Essie Nail Polish

Pink-a-Boo

Why does everyone love Essie polishes? Sure, they do come in some great colours and at $8 a bottle, aren’t badly priced. But they go on so poorly.

Over the past few weeks I’ve tried out two different Essie colours: Navigate Her, a glossy pale green and Pink-a-Boo, a sparkly pale pink. While both colours are pretty, they are also a huge pain to apply. In fact, Pink-a-Boo was such a nightmare that I don’t think I’ll ever bother wearing it again.

The problem with both polishes is that they go on too “thin.” Not sheer but thin, as if there’s too much water in the polish. As a result, the colour doesn’t go on evenly and requires countless coats in order to get it looking like it should.

But with each new coat comes the risk of screwing up the previous one. Plus, as I unfortunately learned, if you apply too many coats, the polish on your nails doesn’t fully dry and instead stays soft, meaning that if you say, press your nails against your jeans, the texture of your jeans will imprint itself onto your nails. And that looks amazing, as I’m sure you can imagine.

I tried using these polishes both on their own and with a base/top coat but the results were always the same: Frustration, disappointment and nails that looked kind of crappy.

Would I buy this product again: No way.
Should you buy it: Nope.

Over six coats later & the colour's still uneven