Selections from the Essie Wedding Collection

Hi everyone!  Today I have some quick swatches of three of the four Essie Wedding collection polishes for this year, a collection of pretty enough pastels with pretty awful formulas.  I didn't get the fourth color, a lavender creme, because I would never wear it and I really regret budging on the pink and buying it because it's really not as pretty on the nail as in the bottle and the formula is awful.

First up, I have Who Is The Boss, a gray-blue that actually leaned a tiny bit green on me.  I used it for my polka dot mani the other day and I think the other two blues made it turn out more blue there, but while I was swatching it, it came off with just a hair of green against my skin.  This was the only one of the three that had a nice formula.  It dragged a tiny bit, so I had to make sure that it had enough drying time before adding the second coat.  These pictures show two coats, no top coat.

Next, I have Instant Hot, an off-white creme with a very, very subtle shimmer to it.  The formula sucked, but I really liked the way this looked against my skin.  It's not a stark white at all and leans very slightly into a pinkish off-white.  The shimmer is all but invisible on the nail, but it's the softer shade that I like a lot.  I actually wore this for three days, until it chipped, because I liked the clean look so much... and I got a TON of compliments.  I could hardly believe it because it was really plain for me, but everyone really responded to it.

But, like I mentioned, the formula was awful.  I used my BL Nail Foundation base coat, my secret weapon against the streaky and difficult polishes, and it worked to a degree.  These photos required four coats to look decent and it didn't look good until I got generous with some Seche Vite.  The two photos above are top coated.

This picture and the one below are both without top coat.  My camera was being very forgiving with this polish because a lot of the brush strokes were hidden in nearly all the pictures.  It didn't pool too much, so I was able to do coats that weren't too thick and so it didn't seem chunky at four.  The edges around the cuticle show the worst evidence of working with a difficult formula with a bit of visible dragging.

Luckily, if I'm patient, let each coat have a little extra dry time and top coat generously, it turns out really pretty.

Lastly, I have Like To Be Bad, a nightmare in a bottle for me.  I didn't want this one after I saw pictures online, but the slight shimmer in the bottle made me want it in the store and I bought it anyway.  Definitely regret it!  It's a dusty pink creme and that shimmer that I loved didn't love me back.  I couldn't see it on the nail.  It applied like a streaky mess, even worse than Instant Hot with the same base coat.  Pictured above is three coats with one thick coat of SV on top.  It looked horrific on, which is why the picture looks horrific too...

Here it is without top coat and you can definitely get a look at those streaks.  I had to go thick with the second and third coats because it didn't want to go thin, so I gave up salvaging it with a fourth coat.  In any case, there was already more polish down than I like to have to deal with when it comes to drying time.  It felt thicker than the four coats of Instant Hot!

Overall, it's a pretty pastel collection.  The names are kind of odd for a wedding collection, methinks, and I don't recommend dealing with the crappy formula with Like To Be Bad.  I'm on the fence about Instant Hot, but I kind of feel like it was worth it because of how pretty it was.  The polish I don't have, Love & Acceptance, is supposed to be along the lines of the blue formula-wise, but I am a lavender hater and I was already being pretty mean to my wallet when I hauled these!  Essie is actually a brand that I feel very "meh" about in general.  I like some of their stuff, but I don't own a lot because every time I think about picking up something on my wishlist, I decide it can wait because I need something else.  In this case, I was hauling a couple OPI Ballet Collection polishes for jelly sandwiches =D

Thanks for reading!