Essie Winter Collection 2010 Minis

Left to right: Hot Coco, Going Incognito, Silken Cord, Masquerade Belle

The holidays are coming up and I'm trying to get in the festive mood with some "Christmas" colours.  So I picked up the Essie Winter Collection Minis for 2010.  I'm starting to like Essie colours more and more since they've been a bit more adventurous with polish colours than they used to be.  No longer sticking to reds and pinks, I now come to expect that Essie will be putting out greens and blues on a regular basis:

With diffused overhead lighting

These four creme colours certainly say "Christmas" to me even though the polish names don't and that's fine. No need to go overboard and get gimmicky all of the time!  The application had two real stand outs with Silken Cord being the best and Masquerade Belle being the worst.  Silken Cord went on perfectly in two coats while Masquerade Belle was kind of streaky.  Hot Coco and Going Incognito are in the middle with no real problems so 3 out of 4 is pretty good.

With Flash

As far as the colours go, you get a medium taupe, forest green, bright red and a deep wine in this set.  I'm very fond of Hot Coco and Going Incognito cause taupe and green are my thing but I could do without Masquerade Belle.  It's pretty, but I've ODed on wine polishes lately so it's not a must have for me.  As for Silken Cord, my photos cannot begin to capture how intense a red it really is.  It's so bright I would swear it could guide Santa's sleigh through a Christmas Eve Storm...

Not that it could ever replace you Sweetie!

I can recommend the set as a whole but if I was going to buy just one colour, Going Incognito would be my choice with Silken Cord and Hot Coco in a tie for second.

Crystal by Zoya & Le Sangre by L'oreal

Crystal by Zoya

I just picked this up the other day as consolation for not being able to find a bottle of Kelly everywhere I went.  It's not a secret that I love blue nail polish but I'm not crazy about the extra amount of time and effort it takes to remove shimmers, glitters and flakies but look,  So pretty!  Crystal put me in mind of Opi's Absolutely Alice  because of the blue and gold colours but the similarities end there.  For a polish that's got blue, gold and sparkles like this polish does, I'm surprised that I would describe it as subtle but that's exactly what it is.  It's lovely!


The application went well and smoothly and the first coat dried very quickly and it was opaque in three coats.

Stash it/Pass it: Stash it!

I picked up Le Sangre by L'oreal at the drugstore and I believe that their Mysterious Muse collection has been available in the US since October but I hadn't seen it before.  I always keep telling myself that I have enough wine coloured polishes but when I see one that catches my eye, then all bets are off!


I found that this polish colour was a little bit more dusty than most of my other wine polishes, but that was what caught my eye in the first place.  Even though the polish seemed a little thick it went on smoothly, even with a few wonky hairs on the brush.  I don't buy many L'oreal polishes but when I have,  I haven't been disappointed with them, in fact, I'm downright satisfied!


Stash it/Pass it: Stash it!