I won a giveaway at Gnarly Gnails a while back, and the prize was five Enkelini minis. Here are three of them – check out Polish or Perish tomorrow for the other two!
Enkelini is the brainchild of Pat Ashton – you can read an interview with her here, and grab polishes from her Etsy store here. Trust me, you’ll want to click through – the polishes I received are AMAZING (and 3-free).
Cottage Garden (glossy then matte):
Cottage Garden is probably my favourite of the bunch – little green, yellow, pink (light and dark) and purple matte hexes, along with green and yellow glitter dust. In the bottle it looks like a hot mess (I almost didn’t pick it!), but when layered over a creme – gorgeous. Because of the tiny glitter, it’s very easy to work with. This is over Rimmel Green Grass, to keep with the garden theme, and yes, it does look like a field dotted with little wildflowers! So pretty. I prefer this one glossy, and I can see this working beautifully over a lot of pastels! I’m going to try light blue next. A lot of people asked me about this polish when I wore it, and it even got the rare boyfriend seal of approval!
Purdee (2 coats alone on index and middle fingers, two coats over black on the rest):
Purdee is a mix of pink hexes and squares, green hexes and dust, and white hexes and squares in a pearly green shimmer base. I’m not a big fan of this one – the shimmer covers the glitters too much for my liking.
Pink Tie Ball (glossy then matte):
Pink Tie Ball is black and white matte glitter with a twist: there’s also shiny pink glitter in there! It’s a great mix of glitters: big hexes (pink and black), little hexes (black, white and pink), squares (pink), and bars (pink and white). The bar glitter, as always, likes to curl up, and this is definitely a “dabbing” polish. I would’ve liked less pink and more B&W, but that’s a personal preference and nothing a coat of Zebration won’t fix. This is over OPI Skull and Glossbones – I’m not sure if I prefer it matte or glossy!
I wore all of these over Essence Peel Off Base, a PVA basecoat. I’ve been surprised by how well it holds up – it lasts as long as Orly Bonder. The only problem is that sometimes it doesn’t come off so easily. Wedging a cuticle pusher in between the nail and the polish helps, as does removal after a warm shower (but be carefully because water softens your nails as well as the PVA).
Overall, the Enkelini polishes I received exceeded my expectations by, well, a lot! I don’t own many indies, and these glitterbombs were well-formulated, with a great mix of glitter. There’s definitely no skimping on variety! As well as glitterbombs, Enkelini also has a range of linear holos, multichromes and multichrome glitters (the same glitters as in the now discontinued Ozotics). Pat has recently reopened her store with a lot of new polishes – a lot of them have definitely joined my rapidly-growing wishlist 🙂
These polishes were won in a giveaway. Most Enkelini polishes are $5 USD for a 5 mL mini and $8 USD for a full-sized 15 mL (holos and multichrome glitters are a bit more), and can be purchased here.
Nice glitters- I’d pick Cotton garden and Pink Tie Ball, both lovely over your bases!
I’ve now tried with/without basecoat with Peel Off Base; while I love the ease of glitter removal, I risk peeling some of my top nail plate (towards the tip)…
Yeah, PVA isn’t so good for frequent use by those with very fragile nails! It’s great if you only wear glitter once or twice a month though.
They are beautiful, Cotton Garden is my favorite too, but Pink Tie Ball is very nice too!
Yes, they’re soooo pretty! Matte glitter is definitely my kind of thing!
Cotton Garden is so freaking adorable! I love the name and the combination you did. Pink Tie Ball is pretty cute too, love grey and pink combos. I heavily dislike Purdee…frosts with glitter should be banned.
*Cottage
Oh I love Pink Tie Ball! Also, Enkelini makes a Clarins 230 Dupe! 🙂
Yes! I actually have some Clarins 230 pigment just sitting around, it makes me feel guilty cos I haven’t even tried it out yet, since I have Fantasy Fire 🙁
glad you are liking them! cottage garden looks gorgeous with that base color!
Thank you so much for your giveaway! I want everything from her store now… sorry wallet!
Really love cottage garden, especially the way you layered it!
It’s go pretty! Grass green was the obvious first choice, but I want to try it over every other pastel I have 🙂
I love the layering combination you used for Cottage Garden! 🙂