Essie’s California Coral. One of the first corals I’ve owned, and one of my favourites. A lot of other ones tend to be too orange or pink. This one has a nice mix of everything, and it’s not so saturated or dark that it veers into one colour or another. It has kind of a strange formula – a creme-jelly hybrid? If you apply sloppily, the colour can appear patchy and darker in some areas. Best to use one thin coat followed with a thicker one to avoid that.

Essie’s A Crewed Interest, from the Spring 2012 “Navigate Her” collection (ha, get it? Accrued interest?)! It’s a light, saturated peach pastel creme. Let me just get one thing clear: I bought this mostly because of the name. I’m not usually drawn to pastels.

But I do love how the colour looks on me! Gorgeous, and makes my hands look extremely tan. The colour really pops and is incredibly pretty for spring.

I had some formula issues, as it’s rather chalky and streaky – I needed to apply three coats very gingerly. I feel like the extra effort was worth it, though. I mean, the name alone! Yes, I am obviously quite easily amused.

Essie’s Lapiz of Luxury! This is from their 2010 Resort collection. I don’t know how else to describe this but a clean, light-medium cornflower blue creme. It reminds me of one of the many shades of blue you find in Caribbean waters. It’s GORGEOUS. I had this on for a full week and didn’t even remove it because I was bored of it. It’s that gorgeous. I also got tons of compliments on the colour from complete strangers!

Application is typical Essie – dreamy creamy ease (why yes, I do appreciate rhyme and assonance, how did you know?). And because I had this on for so long, I can attest to the long wear of this particular polish. A full week and not a chip in sight. The perfect spring colour!

Essie’s Velvet Voyeur. I couldn’t ask for more in a vampy polish – this is the ideal mix of deep purple, burgundy, and brown. It applies somewhat streaky in the first coat (as most polishes do, it’s just more obvious with an ultra dark colour), but a second coat fixes everything. It also dries to a gloriously glossy finish, although I did follow with a top coat (out of habit more than anything).

I really don’t have else to say about it. It’s perfect!

Essie’s Really Red certainly fits the bill. And the name, while unimaginative, doesn’t induce cringes (which is always a plus)! This is a shimmerless, medium warm red jelly. It’s not one of those ridiculously sheer jellies though – two coats and nail lines disappear. I don’t really love medium reds on me for some reason, but this one I can get used to. Not really much to say about it. It’s a classic red, what more do you want?

Oh, the polish itself? Easy to apply. No streaks, no strange brush issues. :)

Essie Power Clutch is from their Fall 2011 collection “Brand New Bag”. I bought this thinking I needed a true slate gray creme polish to add to my collection. I was…wrong?

The official shade description calls this a “striking, deep gray-green”. I didn’t believe the description when I bought the colour. In the store, it was clearly gray. But upon closer inspection, this is certainly a gray that leans a bit to the green side. Can’t see it? It’s hard to tell in the photo, but this is definitely not a blue gray or even a true gray. Quite a unique colour, I’d say! The green doesn’t come out to say hello all the time, but when it does, it’s a pleasant surprise.

As for application, I don’t know if I bought an old bottle or what, but it was the tiniest bit too thick. The brush wasn’t able to spread itself easily and I had just had an all-round nightmare trying to apply this the first time around. A few drops of polish thinner did the trick, though, and it applied smoothly and beautifully.

The shade I snagged is Essie’s Kisses and Bises, from the Spring 2011 collection French Affair. I was actually considering buying this at full price, because the shimmers in it are beautiful. I can’t pinpoint what colour exactly, but I would describe it as pink and gold, maybe a dash of copper? The shimmer is extremely fine and suspended in a milky off-white base colour.

On its on, Kisses and Bises won’t add much colour to your nails, but it is a brilliant layering polish. I’ve shown it layered over OPI Do You Think I’m Tex-y?. As you can see, it adds such a beautiful dimension to the jelly colour underneath. There are some visible brush strokes, but it’s not noticeable at all.

I’ve also tried Kisses and Bises over a black polish, and it looks even more phenomenal. The wicked pink/gold shimmer really alters the base black colour into something very unique indeed. I will post this combination when I get a chance!

