I’ve really liked the colors that I tried from the Essie Winter 2010 collection so far.  They’re dark but still vivid, and perfect for this time of the year.  I have swatches of Going Incognito, Smokin’ Hot and Hot Coco below, but I’m sort of thinking of picking up Masquerade Belle as well!

First a note about the layering–for each of these, I wore the color alone for the first day and loved the clear, pure shine of the color by itself.  But then I started wondering what it would look like with another layer, so I’ve shown a topcoat for each color, too.  The first color I bought from the collection was Going Incognito.  It’s a dark green with bluish undertones, a tiny bit teal.  It’s opaque in two coats and easy to work with, just like the other Essies I’ve tried from this collection–all of the swatches show two coats of the Essie color.  I like how it looks like evergreen trees and has a dark, clear look:

I also tried it layered with Orly Winter Wonderland, and an accent gem from the ArtClub Holiday Gems set.  I really liked how this turned out-the Orly layer makes Going Incognito flashy and silvery, but the dark green color still shows through.  It’s perfect for a snowy, frosty, early-holiday-season feel:

Next up from the collection is Smokin’ Hot.  This color is a dark, purplish grey with a bit of brown.  It’s deep and pretty, with more depth than I thought it would have.

I layered this one with Nicole…Spotted from the Nicole Opi Gossip Girl collection.  I’m not normally an Opi fan but I saw this sitting on a display at Meier and nothing else was calling out to me, so I picked it up.  It’s a fun glitter top coat since it has a lot of different glitter colors, but it’s still kind of subtle so I tell myself that I can wear it to work.  I’ve really liked this layered over a pale green like Essie Sew Psyched or Chanel Khaki Verte, so I wanted to see what it looked like over a darker color.  It’s okay, but I like it better with a lighter base color, so the bluish tint comes through more.

Finally, I have Hot Coco.  This color is so pretty, I somehow felt like it was unlike all of the other browns that I have.  It has a definite greyish tone to it, just like cocoa made from those Swiss Miss cocoa packets and hot water.

For my second-day look, I layered this one with CND Violet Shimmer.  At the time, I hadn’t worn Chanel Paradoxal for a while and thought that this might come close to it.  When I bought Revlon Perplex I pulled out Paradoxal and compared, and this combo is not close at all.  You can read my review of Paradoxal and Perplex here.  But I still like it!  It has more shimmer and purple flash than Paradoxal, and it’s a bit lighter.  I think I might like this better than Paradoxal, since the purple is more evident.

These Essies are easy to find right now-I’m running across them everywhere I go, from Von Maur to Trade Secrets.  They’re also available on sites like Transdesign and Head2toebeauty.