Essie Nail Haul and Swatches


Essie Nail Polishes | Fragrance Direct £1.99 Available Here

Call me a bad beauty blogger, but these are actually the first Essie polishes I've ever bought. As lovely as they are, at £8 a pop they're not exactly the cheapest and I have little reason to deviate from my trusty Barry M Nail Paints in all their colourful glory. But when I made my last Fragrance Direct order I noticed that they had a decent little selection to choose from (as opposed to the three orange shades that they usually offer- yawn). While orange might be a great on-trend summer colour, it really does nothing for me with my pasty pink skintone. Most of these shades are from Essie's 2013 spring collection which is a real bonus for me; I'm definitely more of a spring pastels than a summer neons kinda girl, and so these are the types of nail polish shades I usually go for anyway. Introducing my first Essie polishes!

Go Ginza
Go Ginza is a pale lilac that looks almost white once it's applied. I do really love how this one looks, but after painstakingly applying three coats to stop it from looking streaky just for it to be chipped by the end of the day- well I was left feeling a tad disappointed if I'm honest. I hate waiting for my nails to dry; while I can handle two coats this definitely needs three, and probably a top coat as well to stop it from chipping so quickly. I'll still use this on days when I'm feeling especially patient, but I can't see it being one I reach for often just because of my lazy ways when it comes to nail painting. Luckily I found that all of the other shades were opaque in two coats and lasted for a bit longer on the nails.

Bond With Whomever 
This colour reminds me a lot of Barry M's 'Berry Icecream' which is one of my all time nail polish shades. This is my ideal light pastel colour, I love how it looks effortlessly pretty and not too 'in your face'- I've been wearing this and applying a glitter top coat on the accent nail. Cue me looking at my hands all day and showing people how amazing they look (my boyfriend must be so sick of me waving my nails in front of his face, but he's got the 'smile, nod and agree' down to a T).

We're In It Together
At a glance this looks like a standard pink polish, I assumed I'd have at least five other shades similar to this but it's a bit different to anything else I own. It's turned out to be my favourite of the bunch, there's just something about it! It's a milky kind of baby pink that gives a bit of colour without looking too sheer and boring. If you look closely there's some ultra fine shimmer in there too which gives it a really nice finish.

Madison Ave Hue
This is your standard glossy bright fuschia pink, everyone needs a colour (or ten) like this in their collection. As with the lighter pink, if you look closely you can see some micro shimmer in this too. Great for days when you want bright nails, but don't want to be too 'out there' with greens, yellows and blues, It's bright pink with shimmer, lets face it I was always going to like this one.

Maximillion Strasse Her
This khaki greenish grey might not be a stand-out shade for a nail colour, but I'm quite a fan of muted neutral shades for all year round. Muddy shades like this, along with 'Mushroom' and 'Grey' by Barry M might look kind of ugly in the bottle but they're surprisingly nice on the nails. I like shades like this for toned-down and slightly more sophisticated looks.

Maintain Ave
This is a gorgeous cornflower blue, I love the colour but am a bit undecided about how it looks against my skintone. I'm a fan of lighter blues but this is slightly darker than what I usually go for, I suppose if I eventually decide it looks a bit iffy on me I can always use it as an accent nail colour (the perfect way to use up nail polish you're unsure about!) Even though this is part of Essie's spring collection personally I think this looks like more of a winter colour, so maybe I'll get more use out of it when Jack Frost shows his horrible little face again.

Essie nail polishes can be found on Fragrance Direct for £1.99 in varying shades depending on stock, you can find the full colour range at Superdrug and Boots for the standard sale price of £7.99

What's your favourite Essie shade?
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