Fair warning: Buckle up, kiddies, it's going to be a long, bumpy ride.
I would like to begin with something that I saw online and when I saw it, it made me lose my shit. This made me absolutely sick when I read it and saw the images. This is not fashion, it is not chic and it is certainly not art. It is just disgusting.
Care to take a gander at a new Essie polish? This is Camera from the new Poppy*Razzi Collection. Essie Camera is a bright orange toned pink neon jelly. Holy monkey this polish is pretty. It is eye popping bright, squishy and juicy. I love this colour.
Too bad I don't feel that way about the formula.
I'll talk more about that, after the photographs. For this swatch, I applied three coats and used top coat. Photos were shot in the sun.
This polish freaked my camera out. That poor thing just about cracked in half trying to capture this polish. It did a pretty craptastic job. The colour is more accurate in the bottle in the first photograph. The polish on my nails pulled more to the orange side of things. I know that others have shown this polish to much better advantage and I considered skipping this post but I needed to talk about the formula.
Oh. The formula.
Essie, what the high holy hell is going on? Why the beautiful colours and the terrible formulas? The formula on this polish was an epic pain in my ass. Coat one: Nasty. Streaky. Uneven, wanted to run. I tried to apply a thinner coat than I usually do and it dragged and pulled bald spots. Coat two: Started applying a little thicker and it went on a little more smooth but it started bubbling like a mo-fo. Coat three, finally opaque and smooth, if still bubbly as anything. I applied Seche Vite to melt and kill the bubbles and thankfully, it did it's job and I was able to take photographs of this polish. One good thing about this stuff was the dry time. Like most neons, this stuff dries faster and a bit satin matte, to get it squishy and shiny, a good top coat is needed.
If this polish is indicative of the rest of this collection, I will be passing on it. You know, I just don't grok what Essie thinks they are doing, here. Lately, the majority of the polishes I have purchased from them have been, for lack of a better word, crap. Granted, I don't own a huge ton of Essie polishes, maybe I am just loving and buying the few duds? I don't know. I mean, others seem to love this brand with an almost slavish devotion. There is a lot I like about Essie; the stellar rep as a high end polish, the beautiful colour palette, the soft, ladylike quality of their polishes, even the darker and "edgier" colours have that quality. Hell, I even like the bottles. I'm not in love with the brushes; those skinny little things, I need a lot of strokes to cover my not petite nails. But I can live with them.
I can't live with the nasty, difficult formulas. I just can't. Essie is a hot shot brand, revered, loved. Expensive. For eight dollars bottle, I don't think that I am asking too much in wanting a polish to have a flawless, easily applied formula that doesn't drive me utterly insane and make me work so frakking hard to get it looking decent. I have one and two dollar polishes that I like better; they have great colours and the formula on them is terrific. So much for "this expensive, chi-chi salon brand is better". It certainly isn't here.
Is it me? Does Essie polish just hate me? Does anyone else have as much trouble with this brand as I do? Am I over reacting? Please, if I am doing something wrong, if I am not applying them right, showing them the proper respect, zap me with a clue so that I can do better because I want to love this brand. I want to so much. But at this point, I have become so disgusted and frustrated with Essie that I just can't. I have one more Essie to review then I may have to wash my hands of this brand. I can't afford to keep buying eight dollar polishes hoping that the next one will surely have the fabulous formula that I am dreaming of, the fabulous formula everyone else seems to get but I don't.
Do you have good luck with Essie? Not so much? Does this brand slap you around as hard as it does me? Does it love you? Please do share your feelings about Essie polish with me as I would really love to hear how others get along with (or don't), this brand.
Thank you so much for popping in and reading my long, whine fest. Have a fantastic Friday and may your polish never bubble.
