Essie Expressie Comparisons

As I mentioned in Monday's post, most of the Essie Expressie line is made up of cremes, which I bought several of because of course I did. There are a few shimmers in the line as well, and I'm kicking off today's post with the one I bought: Mic Drop-It-Low, a purple-leaning deep pink, or as Essie describes it on their website, a "shimmering magenta pink". My swatch is two coats. I was happy to see that the shimmer shows on the nail even in the indirect light of my lightbox.







For comparison purposes, I grabbed the closest polish I could easily find (yes, my stash is still in transition to a more organized state), SinfulColors Frozen Rose from the Vanessa Hudgens winter 2018 collection.



Top to bottom, below (2 coats each): Sinful, Essie, Sinful, Essie. The base colors of these are very close to each other, with the Sinful being perhaps a touch more purple. Frozen Rose has more visible shimmer and its shimmer is more varied, showing both pink and purple particles. The shimmer in Mic Drop-It-Hot is about as dense as the Sinful but it doesn't show on the nail as much (not even in direct light, the photos of which I'm not posting as they don't show anything different than these lightbox ones do).





I also did comparisons for four of the cremes I bought (two of which I used in Monday's nail art): Precious Cargo-go, Taxi Topping, Don't Hate Curate, and Saffr-on the Move.



Before I get to the comparisons, here are these four as Skittles; I'll have to remember this combination come autumn. Top to bottom: Saffr-on the Move, Don't Hate Curate, Taxi Topping, and Precious Cargo-go. All were two coats.



Kicking off the creme comparisons with Saffr-on the Move. Bottles, left to right: Barielle Aura Angora (now suffering from a case of Ugly Bottle Syndrome, aka UBS), Essie Saffr-on the Move, and Revlon Street Wear Burnt.



On the nail, left to right (all two coats): Aura Angora, Saffr-on the Move, Burnt, Saffr-on the Move. No dupes here, though Burnt comes closer, being a touch lighter and less orange than Saffr-on the Move. Aura Angora is rather more yellow than Saffr-on the Move.



I held over Aura Angora for the next comparison. Left to right: Barielle Aura Angora, Essie Don't Hate Curate, Nails Inc. Hampstead Gardens.



On the nail, left to right: Aura Angora, Don't Hate Curate, Hampstead Gardens, Don't Hate Curate. Again, two coats of each. No matches here. Aura Angora and Hampstead Gardens are both darker than Don't Hate Curate. Aura Angora and Hampstead Gardens are closer to each other than either is to Don't Hate, though Aura looks a bit more muted.



I could only easily find one decent comparison possibility for Taxi Hopping: L'Oreal The Perfect Trench.



And, nope, not a match. Left to right: L'Oreal, Essie, L'Oreal, Essie (all two coats). The Perfect Trench is ligher and more muted on the nail in comparison to Taxi Hopping; I thought they looked closer than that in the bottles.



And finally, the greens: OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, Essie Precious Cargo-go, Zoya Dree.



On the nail, left to right (2 coats each): OPI, Essie, Zoya, Essie. The OPI and Zoya are both darker than the Essie and pretty much a dupe of each other.



That I didn't find any dupes for the Essies in the course of swatching for this post makes me feel better about buying more cremes. Now granted, I didn't do an exhaustive search of my stash (see previous note about reorganizing), so I can't be sure I don't have dupes out there somewhere but at least they didn't pop out at me right away.

Barielle Protect Plus Color with ProSina

Sample provided for review

Not so recently, Barielle sent me two colors of their new line, Protect Plus Color with ProSina. It took me a while to get to try them because the box got shipped to my old work address; thanks to the guy who handles packages there being a cool dude, he didn't just send it back but messaged me and arranged for me to pick it up last time I was in Michigan. Fortunately, the polishes are not limited edition, but part of a new line that combines treatment and color. This sounds similar to some of the lines we've seen from other brands, but the different here is range of colors—over 100—and finishes—cremes, shimmers, and glitters, not just sheers. The two I got for review just happen to both be cremes: Peach Popsicle and Blushing Beauty.



Blushing Beauty is a classic red creme. I used three thin coats for my swatch; I didn't add topcoat but it's still plenty shiny.





Because Blushing Beauty was a three-coater for me, I thought I'd try it over a white base, something I wouldn't think to do with a two-coater. I cleaned off my middle finger, laid down a white creme, then topped that with one slightly thicker coat of Blushing Beauty. I thought the white might make Blushing Beauty look more pink, so I was surprised to see it turned to a vibrant orange-y red. Pretty cool.



The second shade I got to try is Peach Popsicle. This is described on the site as "a creamy coral peach"; on me it didn't pull especially toward coral. I used two coats, no topcoat for my swatch.



Just for fun, I added dots of Blushing Beauty to one nail. (Then smeared some of them adding topcoat, because I am just that impatient sometimes.)



