Essie Valentine's Day Collection

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, so I figured I'd best do my swatches of Essie's collection for the holiday. There are six shades: Crush & Blush, Galentine, Sparkles Between Us, You're So Cupid, Roses Are Red, and #essielove. All the bottles have colorful wraps on them with see through hearts and a different design for each shade. I couldn't decide which side of the wraps to show in a bottle shot, so I did them all: front, side, and back/other side (which has a small heart that wraps around the corner).



Crush & Blush is a pale pink shimmer. This is a touch on the sheer side; at three coats I still had some nail line showing.





I didn't want to wait any longer to try the three glitter toppers in this collection, so used each over Crush & Blush. Left to right: Crush & Blush alone, topped with Galentine (white and pale pink glitter with tiny red glitter accents), topped with You're So Cupid (red, hot pink, and pale pink glitter), topped with Sparkles Between Us (hot pink and orchid glitter with small red glitter accents). These laid down so smoothly that I didn't add topcoat. Galentine pairs most nicely with Crush & Blush, though the other two also work fine.





#essielove is a classic red shimmer. This was plenty opaque in two coats.





Of course #essielove got the glitter topper treatment. Left to right: on its own, plus Galentine, plus You're So Cupid, plus Sparkles Between Us.





Roses Are Red is a deep red with small bright red glitter. This one was also a two-coater, and needed topcoat to smooth it out.





Just beacuse a polish has glitter in it doesn't mean it should have more glitter added via a topper, so here's Roses Are Red alone, with Galentine, with You're So Cupid (which apparently has some big light pink hexes in its mix, though this was the first one I saw), and with Sparkles Between Us.





I tried a few more combinations with these, too. Left to right: #essielove with funky French tip of Roses Are Red (plus clear topcoat), #essielove topped with Crush & Blush, #essielove topped with Galentine then Crush & Blush (so the shimmer visually softened the glitter), #essielove topped with Sparkles Between Us and then You're So Cupid.





I like this collection. Yes, it's reds and pinks and I'm usually less enthusiastic about those shades since they're done so very often, but in this case, for a Valentine's collection, they make perfect sense. The glitter toppers add so much fun, and the way these shades can be layered keeps things interesting. I also love the fun bottle wraps; they're very festive.