Mint Manicure for Talia Joy Castellano

I'm a couple of days late to this because I wasn't aware of Talia Joy's struggle with cancer until Friday night and wasn't able to pick up a mint polish until last night.  I'm really sorry I didn't learn about her until after her fight was over, but I thought about her all weekend long.  13 year old Talia struggled with cancer- preleukemia and neuroblastoma, to be exact- for half of her life, but managed to maintain her sense of humor and charm throughout it all and posted many lovely makeup tutorials on Youtube.  She also loved having her nails painted and the last photo she shared on Instagram was of her, her mom, and sister all with matching mint colored nails.  You can read about her here.

While the death of any person (especially a young person) is saddening, Talia's death hits close to home for me.  My childhood best friend had leukemia 3 times: for the first time when she was 6, then she relapsed again at ages 8 and 12.  Thankfully (and somewhat miraculously!), she survived it all 3 times, but just barely.  Seeing firsthand the effect of cancer on her life and how she suffered and the vortex of emotions and fears surrounding it all had an profound impact on me and childhood cancer is an issue that's close to my heart.

For Talia, I painted everything but my ring finger with Essence brand Grunge Me Tender polish and used Different Dimension brand I Will Follow You Into The Dark for the accent nail.  Grunge Me Tender is a really pretty shade of pale, minty green with an understated shimmer and a slightly matte (satin?) finish.  It has a nice formula but was fairly streaky, even a little bit after 3 coats, though not too bad.  If I hadn't been painting my nails at 2 am they probably would have turned out better!  There were also a few teeny tiny specks of something gritty in it that showed up on a couple of nails.  Issues aside, I do quite like the polish and am happy I purchased it, especially since it was only $4.  I topped my nails off with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, so the Grunge Me Tender is a bit shinier than how it looks on its own.

I Will Follow You Into The Dark is really nice.  It's a dark gray metallic looking polish with a nice formula and was opaque after 3 coats.  Easy to apply and no problems with streakiness.  I did overdo it a smidgen with the last coat on the finger in this photo, but it still looks decent and is perfect on the other hand!  Can't wait to use it more.

 

 

Overall, I quite like how the two polishes look together and think of Talia every time I look at them.