Essie Summer 2011 – Super Bossa Nova, Brazilliant and Meet Me At Sunset

Essie Meet Me At Sunset
Essie Meet Me At Sunset

Today I have swatches of the other half of Essie’s Summer 2011 collection.  I didn’t originally intend to pick these up, but the first half of the collection was so nice that I decided to give the others a chance as well.  All three of these colors are bright and summery-hot.

I’ve found that I’m craving bright reds and oranges lately, and the other half of the Essie Summer 2011 Collection is made up of those types of colors, which also caused me to go back and take a second look at the collection.  I’ll start with swatches of Super Bossa Nova, a fuchsia with heavy, lighter pink shimmer.  I was pleasantly surprised when I applied this one, since it went on silkily and I probably could have stopped with two coats.  I used three coats just to be sure and they still dried quickly.  The shimmer is very apparent and comes through on the nail more than most shimmery Essies, also a pleasant surprise.  The color itself is a very warm and bright fuchsia, heavy on the pink.  It’s brighter than most of the other similar colors that I have, clearly a summertime fuchsia.  It’s not incredibly unique, but the shimmer and the nice formula make it worth a look.  Especially if you’re already picking up all of the other colors from the collection and want to have a complete set…

Essie Super Bossa Nova
Essie Super Bossa Nova

 

Essie Super Bossa Nova
Essie Super Bossa Nova

Next is Brazilliant.  This is the collection’s namesake, and in the promotional pictures it streams over an ivory shell with a rich, heavy shimmery look.  I stared at the shimmer in the bottle for a while and then couldn’t put it down!  This color is a bright, true orange and the shimmer is pink and a bit silvery.  The shimmer is finer than in Super Bossa Nova and doesn’t show up quite as well on the nail, but it’s still quite noticeable.  It gives the orange a glowy, pretty look and makes it less harsh than an orange this bright might otherwise be.  I was a little concerned but it’s softer on the nail than I thought it would be and it seems to go fine with my skintone.  This will be a summer-only color for me, but it’s so nice and glowy that I’m happy to have it.

Essie Brazilliant
Essie Brazilliant

The shimmer is so fine that in the shade it gives off a pearly sheen rather than a sparkle.

Essie Brazilliant
Essie Brazilliant

The last of the Summer 2011 collection is Meet Me At Sunset.  This polish is a bright, hot orange with a reddish tone, and is a straight creme with no shimmer.  It’s very chic and I’m thinking I could almost wear it to work under my “red nail polish” mental exception-my thought process is that even conservative types should be able to deal with bright red nail polish since it’s classic, so if a color is sort of like that I should be able to wear it to work.  Anyway, this color is so pretty; the orange has a sort of burnt, darkness to it and the red tone makes it wearable.  It’s a grown-up, sophisticated orange.  Also summery since it’s so bright, but I could see it working at other times of the year too.

The formula on this one was not as nice as the other bright reddish color from this collection (Too Too Hot).  It’s thinner and was a tiny bit runny, so it took a slightly longer dry time between coats to avoid drag.  It’s also a little sheer, so it took three coats for this opacity, and I still notice a slight visible nail line on my ring finger, where the nail is longer and my nail line is more straight across.  But I still really like this color-it’s my favorite from this half of the collection.

Essie Meet Me At Sunset
Essie Meet Me At Sunset

 

Essie Meet Me At Sunset
Essie Meet Me At Sunset

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