Essie Summer 2015 Collection Swatches & Review
Essie Summer 2015 review
As much as I’m known for my love of all things green, I have a lesser known obsession with sparkly white nail polish. It all started with China Glaze White-Kwik-Silvr and it’s been going strong ever since. White feels so fresh and clean in summer, but add a little glimmer and I’m sold.
So, when I realized the Essie Summer 2015 collection included a white sparkler, I had to get my hands on it. Thanks to a quick eBay search, I was able to get a set to share with you. But, would this white live up to my high expectations? Keep reading to find out.
Formula & Application
Essie nail polish is 3-Free (Formaldehyde, Toluene, DBP). The square bottles are embossed with the Essie logo and the smooth plastic caps include an embossed ‘e’ on top. Bottles at mass retailers have stickers rather than embossing on the bottle. The brushes are thin, round and shorter than most. The bristles are very flexible, allowing you to easily fan out the brush to cover your nail width.
For the most part, this collection has the thin, squishy, watery feel you would expect for the Essie formula. And the two blues are utter PERFECTION. They’re practically one-coat wonders. I mean, I think my heart skipped a beat when I applied them. No joke! The peach and red are decent and easy to work with, but require three coats to avoid patchiness. The lime and white were the worst to work with. Chillato is kind of lumpy and a bit patchy, even with three coats. Meanwhile, Private Resort is chalky, streaky, thick, and with three coats, nowhere near as sparkly as the bottle infers.
Essie Summer 2015 Swatches
Essie Chillato is a pale, yellowed, lime green creme. It’s a lighter version of Deborah Lippmann Spring Buds though not quite a green. It’s funny, Maybelline Citrus Collide and Nubar Spotlight have a greenish cast, but next to Chillato, they look buttery.
Essie Chillato
Essie Chillato comparison
Essie Peach Side Babe is a saturated peach creme with pink undertones. Almost like a light coral though not chalky or pastel-ish, which I love. It’s not quite as peachy as Morgan Taylor My Carriage Awaits, and not as deep as Sally Hansen Kashmir Valley. I threw in Essie Haute As Hello for funsies.
Essie Peach Side Babe
Essie Peach Side Babe comparison
Essie Pret-a-Surfer is a rich, periwinkle creme, and I’m ridiculously in love with it. I wouldn’t call it indigo because it leans more blue, as you can see below, compared to Essie Suite Retreat. And it has a more mellow feel than Essie Chills & Thrills from last year’s neons.
Essie Pret-a-Surfer
Essie Pret-a-Surfer comparison
Essie Private Weekend is a bright white creme infused with crystal glass flecks. In the bottle, you can see the shimmer of the flecks, and it looks so promising. On the nail, the base is too bright to allow the flecks to shine. If the white was more subdued, like in OPI Chiffon My Mind and China Glaze White Ice, the flecks would have had more impact. As it is, it looks really similar to the white creme, OPI Angel with a Leadfoot.
Essie Private Weekend
Essie Private Weekend swatch comparison
Essie Salt Water Happy is a sand-washed, pale denim creme. It’s muted grey undertone gives it a beach-y feel. And, what I’m pleased to find, is that I own nothing like it. So, it’s a unique color with stellar formula. Win-win! Zoya Kristen is darker and more greyed. It feels like a fall blue next to Salt Water Happy. OPI You’re Such a Buda-pest is more purple and Orly Pixie Dust is in a league of its own.
Essie Salt Water Happy
Essie Salt Water Happy comparison
Essie Sunset Sneaks is a geranium creme. It’s got this underlying pink hue that keeps it from being a true, bright red. Sally Hansen Kook a Mango looks close, but under further inspection, it’s warmer. CND Poppyfield and Chanel Tapage aren’t at all close, but they give you a good sense of SS’s depth of color.
