all the pretties I'm missing.

One of the collections that has just been released (and I'm finding myself lusting over several of the shades) is Essie's Winter 2012 collection.

Glistening glitter, bright blues, and rich reds just screams winter to me. Fresh snow, icicles, and cranberries are a few things that came to mind when I first saw the shots of this collection. One shade in particular that I think is SO beautiful is the rich blue "Butler Please." Pretty quickly, I realized this shade looked very similar to a polish I already owned, Sally Hansen "Pacific Blue." Yay dupes! Since I don't own "Butler Please" I can't do a dupe comparison, but I found a great one by Ooh La La Polish!

ANYWAY, lots of rambling and now I'm finally to my mani. I started with two coats of "Pacific Blue" as my base. Blue seems like a weird nail polish color to rock, but for some reason I'm always drawn to it!

On top of that, I stamped on a design from Bundle Monster plate BM-315 and some white Sally Hansen polish. It's finished with a coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash. I love how delicate this paisley stamp is! In addition, I'm super impressed with the quality of the latest Bundle Monster plates. I was so worried that I would have a crazy hard time getting this design to fully transfer to my stamper, but I had zero problems. I think next time I'll try alternating the direction of the stamp to give my fingers more of a varied look.

BONUS: It almost matches the paint in my bathroom! ;D

As always, thanks for reading! And let me know in the comments... What is your favorite blue polish?