Essie Wedding 2012 Collection Review & Swatches

For anyone that doesn’t know me, I LOVE Essie.  Essie the brand that started this wonderful addiction.  I actually have more than seventy bottles of Essie nail polish, by far the majority of my collection.  So for today I have a review and some swatches of Essie’s Wedding 2012 Collection.  I wasn’t super excited about this collection at first, but then I saw them in person and had to have them immediately.  Plus, they are the perfect Easter/spring colors!


First up, Like to be Bad.  I adore the sweet color.  It has a shimmer in the bottle that doesn’t quite translate to the nail as much as I would like seeing as I really have to look for it, even in direct sunlight  (obviously you can’t see it at all in the picture), but the color is still a great pastel pink to have in the collection.  Formula-wise it applied easily, but was a little thin, so I did three thin coats to get it even.
Second, Instant Hot.  This is the color that surprised me the most.  I wasn’t going to get it at first, but decided that I should get the whole collection.  It is a slightly blushed white with a shimmer.  Again, the shimmer doesn’t translate well to the nail compared to the bottle (again imperceptible in the picture).  But, I will definitely use this color as a background for some nail art that I don’t want a super stark white for.  This one was also a little thin, so I did three thin coats here to get it even.  I definitely recommend a ridge filler if you have any notable ridges.  You can see mine peeking through a little near my cuticle because I just used a regular basecoat.

Next, Who’s the Boss?.  This might be my favorite of the collection (it’s a VERY close race between this one and Love & Acceptance).  Who’s the Boss?  is a pastel blue green that looks more blue or green depending on the light.  I did three thin coats here, but I think I will just do two regular coats next time I do a mani with it.

Finally, Love & Acceptance.  As I said above, this color is battling for my favorite of the collection.  It is definitely my favorite formula-wise.  This took just two coats, slightly thin.  (please excuse the line in the center of the nail in the picture, I had to patch it after I dinged it and didn’t realize that it showed so badly in the picture until it was too late to take another :( )
Another great collection from Essie overall.  I must say the formula isn’t as nice as it usually is on a couple of them, but nothing too frustrating or not worth dealing with.  My only real complaint is not with the polishes themselves, but the brush and handle of all Essie polishes.  I did not know how much they bothered me until I started trying other polishes and was like, “Wow!  That brush is awesome!”  The Essie brush is definitely not unmanageable or annoying enough that I stop using it, obviously since I have more than seventy bottles lol, but it is not my favorite.

I liked the skittles (well, more like Easter M&Ms swatch so much that I decided to add a fifth color and wear it as a mani.  I ended up adding Orly Spark as my thumb color.  For the record, I got Spark to do a rubber ducky mani and am not in love with it as a base color.  I ended up with four very thin coats and it was still uneven and had bald spots.  On the upside, I love Orly’s brush and handle :).



I was planning on doing some stamping over this on day two, but when my fiancé got home he noticed my nails almost immediately (pretty uncommon, also for the record) and wasn’t a big fan.  So I changed it lol  That made four manicures in four days!

Thanks & Gig ‘em!
Jessica