Spring is coming for the northern hemisphere, and with it, the season for weddings. At least that tends to be the most popular season! Essie’s Wedding collection for 2012 contains all soft tones, pinks, purples and a mystery green / blue shade. It’s a lovely collection, but not one I feel is overly unique (and hence easily dupable). Personally I think I still preferred last year’s collection.

Like always, two coats with no top coat.

Instant Hot

A light pink/ nude crème polish with iridescent medium sized shimmers, they aren’t really visible on the nail in the photos (though in person they are if you stare hard), but they appear to be far more obvious in the bottle. Unfortunately the shimmers can make the polish appear a bit gritty on the nail as the polish tends to coat the shimmers. OPI’s Step Right Up! is a sheerer version and Essie’s Vanity Fairest is an ultra sheer version with micro shimmers.

Like to be Bad

A fairy floss pink crème polish perfect for everyday wear. Essie’s Vandigo has more pink tones.

Love & Acceptance

A soft lilac crème shade, I found Essie’s Lilacism to be a very similar dupe with more pink tones.

Who is the Boss

This was a hard colour to label, was it a blue or a green? In some lights it appears to be a dark grayish green, then others a lighter blue. Anyways you can clearly see the swatch here and draw your own conclusion (I’m leaning blue).

In keeping with tradition, here is Essie’s Resort 2012 collection. You can read up on their 2011 and 2010 collection too if you’re keen. The term resort always leaves me longing for days of relaxation and carefree days. All swatches are two coats with no top coat.

No More Film

In person this is an almost black purple / navy crème polish, it kind of reminded me of OPI’s Black Cherry Chutney, but for some reason I think the ISO automatically jacked up and you can see the actual shade of the polish much clearer.

Pink a Boo

A very frosted light pink shade infused with crystal shimmers. Essie’s Vanity Fairest is a very close dupe, except the shimmers are far smaller, almost unnoticeable at first glance.

She’s Picture Perfect

A lilac shade that reflects pink from certain angles. OPI’s Peek-a-Boo is a darker shade without any reflects or shimmers, purely crème.

Sure Shot

A hot magenta shade with a lot of micro pink shimmer, unfortunately I didn’t realise how high the ISO was for this photo Not a hard shade to dupe to be honest, Essie’s Jamaica Me Crazy and Zoya’s Tama are close.

Another Essie collection! This time entitled Go Overboard, which I associated with vacationing and summer break~ Summer in Australia is around for just three more days, how depressing given the sincere lack of true Summer weather we’ve had over the last few months

Oh, the collection!

No major issues with the formula for this collection, the colours were interesting, with Go Overboard being my personal favourite But it felt kinda… mis-matched to me? I dunno, probably just me! All swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

Armed & Ready

A taupe khaki green crème with gold micro shimmers that are only just barely visible in the swatch. The only dupe I could find was Essie’s Power Clutch which is a bit greyer.

Go Overboard

A dark aqua / turquoise shade, and the signature polish for this collection. It’s a pure crème from what I can tell, and the only dupe I could find was Ulta3′s Mermaid Green which is a much lighter version.

Play Date

A lilac purple crème, OPI’s A Grape Fit! is a darker version and Essie’s Splash of Grenadine is pinker.

Essie’s Spring 2012 collection has finally hit the shelves, as like the two years before I had to swatch these. I’m really loving the pastel colours that seem to be popular with most of the Spring collections this year. Though I’m attributing that to the fact that we never got much of a Spring nor Summer in Australia this season So I’m feeling rather deprived.

But back to the polishes, I didn’t have any issues with formula, these applied fantastically! I really love A Crewed Interest thanks to how wearable it is, trying to decide what makeup products to bring with me on a big month long trip later this year and I feel like A Crewed Interest may be a winner! As always all swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

A Crewed Interest

A peach crème polish that would really suit most lighter skin tones. Zoya’s Lulu and OPI’s My Daddy’s the King! are sheerer versions of this, this polish is very opaque.

Navigate Her

A soft pastel green crème polish, very suitable towards Spring. I can’t find anything close to this in my collection, so I’m deeming this a pretty unique shade. Not sure how I feel about it, it’s a lovely shade but I’m not sure what mood I’d need to be in to wear it.

Olé Caliente

A watermelon bright crème shade, it’s a great variation off the traditional red polish! To me it feels more innocent than a vampy red shade. China Glaze’s Make Some Noise and Essie’s Too Too Hot are similar shades.

Orange, It’s Obvious!

A blood orange crème shade with quite a bit of red in it. OPI’s Brights Powder is sheerer and has more yellow in it, OPI’s Flit a Bit contains less red.

To Buy Or Not To Buy

A lilac crème polish with just the slightly hint of shimmer, not noticeable from a distance unless you are up close to it. OPI’s Rumple’s Wiggin in slightly sheerer and China Glaze’s Sweet Hook contains more pink.

Tour De Finance

A hot magenta crème infused with gold micro shimmers that unfortunately does not show up at all in this photo. I think Hello Kitty’s Eva Pink (seems to only be available in Australia) is a darker version without the shimmers.

