Essie Encrusted Treasures "On a Silver Platter" = Hanukkah Nails

My body has a way of knowing the precise moment that I've gone on vacation, and will seek out the perfect illness for the occasion. How thoughtful. I realize that it's more likely that I'm exposing myself to new people/places, and more importantly MORE people/places, so my chances of getting sick increase exponentially, but it's funner for me to think that my immune system takes a little break whenever I do. I pretend it's like that one part in The Simpsons when Bart wills his antibodies to stand down so he won't have to go to school, except my immune system is a total dick and only does it when I want to have a good time.

I was out and about in the adult human world this past week, and as my last manicure chipped, I realized I'd need to repolish mid-trip. This coincided with a traditional vacation cold. My husband's family does not drink during family functions, so this illness proved to be the perfect cover. I had to get all jacked up on cold medication to avoid nose-dripping into Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of slurring my way through the holiday, I quietly melted into it. It was lovely.

Snot-ragging it like a boss.

I have to admit, the crusty, rough textured nail polish trend that's all over the place right now kind of grosses me out. It reminds me of when you get bits crap stuck in nail polish mid-drying, then try to dig it out, which of course results in a dug-up mess, except with this stuff, it's like you went to the beach and rubbed your fresh manicure in the sand. It's basically a "yeah, I'm terrible at painting nails and I don't care" manicure.

Essie's "Encrusted Treasures" Collection is apparently made up entirely of this sandy polish stuff, but this one ("On a Silver Platter") is particularly intriguing to me. It looks like crinkled foil, which I didn't think I'd like, but it turns out I actually LOVE it. The color is a really cool cross between gold and silver manifested in a superfine/superdense glitter, with bits of differently sized cobalt blue glitter mixed in. So yes, it's rough to the touch, but my fingers look like friggin' nugs of gold.

Hanukkah* gold.

I chose "On a Silver Platter" on a whim, but the textured angle proved to be perfect for me. You can polish your nails in a hurry (2 coats will do you) and muck it up all you want because it's already a sloppy mess. It chips fairly easily, but a) it's not super obvious because of the color -and- b) because it's textured, you can repair chips seamlessly. I suspect a base coat would help, but I'll never know because base coats are for women who aren't sloppy messes.

Essie's "On a Silver Platter" = a solid 5 pennies. I highly recommend it.