GOT THOSE JANUARY BLUES

The early, still-winter months are the perfect time for wearing blue nails. Dark blue is perfect if you want to fit with the whole dark and cold atmosphere of the season, but light blue can also work very well giving the image of frost.

For ages I had been looking for the perfect navy blue, then I found my saviour in the form of Essie. Essie's After School Boy Blazer (one of my favourite things about Essie is the amazing names she comes up with for all her nail varnishes) is my first Essie shade after spending hours agonising over the perfect colour to start my collection with. Much to my dismay neither of my local Boots or Superdrug had After School Boy Blazer in stock so I ended up having to order it online and now my mother thinks I am a crazy person for being that desperate.

The one thing I was not expecting when I opened this nail varnish was the size and shape of the brush. The brush is wide and flat and gives really good coverage of your nails in about three strokes- I really hate the fact that Barry M's brushes are really small and thin and make your nails look all streaky which Essie doesn't at all (Topshop nail varnishes also have really lovely and thick brushes). The size of the brush also means that it picks up a lot of nail varnish at once and you can easily paint three nails before having to stick it back in the bottle.

The colour came out really dark and thick after just one coat so I actually didn't bother with two coats like I normally would because there was simply no need to (though it would probably last longer with two). The thing I really love about After School Boy Blazer is that it's a really, really dark navy that looks black in some lights and I have been looking for a super dark navy for so long- it's the perfect colour and actually looks the same shade as it does in the bottle which nail varnishes never normally do. I have already fallen in love with this colour after only wearing it for about 10 minutes.

My nails dried super quickly and I have high hopes that it will not chip as it just looks like a high quality polish when wearing it.
Essie is quite pricey at £7.99 but this shade is beautiful and I will definitely be buying more soon (dying for the Mint Candy Apple one); good purchase I must say.