First up is Fashion Playground, a pastel green described accurately by Essie as 'pistachio'. This has the tiniest bit of shimmer, but if you're anti-shimmer it shouldn't bother you like past Essie shimmers have with larger silver glitter pieces. This swatch is two coats, and as you can see this polish has great opacity!
Next up is the headline polish of the collection, Hide and Go Chic. For some reason, we find this blue reminiscent of a greek vacation. This is a creme shade, and this swatch is two coats. Although this colour is unique in our collection, we love how original Fashion Playground is comparably. However, if you're missing a medium blue in your collection and feel like you need to fill that void, this is a great option.
This baby pink beauty is Romper Room, and it is literally the perfect pastel pink. We have a butter London pastel pink which was previously our go to - and it has been replaced. The formula on this is literally impeccable and we would recommend this to anyone, even if you already have a pastel pink in your collection. This will definitely get lots of wear this spring!
Next up is a nude marketed as 'semi-sheer' by Essie - Spin the Bottle. In three coats (in the swatch below), you get to opacity. Even with two coats however, it still has pretty good coverage for those who want to keep their nail lines private. We thought this worked well with our skin tone, but also think it would work well with a darker skin tone (however, lighter may be a no-go).
Next up is the bright of the collection - Style Hunter. This is a super bright 'crimson' (Essie's words) and the description of 'laser sharp' seems to be right on. This is definitely a statement polish, but we can see it working with spring florals really well! This is two coats, and application was flawless.
Lastly we have Truth or Flare, a 'vintage blue denim' - while we agree this polish has a vintage look to it, we wouldn't say denim. This polish fits well with the collection, but as you can see on the left edge of the pointer finger, coverage can be patchy if you haven't perfected flawless application. This is the one polish we would say to skip in this collection, but that said - in two coats, it does have a really nice shade that matches well with Hide and Go Chic for a potential two-tone mani.
Overall, we're really impressed with this collection from Essie and definitely recommend picking up a few shades. Let us know what you think!
Disclaimer: Some or all of the products mentioned in this post may have been provided by the company/PR for our honest consideration and review.
