Essie Brazilliant Collection Summer 2011 Swatches and Review

Brazilliant is Essie's summer 2011 collection, and it's a nice little selection of colors. No neons this year, but that's okay. I think we're all a little neon'ed out by now...


Absolutely Shore. This is a very pale seafoam green. It's a white or very pale grey base with a balanced amount of blue and green. Soft looking, calming. Not really the greatest color on my skintone, but in the bottle I really enjoy it. This one was pretty streaky, though. I used four coats here to be sure it was completely even.


Brazilliant. The sunlight picture shows the hazy pink shimmer a little better, can you tell it's in there? This is such a beautiful orange. It's bright (but not neon) and has such a pretty coral-pink shimmer in it. It's on the verge of being a duochrome because you notice the pink flash or the orange base at different angles. Love this.




Meet Me At Sunset. Another orange! I'm an orange fan so I'm quite happy about this. This is a pure creme orange, leaning toward jelly finish more than just plain creme. It's darker and more saturated compared to Brazilliant and has a touch of coral red to it. This looks so colorful and smooth and shiny on the nails.


Smooth Sailing. This is a pale periwinkle blue with chunky silver shimmer. It dries darker than bottle color, but it's still a little paler in real life than my pictures show. Another soothing, calming color. It makes me think of sailboats and seashells... But more specifically, sailboats and seashells on blue bathroom wallpaper. Odd association, I know, but the image is so strong in my mind, I had to mention it!

Super Bossa Nova. Okay, this is just completely gorgeous. Seriously. Look at it. It's flashy and colorful without being neon. It's a saturated medium fuchsia with purple/pink/blue/violet shimmer. I love this type of shimmer, it's bright and shiny no matter what the light is like, but it's subtle and not glittery or chunky. It looks illuminated because of the shimmer, not just sparkly. I bet Phyrra will like this one :)

Too Too Hot. A really interesting shade of coral. It has strong pink and red tones, and it looks to me like a light red in the bottle. Once it's on my nails, it looks coral. It's bright and soft at the same time, very colorful and fresh looking but not too flashy.


The formula on these was great with the exception of Absolutely Shore, which was streaky. I did three coats of each color (except Absolutely Shore, that is four coats). The texture is on the thick side compared to recent Essie shades, but that makes it a little easier to apply. The brushes are tiny but very even. I had no issues other than the streakiness of Absolutely Shore and the dry time is excellent on all.

Overall, I like this collection. It's neither edgy nor is it terribly exciting, but the colors are still really nice. I really like all of them. Absolutely Shore is a nice sea foam color that doesn't look like every other pastel green in my collection. The oranges are fantastic, the periwinkle shade of Smooth Sailing makes me feel calm and Super Bossa Nova is eye-catching. No pale pinks, no infinitely dupe-able neons, nothing ugly at all. The collection has a beachy feel that makes it seem summery without having to be super bright.

(These were sent to me for review.)