Essie Nail Polish Review

I love essie nail polishes. Firstly their range is superb. There is a colour in there for everyone my favourite two being cute as a button and watermelon. The wide brushes make it easy to apply - in fact my partner always comments my nails look much nicer when I use essie than when I use any other polish!

If there is ONE item you need from essie however is their gel setter top coat. This stuff is magic. Not only do your nails look super glossy and gel like (hehe) they last FOREVER with no chipping. In fact I only needed to take my polish off because my nails were growing.

love their color range and that you can get these on sale at some online stores (however color choices are limited then). I only have two shades, watermelon and midnight cami (which is a darker shade of navy blue) and i love both!

I really love Essie nail polishes - there's a great range of colours, the bottles are super cute and, despite what I've heard from others, the formula of the colours I've had have all been great.

My favourite Essie polishes are Go Ginza, which is a "cherry blossom" purple toned pale pink, and it makes your nails look so pretty and clean and just very lady like. This made my nails look good even when they were little stubs! My other favourite (which is the favourite of many people) is Bikini So Teeny, which is a really pretty light sky blue. This looks amazing with a matte top coat, on your toes, with a gold or silver accent nail - anything goes! Plus I find it makes me look more tan than I am :) If there's one Essie I would recommend that everybody stay far far away from, it's Shake Your $$ Maker. Sure, it's got an awesome name and you think green nail polish will be awesome, but the formula is the worst out of any nail polish I've ever used. It's streaky, and you need about 5 coats to get it opaque, and even then it's still patchy. Nope. Steer clear of that one.

I have two Essie Nail Polishes, being "Shelter Island" and "Over The Top". Shelter Island is a beautiful, bright, sky blue from the North Fork Summer 2009 collection (it may have been a Limited Edition) and Over The Top is a dramatic, metallic, midnight grey with a hint of shimmer that is very similar to China Glaze's "Black Diamond".

The cute, Essie embossed, clear, square glass bottles show off the polish colours perfectly and make standing them in my nail polish rack a breeze as they line up nicely (unlike oddly shaped triangular or completely round, ball-shaped bottles). The white lid on the bottle is the perfect length and shape to make painting my nails a comfortable task and the formula is just perfect; not too thin and not thick and gloopy.

I find the brush a little on the skinny side, so I have to use 4 or 5 strokes when painting my nails (especially my big toes), but after a bit of practice I've gotten my technique down and can get the colour on perfectly in just two coats.

I'd definitely recommend Essie Nail Polishes and have my eye on a few more of the colours in their current ranges!

I purchased the shade 'as gold as it gets' from a seller on trademe with intentions on using it for a feature nail when I put my jamberry wraps on. However my nails were looking a little plain and I wanted to try it out.

The bottle is a wee glass see through pottle with ESSIE written up the side of it. White screw top lid. Undo the lid and pull it out, on the end it the wee brush applicator. It's such a perfect size for my nails! All I need is three strokes with this brush and my nail is covered perfectly.

The formula smells really strong! I imagine if you ever got a colour that needed a few coat you might wind up with a headache from the smell. It's a medium thickness so not too sheer and not too thick. Slides on nicely and drys sleek and shiny.

I have a shade which is just a gold glitter I've had it on my nails for a week and it hasn't worn off at all! No chipping either.

For the retail price I ask myself is it worth it?! YES IT IS! If you want a nail polish that us going too last this is the nail polish is for you :)

At first I was a bit dubious about spending $20 on nailpolish, so I purchased a 3 set of mini Essie nail polishes from Postie Plus. The colours it came with are Fifth Avenue, Mint Candy Apple and a light, natural pinky colour. Fifth Avenue is definitely my fave - it's a gorgeous orangey red! Mint Candy Apple is a nice pale teal type colour, which I find is a bit patchy to apply - but still nice.

I find that the brushes are a decent size, where you only need a couple of swipes to colour you full nail (whereas some nail polish brushes are tiny!). The polish lasts on my nails relatively well, but I do use a clear coat on the bottom, 2 coats of colour and another clear top coat.

Just today I eyed up another colour, Chinchilly, which I love! It's a purpley-grey kind of colour which is beautiful! Also got the Essie No Chips Top Coat so will post a review on that once I test it out!

The most value for money nail polish. The brush is perfect for precision and there is a large variety of colors. Long lasting stay without chipping!

I was chosen for the BR Save or Splurge Nail Polish Trial. To be honest I was equally excited and a bit doubtful that Essie would be any different from any other polish I've used over the years. Nail Polish lasts, quite honestly, a matter of hours, not days, on my very bendy nails. Surely, wouldnt Chanel Rouge Noir blow Essie Wicked out of the water, so to speak, because of the price difference? My thoughts were that Chanel at around $70 a bottle would be superior to Essie at $17.99...not so.. Right from the very start, I loved the deep Red/Burgundy, almost brown colour of Essie Wicked. It felt rich and very classy but a little naughty as well. The first coat had good coverage, the second almost perfect...I think if I had used a Base Coat it would have been perfect. I loved the thick brush. It was flat, wide and soft, with a curved end so made application smooth and even. In contrast the Chanel brush was thin, hard and spindly, with sticking out bristles making my fingers as covered in it as my nails. I also loved the consistency of the actual Essie polish, it was rich and thick not at all watery or runny, which is how i found the Chanel polish to be. Chanel Rouge Noir lasted all of 36 hours on my nails 20 of these hours were spent sleeping..which for me is pretty normal nail polish wear time. Essie Wicked has lasted 4 full days!! I am now on my 5th day and, only just, is it now starting to wear at my nail tips..BUT..still no chipping, splitting or cracking! Just Wearing! That is totally unheard of for me!! I am blown away!

So my verdict is that I will definitely be using Essie Nail Polish Wicked again but I will also be purchasing Essie Nail Polish in as many colours as I can. I love it!

Moral of the story, don't judge a book by its cover OR don't think that just because it's cheap, it's nasty

Essie is my absolute favourite nail polish brand, but it had tough competition when I trialed Essie Wicked up against Chanel Rouge Noir for BR Save or Splurge.

Essie Wicked is a deep, rich burgundy that leans a little brown. It's opaque in two coats and has a good thick texture when applied. I found the colour applied smoothly and evenly.

The best thing, to me, about Essie polishes is their fantastic brush. It's flat and wide with a curved end and soft fine bristles, meaning you can coat each nail quickly and tidily. The brush is what made Essie win over the Chanel polish, for me.

I received this product as a part of the BR save or splurge for the dark red polish, Wicked.

I got instantly excited about the colour. In the bottle it looks a lot more red than it does on the nails. Beware - when you first put a few layers of this polish on it does look quite black! At first I was a bit nervous about wearing this shade to work but then it seemed to warm into the dark red that I expected. It's a truly gorgeous colour!

The formula was perfect for application! Not too runny and not too sticky so I didn't immediately make a mess as I went along.

I didn't use a base coat on this application, which I plan to do on future applications because it lasted about 2 days before the first chips started to appear. I thought it was a little bit disappointing but I guess I only had myself to blame for that!

Overall I love Essie Nail polishes and I love this moody colour. For the price you can't really go wrong but for the full bodied colour with greater staying power I'd definitely recommend using a base coat! xx