Essie Sunset Sneaks
Essie Sunset Sneaks comparison
Essie Summer 2015 swatches
Bottom Line: While I dove into this collection with my sights set on Perfect Weekend, it ended up being Pret-a-Surfer and Salt Water Happy that blew my mind. I can’t rave enough about the formula and color of these two. If you like blues, even a little bit, do NOT miss out. Peach Side Babe is more appealing that I expected and the boyfriend noticed Sunset Sneaks on my nails the other night, so it’s sticking around in my stash. Unfortunately, Chillato and Perfect Weekend did not pan out, with PW being the bigger disappointment, so they get a pass. I’ll keep searching for that perfect WKS replacement and hoarding my last bottle in the meantime.
The Essie Summer 2015 collection launches in May. Essie nail polish is carried at salons and mass retailers nationwide. Right now, I’ve found the collection on eBay.com and ULTA.com, though Nordstrom.com, Kohls.com, and Beauty.com will all have it online soon. Essie nail polish retails for $8.50.
Thoughts on the Essie summer colors? Which ones do you plan to pick up? Where do you normally buy Essie?
Disclosure: I bought the products featured. Affiliate links appear in this post. When you purchase through an affiliate link, you help support this site. For more info view my Disclosure Policy.
Lisa N.
Ms Meatballhead
Birdie
Spa pediccure chairs
Totally smitten with those two beautiful blues!
Glad you like them Elizabeth!
These are pretty!
Thanks Lisa!
While I miss your old format, I am enjoying the new one. I really like the comparison swatches. I like how you have several swatches all together, and I like how you are doing them.
Hi Rebecca! Thanks, though I’m not sure what you mean by old format. Is there something specific that you miss?
I’m with you, Pret A Surfer and Salt Water Happy are gorgeous!
Yay! I’m glad you agree
Thank you so much for these and the comparisons! I’ve been excited to see more swatches of this collection and yours are wonderful!
Thanks, Sam! I’m happy you like them. Let me know if you pick up any of the colors.
The blues are great. I’m going to try getting them both.
I LOVE that you’re posting colors with the dupes. It makes life so much easier.
I’m happy to help. As long as they are useful, I’ll keep doing them, even if it takes me longer to get a review up.
Yours is my favorite nail blog because you include comparisons. Thank you so much!! I primarily wear Zoya and OPI. I can’t seem to keep Essie on my nails for more than a day before it chips. However, I’m intrigued by Salt Water Happy and Sunset Sneaks so might give them another try.
Aww, thank you so much, Jeanelle. That’s so sweet of you to say. I’m glad you find the comparisons helpful. Bummer that you have trouble with Essie, but I’m glad OPI & Zoya do. If you give either of these new colors a try, let me know how they wear.
Great swatches and comparisons, thank you! I’m wondering how Peach Side Babe compares to Essie Stones N Roses from this year’s resort collection?
Good question, Hannah. My bottle of Stones N Roses wasn’t filed away when I was doing comparisons, and I completely forgot about it. They are similar in depth of color but Peach Side Babe is decidedly peachy next to SnR. I guess I’d say SnR is better for cooler skin tones, PSB for warmer.
What is WKS if you please–White — Shimer?
Sorry, I mentioned the full name above but should have included ChG in front of it to make it clear. WKS = China Glaze White-Kwik-Silvr
You know, reddish hues aren’t my normal gotta-have’s but I rather like the look of Sunset Sneaks. I like those blues too, but I think I’d pick SS over them for once!
Thanks for the post!!
You’re welcome, Amanda. I definitely like SS more than I expected.
It looks like a very nice summer collection
Thanks Helena!
I don’t think coral will ever be unpopular for Spring! The two go together so well.
So true!
I haven’t been excited about an Essie collex in a while, but this one has some real stunners! Other than the white (oh, disappointing shimmers!) I love them all…
Right? I feel like if a white is too pigmented, the shimmer just dies.
Peach Side Thrills may be my favorite from this collection. I am loving all over the peaches and corals this summer. All of these are nice and the white is kind of indie-ish with the flecks. So, that’s cool!
Me too! Peach is so summer.
Salt water happy is SO pretty!! What a shame about the white and the lime green, they look so pretty, but ugh that formula sounds so hard to work with! I love how you feature swatches of similar shades as well, it’s so helpful!
