Essence Out of Space Stories: The Stragglers

Way back in July, I swatched the five shades from Essence Out of Space Stories I'd gotten at Ulta, plus two more I found in Canada on my trip there. Now I've got two more, which showed up at Fred Meyer as summer turned to fall (that display is in this post): Guardians of the Unicorn and Mermaid of the Galaxy.



Guardians of the Unicorn is a light purple shimmer that looked shifty in the bottle, so I put a black creme on my index finger to enhance any duochrome-yness it had. I did one coat of the Essence over the black, then three coats of it on its own on my other fingers. Indeed it does have a blue/purple shift. Not bad for just under $3.







Mermaid of the Galaxy is a teal shimmer which didn't look shifty in the bottle. It's more opaque than Guardians; two coats gave full coverage. I liked the finish on this one better than Guardians, as it was less prone to show brushstrokes; they're still there, but the shimmer is sparkly enough to visually soften them quite a lot.





Because Guardians had worked as a layering polish over the black, I tried it over Mermaid as well, putting one coat of it on my middle through pinky fingers. I really liked the perwinkle shade that resulted from that combination.





I really wish it didn't require a scavenger hunt to get all of these, and I realize I am fortunate that I was both in Canada and in Fred Meyer country at the right times to aquire them. I was thinking I could have just ordered them all from the Essence website, but oddly it only has eight shades, not nine. Weird. As it the way you I can't seem to find those polishes on the main nail polish page. So I guess I'll just have to be happy when I stumble across Essence whenever it happens and not worry about what I'm missing.