Essie 2011 Resort Collection - Swatches & Review

Happy Sunday! Anyone do anything interesting this weekend? I had a great weekend of nail polish shopping. Since I decided to start blogging a few weeks ago, I realized that I love love love OPI nail polish, but haven't really tried out any other salon brands. Earlier this week I posted about my first experience with China Glaze (if blogger ever restores it!), and Friday at work I decided I also need to give essie a try. essie is wonderful for sheers, pastel, and nude colors - which I never wear - so I did a lot of googling and came up with a list of bright colors released by essie that I want to give a try. 4 hours and 8 stores later, here's a shot of my haul:



Nice haul, right? I'm so excited and couldn't wait to try out my first Essie polishes, so for today I decided to review the essie 2011 Resort Collection. The collection is out this month at salons(it's not available at retail locations, i.e. Target), and there were definitely some surprises for me. The formulas on these are great, and I had full opacity with just 2 coats. I reviewed these in order of least to most favorite. Read on!

Da Bush - This is a light sage green creme. It reminds me a lot of Stranger Tides from the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection. Which I didn't buy. Because these murky/pastel colors are not the most flattering on me, and I feel they look washed out and ashy. It's not the most horrible color ever on me, but I'm not sure how many occasions I will have to sport it:



Up next is Fair Game. Fair Game is a beautiful blue-gray color with a frosted finish. It's a really unique color, or at least nothing I have in my collection, but I couldn't decide if I loved it. I don't typically like the frosting/iced finish on me, but I think if I wasn't prejudiced against the finish, I could learn to love this color. I liked it on me way more than I did in the bottle:



The surprise favorite for me was Lion Around. This is a really soft pink that I thought was like every other pink creme essie ever released. Oh, how I was surprised! On me this is a great neutral that's safe for work and flattering:




As a part of my weekend haul, I happened across a bottle of essie Carnival, which is a rainbow glitter hologram that I instantly fell in love with. I tried it on top of Lion Around, and loved the two together even more! The pic doesn't capture the holo well on my nails, but you can see it in the bottle and get an idea of how this looks in person:




The last - and my personal fave - is Your Hut Or Mine. YHOM is a bright pink with a strong coral undertone and a beautiful gold shimmer. When I saw it in the bottle, I thought it was just a bright pink; it was only after I had it on that I really saw the coral undertones, and the gold shimmer is just priceless:




In the end, I think Fair Game is the truly unique standout color from this collection - even though I didn't love it on myself. Lion Around and Your Hut Or Mine are also great additions to any collection if you don't already have these colors, and sadly, Da Bush is a pass for me. Can't win 'em all!

What do you think? Which colors are you itching to grab up for your collection? Are you as crazy for Carnival as I am? And am I being overly harsh on murky colors a la Da Bush?? Sound off in the comments!