Essie Spring 2011 Collection

Essie's spring collection is pretty nice this year. Take look:


Essie Coat Azure. This is closer to bottle color in real life; my camera makes it look more vibrant than it really is. It's a soft, dusty looking sky blue with some subtle silvery shimmer. It's in the same vein as Rescue Beauty Lounge Catherine H finish-wise, with the light blue dustiness and subtle shimmer, but the colors are quite different.


Essie French Affair. You've seen this one on me a few times now! A pink that I actually like. This one is different because it has a bit of lavender in it, it's not too warm like a lot of pinks, but it's also not so cool that it just looks purple. Pretty close to my idea of a perfect pastel pink creme.


Essie Kisses And Bisses. This one is hard to capture because it's so sheer, but I can describe it. It's a sheer ivory tinted base with a duochrome pearl shimmer. The shimmer flashes between red and pink at one angle to gold, orange and even a tiny bit of green at an extreme angle. It is sheer, I'm wearing four coats here, but it's amazing for layering:

Left to right (pinkie to index):
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie French Affair
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Sand Tropez
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Nice is Nice
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Coat Azure

It looks awesome over all the colors in this collection. It turns the cremes into red-pearl duochromes! I think it looks especially incredible over Sand Tropez. This is my new favorite layering polish. Love this color.


Essie Nice is Nice. This one was a little hard to capture, it's not as blue as it looks here. It's closer to the sunlight picture. It's a pastel lavender creme. Very soft and flattering.


Essie Sand Tropez. This shade is a beige sandy nude creme. It has a little bit of grey, a little bit of taupe, very much a 'mushroom' type of shade. It's lighter than a lot of the taupey putty mushroom shades in my collection and I'm very fond of it. Especially layered with Kisses and Bisses!

Essie Topless and Barefoot. This one is similar in feel to Sand Tropez, but it's a pink, fleshy nude instead of beige. It's putty colored. Like someone said about Borghese Almondine, this totally reminds me of Silly Putty! Now I have the urge to play with Silly Putty. Especially since it looks so nice on my nails!

The formula on these was nice and even. I didn't have any issues with the formula itself, but the opacity isn't what I was expecting. They're not sheer, but lately when you see colors like this, they're one-coaters. These needed two at the very least, but I did three just because. They do look best with three. Drying time is quick and these wear pretty well, too.

Overall, strong spring collection. Are the colors totally unique? No, we've all seen these before. Despite not being completely unique, the colors are all perfect. They're just really great pastels. They all look good on and they're all even better layered with Kisses and Bisses. I would wear every single one of these (and I have worn them all but Topless and Barefoot!), they go perfectly with my skintone, none of the dreaded lobster hands. They all have a soft, creamy look instead of a chalky white-out look. I don't mind the chalky look at all, but the creamier finish of these is easier to pull off for most people.

I like 'em. Do you?

(These were sent to me for review.)