Essie Winter 2013 Shearling Darling Collection Swatches

I'm home now after having spent all last week with my mom working on sorting out the house she lived in from the mid-1970s until earlier this year when she moved in with one of my nieces due to her health issues. It was hard and sometimes very emotional, but we got a lot done so I think we have a chance of meeting our goal of getting the house on the market by the end of this year. Now that I'm back in my normal environment, it's easier for me to post on this blog of mine, so I'll just get right to.

Today I have swatches of the six colors in Essie's Shearling Darling collection for Winter 2013, which I picked up at Ulta. Shades left to right below: Sable Collar, Mind Your Mittens, Parka Perfect, Warm & Toasty Turtleneck, Shearling Darling, and Toggle to the Top.



Sable Collar is a plummy brown shimmer of the pearly/frosty persuasion. In the diffused illumination of my lightbox, the shimmer was pretty subtle.





In more direct light, the shimmer showed up better, but so did the brushstrokes.



Mind Your Mittens is a very deep teal creme.



Parka Perfect is a light dusty blue flecked shimmer.





Warm & Toasty Turtleneck is a light warm toned slight dusty purple creme.



Shearling Darling, which lent its name to the collection overall, is a very dark burgundy creme.



Toggle to the Top is a ruby red jelly with with brighter red shimmer and glitter. It's definitely the standout color in this collection.





For all these swatches, I needed only two coats of color. Toggle to the Top got topcoat; the others did not. I used a base under Sable Collar because I was afraid the frostiness would highlight my ridges; I see from the photos that some of the other colors could have used base, too, though if your nails are smoother than mine that won't be an issue.

I regret that I did not have time to do comparisons when I did these swatches. If there's enough interest, I can certainly pencil that in for my next swatching session. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to see some. At this point, I wonder if there are already enough comps out there on other blogs, yet I am still very curious how some of these match up to things in my stash. Warm & Toasty Turtleneck seems like something I already have a few versions of from Essie alone, for instance. And I know I have lots of red jelly glitters in the same family as Toggle to the Top. And vampy burgundies like Shearling Darling. And Parka Perfect—how similar is that to other dusty blue shimmers like Butter London Lady Muck? When I win the lottery (guess I should start playing) I am definitely looking into getting an assistant to help me manage my stash and organize my swatching so I could do more of the comparisons I'm wondering about.