Essie Holiday 2011 Collection

I am already beginning to notice a trend for this holiday season, the past few collections that I have looked at (especially the big colour collection from MAC) are all featuring an array of icy silvers and pastels instead of just the traditional reds and golds that we always see at the holidays.  I do love the change in trends for this year and enough companies are still on the red and gold trend that I can always find more versions of these shades to play with.  I do wonder how well some of these icy silvers will sell since they will only work on cool skintones and therefore aren't the most versatile shades that could be in a collection.  I have a complexion that will work with these shades but I don't know how many of these shades that I need in my collection. 

The makeup collections that embrace this trend may be hard to wear but I am willing to bet that a lot more women can wear this trend on their nails.  I love to wear silvers on my nails and they are acceptable in both a professional environment and at night.  Essie's newest collection for the holidays is all about the icy shades with a mix of a few deep jewel tones for variety.  All of these shades appear to be creams, I was hoping to see some shimmers but I think that the creams will be better in a professional environment.  A quote from Essie herself surrounding her inspiration for these shades, "I like to arm myself with cocktail bling."  Love it!

The first shade is the one that is used in the promo picture for the collection and so I am betting that it is the hero shade, this is the perfect light silver cream shade.  It is named Cocktail Bling and is described as "a precious pale gray jewel".  If it is described as a jewel, then I am willing to bet that it has a bit of shimmer to the finish, making me want it even more.  I can't wait to buy a bottle of this shade, I love silvers and grays and I will wear this all winter long.  Silvers are the perfect neutral for someone with cool toned skin and they are always in my polish rotation.  The other gray in this collection is named School of Hard Rocks and is another great choice.  This one is "a midnight malachite" and appears to be a deep charcoal gray cream.  This one is not quite office material if you work in a conservative environment but works great at night.  I love both of the grays from this collection!

The second group in this collection are creamy pales.  The first shade is Brooch The Subject, "a creamy cashmere cameo".  This is a warm pale beige cream, it is too warm for my skintone.  The shade will be much nicer on someone with a warm skintone that find peach tones flattering.  I will be skipping over this polish shade since it is too warm to be flattering for me.  The second of the pale creams in this collection is the shade named Bangle Jangle and I love this shade!  This shade is "a lavender amethyst" and it is a great pale lavender shade.  This shade is much more flattering on those of us with cool skintones and is one that I will be wearing the rest of the winter and well into the spring months.  This one will also have a role in my lineup of favorite polishes.

The last part of the collection is the jewel toned shades.  These are perfect for the holidays and seem to be a logical extension of the shades that we have been seeing all throughout the fall.  My initial excitement!  I see a deep navy shade in this collection, that shade is always a favorite of mine.  The shade that I am so excited about is Bobbing For Baubles,  "a deepest darkest sapphire" with a cream finish.  I love dark navys and this one is no exception, I am really excited about this shade since most of my navys are shimmers and I have very few cream finish navys, this shade is going to the top of my shopping list.  The second of the jewel tones is Size Matters, the most traditional of the holiday shades.  This collection wouldn't have been completed without at least one great red polish shade.  "A blazing ruby red" is how this shade is described and it has a cream finish.  This is one of those shades that is made for holiday parties and simply screams "holiday".

I love four of the six shades in this collection.  My favorite shade is the School of Hard Rocks, I love this charcoal and I own next to nothing like this already.  My other choices from this collection are Bobbing for Baubles, Cocktail Bling, and Bangle Jangle, there are tons of great cool tones in this collection.  I will be skipping over the warm beige, this one won't work on my skintone.  I also will be skipping over the red shade, I prefer deep red shimmers to bright red creams so I don't know how much use I will get from it.

photo courtesy of Essie