I couldn’t say no to this :( Essie’s Smooth Sailing, that is (which is part of Essie’s Summer 2011 collection “Color Me Braziliant”).

Smooth Sailing is a lavender/periwinkle blue with tiny flakes of glass-fleck glitter (again, the type that seems to sit on the surface on the nail). Officially, this is described as a “a breezy lavender blue with a reflection of pearl”. Hmm. I’m not sure this is a “pearl” finish type of shimmer; it definitely uses visible glitter suspended in the polish as opposed to a pearly shimmer that’s only visible in the sunlight. Application was perfect in two coats. Absolutely no complaints here!

I’m beginning to really love glass-fleck polishes. The glitter seems to catch the light no matter how dimly lit the room is, which makes them perfect polishes for the spring and summer sun. :)

EDIT// Commenter Robin asks if the base colour of this is similar at all to previously blogged Joe Fresh Iris, and my conclusion is that it’s not. Smooth Sailing is much more blue and Iris is more purple. Quick bottle photo as a comparison:

Hope that helps you out, Robin! :)

The good thing about having two exams on the first day of exams means that I now only have one more exam to write, and I finish them all pretty early! Woohoo! Still, I can’t help but think of summer, and how perfect this polish would be for lazing around on the beach. And this is after it started raining and slushing where I live. I think there was even thunder and lightning! Gosh.

Okay, so Essie’s Fiesta is not the most unique polish on the block. It’s your run-of-the-mill hot pink, a little bit shocking, but not neon. I would say it’s more of a cool pink. Formula was good, but it’s one of those weird ones that Essie does that is a creme, but acts a bit like a petulant jelly. Does that make sense? What I mean is that it goes on a bit weirdly streaky, but not even in the sense that the application is uneven, but that some parts dry darker than others? Eh. I’m not getting anywhere with that description. But it’s nothing three coats doesn’t fix.

So yeah, it’s not unique amongst the other colours available on the market, but I only own one hot pink (and I intend to keep it that way), and I’m thinking that I made the right decision with this one. Now if only the weather will cooperate…

But this was different! SDM has the same Essie set-up as Wal-Mart does (at least in the U.S.) after being bought out by L’Oreal around a year ago. The bottles are slightly different – there’s a sticker on the top of the lid that has the shade’s name, a barcode sticker on the lid, as well as a sticker that has the brand name on it. The best part is – there are so many more Essie shades now. There are literally at least 5 times more colours to choose from. I was going NUTS at the Essie rack.

Yes, you can buy Essie’s elsewhere, but only in few salons, and I can’t think of a store that offers this much in colour selection, maybe apart from Shifeon (which is grossly overpriced btw, blech).

Omg! Other exciting thing! Shoppers also has the new Essie collections! I saw A French Affair polishes there as well. Didn’t buy anything from it (almost got Coat Azure but resisted).

Okay now that my obsessing is over, and I’m sure you’ve just skipped the above paragraphs, let’s get on to what I did buy.

Essie Chinchilly. Finally a polish name I actually like. I’d say that it’s almost a true gray with the tiniest bit of taupe. In some lights I see a lavender undertone. In others I see green. So I’m forced to conclude that it’s a neutral gray. When I bought this, I was scared that it would be too similar to OPI You Don’t Know Jacques, which is my favourite dirty taupe colour, but Chinchilly is much lighter and more grey. It is SO pretty. I love how grays are still neutral – won’t get any weird looks from people, but still remains somewhat edgy. And it goes with every outfit! Not that I’ve ever let that stop me from wearing a bright colour that totally clashes.

I love Essie’s. They apply effortlessly (the brush tends to get too much polish though, so wipe it off well before applying!), and dry to such a shiny finish. Sigh. They are $11.99 though, which hurts my wallet a bit. Hopefully the change to carrying more Essie colours doesn’t mean Shoppers will stop doing promotions on them! I always used to buy them when they were discounted to $8.99. Also, strangely the new bottle’s volume is 1.5 ml less than the original one, which was 15ml. Strange.

So, uh, to wrap up, I love Essie, this colour rocks, the thing about Shoppers was the best thing to happen to me all week (kind of sad), the end.