This is a bit of an interesting collection, when I first saw it online I really didn’t have a clue -what- season / event / theme it was shooting for. But as soon as I read the description I knew I had to give them a shot. Essentially these polishes are all top coats. How cool is that? They give off different finishing effects depending on what your main colour is,

I have yet to experiment with a bunch of different colours, but I figured it might be interesting to at least swatch them for you guys first! As always 2 coats, even tho I reckon you’d probably only use 1 if you were using them as top coats (frankly I reckon you could even use these as the main polish)

A Cut Above

Chunky metallic light pink glitter, a mixture of large and smaller glitters. It looks amazing in the bottle, not too bad on the nail, but thanks to the chunkier glitters they tend to have a rougher finish. I find that China Glaze’s Material Girl is very similar to this, slightly different shade of pink.

As Gold As It Gets

Irregular shaped gold flecks, has a slight duo-chrome effect and a beautiful smooth finish.

Pure Pearlfection

The finest shimmer from this collection, has a lovely (as the name suggests) pearl like finish. Some close dupes would be China Glaze’s White Cap which has a bit more of a hologram effect, but Zoya’s Sparkle Gloss is an incredibly close dupe.

Set in Stones

Chunky silver glitter of varying sizes, exactly the same in texture and finish as A Cut Above.

Shine of the Times

I’m not even sure how to describe this, clearly these are glitter flecks that look very yellow in the bottle, but once painted on my nails turned out looking rather pink under my lights. Quite an interesting effect huh?

Introducing Essie’s New Year Eve / Holiday 2011 Collection called “Dive Bar”. I really loved the colours in this collection, it really does remind me of New Years Eve fireworks and lights.

Steel-ing the Scene is probably the only shade I would give a miss, otherwise I really enjoyed the rest Now the tough choice of deciding which one to wear on New Years Eve! All swatches are two coats with no top coat.

Dive Bar

The namesake for this collection, a dark duo chrome blue / aqua and purple shade. Unfortunately for some reason despite the incredible number of photos I took of this particular shade, I still couldn’t capture the duo chrome effect. Admittedly it is a more subtle effect in comparison to others.

For dupes, OPI’s Unripened is a less shimmery blue version, and China Glaze’s Little Drummer Boy is close, only with a deeper blue undertone.

Jamaica Me Crazy

A dark hot magenta pink shade with pink micro-shimmers that has photographed a lot lighter than it is in real life. Similar shades include Zoya’s Alegra which is a bit more transparent and Zoya’s Tama, which is smoother and less shimmery.

Over the Top

A medium charcoal shade with silver micro shimmers. It appears much darker in the bottle than it does when swatched, I think to achieve the bottle shade you’d need at least three coats instead of my usual two. The closest shade I can find is OPI’s Baby it’s ‘coal’ outside, which is far more shimmery.

Sexy Divide

A rich deep shimmery purple shade, that can appear almost black / red in certain lights. I found Ulta’s Orchid to be a lighter version and Zoya’s Yasmeen to be slightly more pink.

Steel-ing the Scene

A metallic silver shade, which as you can see is very streaky. Maybe you need a particularly skilled hand to apply this, one which I clearly do not possess. I think OPI’s Birthday Babe is an even lighter version of this, but the streaky metallic finish is identical.

Trophy Wife

An almost aqua / green shimmer, it looks a lot more blue in the photo than it does in the bottle, truly a lovely shade. The closest dupe I could find was Zoya’s Charla, which is less pigmented.

You know even though we’re entering Summer in Australia, some days it sure feels like we never left Winter. It’s only been in the last week that things are starting to pick up! :/ Anyways! Nail polish! Introducing Essie’s Winter 2011 collection

I have to say I was pretty impressed with the quality of this particular collection, all the polishes applied very well, very pigmented and gave a lovely finish. I think if you were generous with your application you could almost get away with 1 coat. But as you know, these swatches are 2 coats and no top coat.

Bangle Jangle

A lavender amethyst crème, as I mentioned before it applied beautifully. I personally think Essie’s Nice in Nice is a lighter version of this shade, even though the swatches online looks rather different.

Bobbing for Baubles

A dark sapphire crème, I found OPI’s Light My Sapphire to be a more shimmery and thinner version of this.

Brooch the Subject

A deep nude crème, and clearly not an overly unique shade so I managed to find a couple of similar shades, such as Essie’s Sand Topaz which is a greyer and lighter version, or Essie’s Topless & Barefoot which is lighter and has more pinky tones. Unfortunately neither “dupes” (which just so happen to be from Essie’s Spring 2011 collection) have the same level of opacity as Brooch the Subject does.

Cocktail Bling

A gray bluish crème (my colour descriptions are terribly precise and accurate, I know!), I thought Zoya’s Clove was a greyer version of this, but still in a similar vein.

School of Hard Rocks

A darkened teal crème, for some reason in person I found Essie’s Sew Psyched to be a much greener version of this. They aren’t really that close if you’re a bit of an nail polish addict, but if you need something that’s a dark khaki green shade, I don’t think you really need both.

Size Matters

A ruby red crème, a pretty standard berry red shade, so not hard to dupe nor find pretty similar shades such as China Glaze’s Winter Berry (a more watered down version though) or OPI’s Wocka Wocka which instead contains some shimmer.

I’m doing my best to find similar shades to polishes from now on, I haven’t really found any exact dupes yet, but if you’re the average polish user, I reckon one or two reds is more than enough for your collection given how long it takes to use up polish.