Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Surprise! Essie Winter Sneak Peek!

I have something really exciting to share with you today! I was lucky enough to get my hands on three out of the six polishes from Essie's upcoming winter offering entitled Cocktail Bling!

Without further ado, the polish the collection is named for - Cocktail Bling:


Alone, it seems like your standard grey...but when you put it next to a more true, neutral grey, you can see that it in fact as purple undertones! My photo doesn't demonstrate it perfectly - purple undertones (they look more blue in the pic) being among those most hard to capture, but the colour is really special and interesting and it feels very wintery to me.

Below is Cocktail Bling with Orly Mirror Mirror on the middle finger:


Next up is Bangle Jangle - a lavender colour that I didn't think really fit into a winter collection. BUT, it seems as though someone at Essie reads my thoughts and/or posts... Remember last winter when I was looking for a wintery lavender/purple? I thought OPI Done Out in Deco was the answer...but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Bangle Jangle is *precisely* what I was looking for last year - a saturated lavender purple with enough grey undertones to keep it cold-weather appropriate and not tropical!


I tried to capture the difference between Bangle Jangle and Done Out in Deco, but again my camera was far too temperamental today for purple. The difference is much more obvious in reality - Done Out in Deco has much stronger pink undertones and is brighter.

OPI Done Out in Deco on the middle finger below:


And finally, a surprise winner of the collection for me - Brooch the Subject. This is a lovely opaque nude polish that I just adore on me (if I do say so myself...*preens*) - it is more flattering in reality than the photo indicates. It is only a bit darker than Essie Jazz, but has much warmer undertones akin to Essie Milky Way. Being super yellow, I think that this really suits me.


The formula on these was lovely - but I am a big fan of the Essie formula in general. I found them all to be nicely opaque without getting chalky and the shine is amazing even sans top coat. I feel so lucky to have these in my collection already! I think they are nice for winter, but are also good transitional colours, i.e. for right now between fall and winter, as well as between winter and spring. I plan on picking up the other three colours in this collection as soon as they are released!

Many thanks to the lovely lady who hooked me up with these! You are simply fabulous.

What do you think of this as a winter collection? Which colours are you looking forward to?

kittytokaren