I didn't get a chance to wear these long enough to test out the treatment aspects of this new line. According to Barielle, ProSina "...helps strengthen, condition & protect the nails. It is a poly-peptide formulation to repair thin, weak & brittle nail layers while strengthening hard-to-grow nails." I'm inclined to believe them, since they are known for their treatments. The Protect Plus Color ProSina polishes are available for $9 each on the Barielle website; they often have specials, so sign up for their e-mail list if you want to get notified of those.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

Barielle Bling It On Glitter Collection

Press sample provided for review

Barielle has launched two glitter collections this month. I was fortunate to receive one of them to review, the Bling It On collection. This five-piece group has glitter toppers as well as some glitters in bases that build to opaque and can be worn on their own. Left to right: Sea Urchin, Golden Halo, Amethyst, Angel Dust, Shooting Star. (Yes, the Amethyst bottle is turned around the wrong way. I would have held this post until I could do a reshoot, but frustratingly, this is the reshoot--the first time I snapped the bottles, I had a different color out of skew. Guess a perfect bottle shot is not meant to be for me and this group, but at least this time, my oops is centered.)



Golden Halo has a gold metallic shimmer base with mixed sizes of pink metallic hex glitter.



Golden Halo can be worn layered or alone. I put a base of Barielle Edgy, a very deep plum creme, on my index finger and topped it with one coat of Golden Halo, then did three coats of Golden Halo on its own on my remaining digits.







Golden Halo is reminiscent of Gilded Rose from the Maybelline Brocades collection and Golden Ticket from Cinapro Nail Sugar, but the Barielle is less chunky to the eye and lays flatter on the nail due to having its mix skewed more toward the shimmery base than those other two. I didn't use topcoat for my swatch, even.

Angel Dust has a mix of transluscent iridescent glitter, from tiny microglitter to medium hexes, in a sheer pink base.



Angel Dust seemed like it might work well with Golden Halo, so I used the look above as a starting point for my first experiment with Angel Dust. I cleaned off my index finger and put a fresh coat of Edgy on, topping with one coat of Angel Dust. On the other nails, I added a funky French tip of Edgy on the Golden Halo, then topped with Angel Dust. I quite liked how this combination turned out. Angel Dust self levels well enough that I didn't feel a need to use topcoat for this swatch.







I also tried Angel Dust on its own over Barielle Dinner at 8, a red creme. I used only one coat of Angel Dust, so you can see it has a good glitter payoff (no fishing needed, either).





Since I'd put Angel Dust over Golden Holo, I figured I'd try the reverse as well, and brushed on a chunky gradient of Golden Holo at my tips.





If you like the Monet topper that came out with the Zoya Awaken collection, you'll like Angel Dust. It's the same concept but the Barielle has a more complex glitter mix.

Shooting Star has a blue/purple duochrome and white shimmer base with a mix of blue metallic hex glitters.



To bring out the duochrome, I put Edgy to work as a base again, this time on all but my index finger. I topped Edgy with one coat of Shooting Star and did three coats of Shooting Star on my index finger, topping all my digits with clear topcoat.







Shooting Star is similar to Cinapro Sweet Tooth; the blue/purple shift in the Barielle seems to be stronger than I saw in the Cinapro, maybe because the glitter is less dense.

Amethyst is the least complicated glitter one in this collection; it's got one size of light purple metallic hexes in a clear base.



I put one coat of Amethyst plus clear topcoat on the Shooting Star mani above. I know it looks like these hexes aren't flat, but they are; it's just reflective curling.





I also tried Amethyst over Barielle Magna Cum Laude Turquoise, adding Shooting Star as well to an accent nail before adding clear topcoat.





I saved my favorite for last. Sea Urchin has gold, green, and turquoise metallic glitter in a blue green shimmer base.



Sea Urchin looked like another "layered or alone" one, so I put Head of the Class Green on my index finger and left the others bare, adding one coat of Sea Urchin over the green and three coats on the bare nails plus funky French tips in the green for all digits (the tips got a bit thick because I wanted to make sure to cover the glitter; if I were doing this for a full mani, I'd have fixed that). Head of the Class Green was such a good match for the base color of Sea Urchin that it was hard to tell the difference between the layered nail and the others; the sparser shimmer and glitter on the layered nail wasn't evident at first glance.







To see the effect of different base colors on Sea Urchin, I grabbed Magna Cum Laude Turquoise, Head of the Class Green, and Irish Eyes. I did some freehand diagonal blocking with the cremes on my index, then used each as a base, starting with the turquoise on my middle finger. One coat of Sea Urchin plus topcoat went on the plain bases. The differences were subtle; I was most surprised how Sea Urchin masked the dark warm green of Irish Eyes. This is one of those swatches I'd like to wear as a full mani one day.







These polishes are available on the Barielle website individually ($8 a bottle) or as a set ($25 for all five). The other new glitter collection from Barielle is Glitter Mania.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.