Essie Resort Collection Summer 2011

So far I've seen two summer sets from Essie. First, this smaller, cuter, seemingly safari-themed mini collection and then the big colorful six piece full summer collection. Here's the smaller one, called (as far as I'm aware) Resort.


Da Bush. Of course, my favorite of the collection. I think this color is brilliant. It's a soft, creamy, faded-looking khaki green. It's part grey, part beige and part yellow-toned drab green all mixed together. It's very light compared to most of the drab greens I have, and it's more green than grey. It does give me a case of the lobster hands, but I don't care, I like this color too much! The only thing I don't like about it is the name. I know, bush, safari, I get that, but why "Da" bush? It only makes me thing... Da Bears.


Fair Game. This shade is a blue-toned dark grey with silver shimmer. It's in between a shimmer and a frost in terms of finish. Interesting note: it dries to a satin matte finish without topcoat. I am wearing topcoat here because of that. Not a new or unique color, but still not bad. Grey is nice.

Lion Around. Ha ha! Get it? Lion? Seriously though, I hope they don't start doing the OPI cheesy pun thing with their names too often. This one works, but they better be careful or they could end up with a name like, oh, I don't know... Baby, it's "Coal" Outside? This shade is a soft nude pink, warm toned, with very fine white-silver shimmer. It's pearly and a bit frosty, but the shimmer is very very subtle so most of the time it looks like a creme. Only when the light hits it just right does all the shimmer show up. I half like this because it's murky and muted looking, but the other half of me is going, "YOU'RE WEARING PINK!!"


Your Hut Or Mine? This one is a pink coral, sorta similar to that Pantone Honeysuckle shade that everyone's doing this year. This one is deeper, warmer and a bit more salmon-ish instead of bright and clean like the others. The best part of this is the shimmer, thought. It's that special type of shimmer that lights up and looks so bright and pretty. It seems to have a pink and blue-violet tone to it in most lights, and it looks so light and bright it just perks up the whole color. I want them to do other colors with this type of shimmer!

Formula on these was great. Zero application issues. Dry time was great also. I did three coats of each color. There weren't any problems with the brushes, but I must point out that Essie does have very tiny brushes. After all the gigantic "one stroke" style brushes I'm being bombarded with lately, these tiny Essie brushes are a welcome change. While it does take me a little longer to cover each nail, I have better control. People with small nails will find this style of brush less messy to use.

Overall, cute little collection, but nothing new or groundbreaking. Green, grey, pink. Soft, demure shades. Da Bush is my pick from the set, I really love that funky murky green. Great formula. I think this set would make a nice gift for someone who's going on vacation this summer- a safari or a cruise come to mind.

(This was sent to me for review.)