As you can tell, I’m catching up. I’m in the process of moving (as I’ve mentioned on every recent post) so a lot of my nights this past week were spent viewing endless amounts of apartments, and hoping that I find one I like within my budget, instead of swatching and posting. I’ve found a couple places I like, and it’s about applying now, so fingers crossed! And in the meantime, it’s posting collections I got a little behind on! So be ready for a lot of posts and pictures – as if that’s a bad thing.

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Getting right into it, this is the Essie Valentine’s collection. As you might have guessed, I had planned on getting this up before, well, Valentine’s Day. But then I had dates with the aforementioned apartment viewings and leasing agents, so it got pushed back. These are beautiful bright colors that you can wear no matter what, so it’s fine. Love is all year, right?

How was your Valentine’s Day? As I mentioned, mine was spent viewing empty apartments. But it was my boyfriend’s birthday 2 days before Valentine’s, so we celebrated then! It was nice and low key, and we went to a fun conveyor belt sushi place, and it was great.

Enough about me, it’s about the polish now.

As I said, these are the shades from the Essie Valentine’s Day collection. I only picked up 3 of the 6 shades. The 3 “full color” shades I picked up at transdesign.com, so they were a little cheaper ($4.50 each). The others are the 3 toppers, ‘Galentine’, ‘You’re So Cupid’, and ‘Sparkles Between Us’. I did see them at Walgreens and at other drugstores, but they were full price, and since I don’t wear toppers as often, I chose to hold back. (Look at that decision making. That’s right, there is still some polish at this point I don’t buy. Still balling on a budget).

These 3 shades are still available at transdesign.com. If you buy them off transdesign.com, you won’t get the bottles with the fun wrap design as you can see in my photo, so just a warning. But I’ve seen the full collection, complete with fun bottles at various drugstores so they’re still available if you want to find them!

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Let’s get into the 3 shades I picked up!

Up first is ‘Crush & Blush’. This is the sheerest of the 3 shades. It’s a milky white shimmery base with a gorgeous red flash to it. This is definitely a sheer shade, so here you see 3 coats, and you’ll still get visible nail line – so if you don’t like that, this shade will be a pass.

You can do 1 coat of this, and it’ll have a more perfected nail look. This is 3 coats built up, and surprisingly, I do like this. The shimmer helps make it stand out from other milky-white bases, and even with nail lines, it makes the nails look so clean and nice. You can see some of the staining on my ring and pinky fingers coming through still, so that’s another thing to think about.

It’s a love or hate polish, but I’m here for it. It’s perfect for when you just need a soft palette cleanser. But it’ll definitely depends on your preferences whether you’ll like it.

Up next is ‘#EssieLove’. This is a bright shimmery red metallic. This was pretty well opaque on 1 easy coat – and with the new wide brush it paints on like a dream. I had some nail line, but a 2nd thinner coat covered that up. As you can see, it does have some brushstrokes, but that’s to be expected with a more metallic shade like this.

It just glows on the nails, and this is a red I can get behind.

The last shade I have is ‘Roses Are Red’. This is a squishy red base with red metallic glitter pieces. This was pretty well opaque in 1 thicker coat, but since the base is more squishy and jelly like, I did still have some uneven patches. But a 2nd coat easily covered that up, as well as layering up the glitter more.

As you can see, it can dry a little bumpy and chunky on its own, but a thick coat of topcoat will help smooth it out and make it shine. (I always show a polish without topcoat, to show how it’ll look on its own and see the finish of the polish itself).

I do love the shimmer and sparkle in this one, and it’s a more unique finish for Essie.

So these are the Valentine’s shades from Essie! I love that Essie especially has been putting out extra collections with different themes, outside of the 4 usual collections for the year (although my wallet doesn’t love it. THERE ARE WORSE THINGS TO SPEND MOENY ON.)

These are traditional Valentine’s reds and pinks, but I love the different finishes they came out with. These are fun – but for especially ‘Crush & Blush’ and ‘Roses are Red’, you’ll have to see how they mesh with your own preferences. If you don’t love more sheer polishes, or chunkier glitters, they are shades that can be a pass. I’m always here to tell you how a polish and formula performs, and how it looks, but overall it’s about figuring out if it is something you would actually wear and that would add value to your collection. Don’t let me ever sway you into buying something you’ll never wear or won’t like. 🙂

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So many more collections on the way! We’re catching up remember, so I’ll be posting a lot to get through the tons of polish on my desk. I have the Essie ‘Serene Slates’ collection, some new Sinful Colors shades, and some eyeshadow palettes to talk about.

I also have some Sally Hansen, as well as a new Wet N Wild collection on the way! There’s lot of new products, and I’m always so excited to try them out and review them for you guys! So stay tuned for lots more!

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