Essie Summer 2009: NEONS!!!

I just got the new Essie neons and HOLY CRAP! These are BRIGHT!!!!!!!

First, a disclaimer and then the swatches. Since these polishes are neon, they don't photograph true to life. I have not yet found a way to capture the true glow of a neon polish. They do weird things to my camera. I have tried my best to get the colors accurate, but these will look much, much brighter in real life.

I'm trying out different types of lighting for these, and a couple of them turned out pretty good. Some are taken in the shade or in a dark room, so that's why my skin looks grey... No, I am not a zombie. Yet.

Edit:  Check out Siobhan's awesome swatches of this collection at The Nailphile!




Flirty Fuchsia. Neon pink. Sunlight pictures of neons never come out, I don't even know why I bothered. This pink has almost a touch of red to it- it's a deeper pink than Punchy Pink but it's just as bright!




Funky Limelight. Neon highlighter yellow. This is a true highlighter yellow. It's officially my new favorite yellow. This is retina-searingly bright, in fact, it gives me a bit of a headache just looking at it!




Perky Purple. Saturated neon purple. This might actually be my favorite type of color. No matter how many neon purples I own, I just never seem to get sick of them and always find myself wanting more! This is more of a deep purple in real life, but super bright. It's a lot like Essie Bermuda Shorts from last year's neons.




Punchy Pink. Uber-bright neon light pink. This is the lighter of the two pinks, and it seems more on the cool end of the spectrum. These pictures can not possibly portray how cool this polish is. It is ridiculous.


The formula on these is perfect. Thin, pigmented, smooth, totally flawless. I had zero application issues. These are right in line with the Zoya neons formula-wise. In fact, these are even thinner and smoother than the Zoyas, but not as opaque. They are slightly on the sheer side- one coat of polish lays down a lot of pigment but to build intensity you really need three coats. All of these pictures are three coats of polish with one coat of Seche Vite. Since it is the nature of neons to dry matte, you will need a topcoat if you want a glossy finish.

I am going to say it right now: Funky Limelight is the best neon yellow I own. It's the brightest, the smoothest, the least streaky and just plain incredible. Backup-worthy. I don't usually like to choose 'best' products because something better usually comes along, but no, this is THE. BEST. Period.

Overall, I am totally thrilled with these. Yes, these are pretty much your average neons, but they seem a lot brighter than most of the neons I own. The other thing that has me so excited about these is that, hello, they're ESSIE. Neons. Essie. Safe, sheer-pale-pink-nude Essie made these obscenely bright neons. Wrap your brain around that!

I would have liked to see a blue and green to round out the collection, but I can deal with just four awesome shades. I can't even see clearly because of the spots in my eyes from looking at these. It's like looking at the sun. Wicked.