Essie Expressie Nail Art

Essie is one of my favorite mainstream brands—the bottles are quite space efficient, for one thing, which very pleasing to look at in a Helmer drawer—so there was no question that I'd try their Expressie line of quick dry polishes when they were released earlier this year (was it? or was it late last year? time is blur to me now). The problem was these new polishes were overwhelmingly creams, and I've been on another of my "you don't need more cremes" campaigns designed to limit my stash expansion. So I compromised with myself and focused on buying the colors underrepresented in my stash. Today I have three of them that I used to do some retro-hued nail art. Purple is still my favorite color but lately I've been drawn to the 70s era earthy palette. I think it's general nostalgia, plus missing my mom, who was big into these shades (there were still a lot of them in her house when my brother and I sold it a few years ago).

The three colors I used were Don't Hate Curate, Bolt and Be Bold, and Precious Cargo-go. These were the closest representations I saw to those 70s classic shades of harvest gold, burnt orange, and avocado. These bottles are a taller, slimmer version of the classic squat square Essie look. They hold 10ml of polish vs. 13.5ml or 15ml for the regular Essies (I had it in my head that those were all 15ml, but some Googling tells me no, some are 13.5).



The brush for this line is a departure ... it's wide and angled. Apparently the width is intended to make it easier to cover the nail in one stroke (in keeping with the fast/express idea) and the angle is to help with painting one's non-dominant hand. Since I've had so much practice I don't struggle with my non-dominant hand, so the angle is not something I need. I found it a bit awkward to work with since I'm not used to having a brush that's assymetricial along two axes.



I combined these shades to make a cloud mani a la Nailside. I put a base of Don't Hate Curate down first, followed by clouds of Bold and Be Bold and Precious Cargo-go, with clear topcoat to smooth everything over. The Expressie are nicely pigmented, which worked well for this design.







Despite the angled brush and the overabundance of cremes in the lineup, I like this line. The forumla applied nicely and it seemed to dry fairly quickly. I'm glad they included some less common shades rather than letting pinks and reds have the majority of the slots. I did buy several more colors and will have swatches/comparisons of those soon.