A Month In Nail Polish: Early Spring 2014

I haven't shared any nail swatches in a while, right? Well, you might remember that in January, I decided to give my nails a break from constant polishing to see if it would help with breakage and general dryness. What resulted, however, was a little bit different from what I expected - without the extra protective layer of base coat + nail polish + top coat, some of my nails started breaking even worse! You know, kinda like when you get this tiny crack at the side of your nail that's sticking out, and then it catches on something, and before you notice half of your fingernail is GONE. Yeah, that.

So I obviously decided to stop that nonsense and went right back to painting on some pretty pretty early spring shades.

Essie Nail Color in Chinchilly, two coats. A cult classic for a reason. Chinchilly replaced a bottle of Essie Hot Coco in my collection; while Hot Coco was a bit too warm and brown on me, Chinchilly has a perfectly cool purple undertone. I accented my ring nail with a coat of Zoya Jules, a taupe with gold shimmer.

A sparkling snowy manicure for the last days of winter! This is Revlon Colorstay Nail Polish in Calla Lily (three coats), topped with one coat of Zoya Nail Lacquer in Mosheen from their Winter 2013 collection. Mosheen is such a cool shade: a very sheer light blue base with small opalescent glitters and larger light blue bar glitters. On top of the Revlon shade, it brought out some yellow undertones in my nails I wasn't overly fond of, but now I really want to try it again on top of blue or some darker shade nail polish.

And Zoya strikes again! This beautiful medium orchid purple with white gold shimmer is Zoya Nail Lacquer in Hudson (two coats) from the Spring 2014 collection. I actually won this plus one other shade in Zoya's weekly Twitter giveaway, Tune Tuesday (you can learn more about it here). I definitely recommend checking their giveaway out - it's a lot of fun, and who can say no to some new Zoya polishes?

Lastly, a quintessential warm weather shade - Essie Nail Color in In The Cab-Ana from last year's Resort collection (two coats). This medium turquoise blue (it appears lighter in my photo) was a little thick for my liking, which caused some gaps and dragging, but overall applied opaque in two coats and has lasted with just some tip wear for six days now. This is actually my first time wearing this shade and I like it a lot more than I thought I would!

What nail polish shades do you favor this time of the year?