Saturday, March 5, 2011

Essie Spring 2011 Collection - A French Affair

"My idea of a French affair...wine, sand, and endless shopping", states Essie, the creator of this cosmetics line. I must say that I fully agree with her statement and it has already endeared me to this collection, whatever colors might actually be present in it. But since the colors are inspired by the South of France, I doubt that I will dislike any shade of the collection. This collection consists of six new shades for spring, one of which has been specially designed to wear either by itself or over another polish for added shimmer. I love polishes that give me dual-usage...

This collection consists of a series of pale shades with one medium blue shade. First, I have to look at the blue shade because I love blue nail polishes and seek long and hard to find more blue shades to add to my collection. This shade is named Coat Azure and is described as "A breathtaking medium blue with shimmer". I love this shade and I feel like when I first saw this shade in a magazine, it photographed with more of a aqua cast than a medium blue. I will have to see this one in person but it looks different in print than it does on the Essie website.

Now we are going to move on the pale shades that are offered in this collection. We have four of these in total because I am going to leave the dual-usage polish by itself. The first shade in this part of the collection is named French Affair, "a sophisticated soft lavender pink". This one appears to have a cream finish or a very subtle shimmer. The next shade is Sand Tropez, which is my least favorite of the collection. "A soft sandy beige" which also appears to be a cream finish. The third shade is named Nice is Nice, which is my prediction for the top seller of the collection. This shade is "a whimsical light lavender", a shade that is perfectly on trend for this season. The last shade of the pale part of this collection is Topless & Barefoot. This one is a very easy to wear neutral and would be a staple in my nail polish rotation, "a barely there soft pink beige".

The last shade is named Kisses & Bises and is the one that I mentioned earlier as being the dual-usage shade in the collection. This is one of the first dual-usage shades that has come out from Essie and is the first one that I really remember over the past few seasons. This one is described as "a kiss of pink shimmer". This would be a great low maintence manicure shade by itself or very beautiful over a cool toned polish. I am wondering how this would work over some of the grays that have come out this season from Dior...

There are some great picks in this collection, especially from the pales. However, this does appear to be another collection that will only work on cool toned skin. While I love having a huge amount of shades to choose from, these can be relly hard to wear depending on your undertones. My favorite of the collection is actually not the blue this time around, I love the Nice is Nice shade (lavender) and then the blue is my second favorite. I would buy both of the shades French Affair and Topless & Barefoot, these will be great additions to my collection of pale neutrals. I must get to Ulta and play with Kisses & Bises but I know that it will be coming home with me...

photo courtesy of Essie

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