Essie Dive Bar Holiday 2011 Collection Review, Swatches and Photos

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.