You’re welcome Julie. I know, I was bummed about the white. They’re so tricky to get right.
I love Peach Side Babe, a lot, and also Pret-A-Surfer. I need some new essie polish!
What are you waiting for?
I love your comparison nails. They are perfect. I want that light blue for sure. I’ve got to find it.
Thanks! Happy you like them.
You are right those blues are gorgeous, and I really like the peach shade too! I am hoping the white shade in Zoya’s new summer collection has decent shimmer!
The Zoya has a decent shimmer, too bad the formula isn’t better
I love that you did comparison swatches of each of these. Pret-a-Surfer is beautiful! Purple is such an all-round-the-year colour.
There’s never a bad time for purple.
These colors are so beautiful; I really love them, looks like spring and something natural. I want them all.
Great colors; great review. Love both blues and the Peach Side Babe. Love how you are showing comparison swatches. I’m sure it’s a lot more work for you but I enjoy looking at the differences/similarities.
Thanks, I’m happy to hear the comparisons are helpful.
I have a love/hate relationship with your comparisons. I love them because they keep me from dupes. I hate them because, sometimes, they make me want more polish! For example, I was sure that Salt Water Happy was similar to other blues in my stash. Nope, your comparisons showed me how wrong I was. Another polish that just has to find it’s way into my stash
Ha, I’m happy to help, or maybe not.
This spring I sprang for butter London Kip, which I really, really love. Great formula, looks terrific on, even wore it near the end of a trial. Now I see that Salt Water Happy is a tiny bit bluer but totally distinct from Kip. Yep, I’m going to have to get it.
Another great review! Thank you! How does Sunset Sneaks compare to Aloha from OPI?
Thanks for the swatches! I already bought Chillato before seeing any decent swatches of it, and it is unique shade in my stash, so I like it. After seeing these I might be interested also in Salt Water Happy, which is soo pretty, too! <2
I’m glad you like Chillato. It’s a good color, it’s just the formula that bothered me.
Awesome blues! Essie is nailing it with the pastel formulas as usual!
I totally remember your love for sparkly white polishes. Your swatch of Orly Go Go (white with teeny gold specks) sent me on a beauty store search-a-thon. I had to have it ASAP! I’m pleased to say I found it and adore it still! The formula never was perfect on me, but it’s always worth the trouble. Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Disappointed this polish didn’t live up to the bottle pics!
Aww, I’m so glad you found GoGo. They just don’t make whites like that anymore. I still hound ChG to bring back White-Kwik-Silvr. I’m not asking that much, right?
Hi, Michelle!
Thanks for the swatches, always so helpful!
I wonder, how does Saltwater Happy compare to Bikini So Teeny? I love Bikini So Teeny so much, but is Saltwater Happy so different that it justifies a purchase??
Thanks!
Hi Natalie! They are definitely different. Saltwater Happy is lighter, more sandwashed and doesn’t have Bikini’s flecks. I really love it and think it’s different enough to justify buying.
I am kind of glad I wasn’t overawed by any of these I quite like the blues, and was excited by the white but I like a white with shimmer, I have the opi chiffon so won’t be splurging on these I am afraid. which my wallet is happy about because I loved the spring and the bridal collections. I might be tempted by the two blues when they hit my local boots I do like a blue crème. Thankyou for the swatches and the comparisons.
You’re welcome. I hope you find the blues. They’re pretty great.
I LOVE the blues but I’m not a fingers/toe match kind of girl so I’m wondering what your thoughts on what would coordinate well with the blues? Thanks!!!
Have you been able to try Essie Gel Setter top coat!? If so- I would LOVE to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions, dupes, whether there’s something better, etc! Thanks in advance!
I bought chillato and salt water happy only because of the colors. Chillato is horrible, I struggle a lot with it, no wonder you skipped. But it has such a beautiful and unique color, and looks so surprisingly well with every color, and for every ocasion! Once it is autumn, it is over for this color, so I wear it now for the 3rd time(!) at the moment. I don’t remember wearing a polish for so long ever before, not even in a mix or pattern. But the application… :’(