Essie Silk Watercolor Palette 1 Review with Nailart

Hi Guys!

How are you doing?  I'm back again, this time with a product review and a bit of nailart for you.

This Essie set was a super-kind gift from a work friend who has been to America on her hols.  She picked this up for me and I was intrigued!  As I've been out of the nailart scene for a while due to many changes in my home life I hadn't heard of this set and couldn't wait to try it.

I especially didn't Google it before I tried it, because I didn't want to go in with any preconceptions.  I have had Essie polishes before, which I have reviewed elsewhere in my blog, but have never really been blown away by any of the ones I have tried.  But this set looked like fun!

So here's what I got:

I like the look of the packaging, and as you can see, there is a standard sized bottle of white basecoat, called White Page, and 3 minis of the watercolor polishes, a yellow called "muse, myself", a pink called "love sheen", and a purple called "no shrinking violet".

On the back of the pack is the instructions on how to use them.  Apologies for the light shining on the box:

I decided not to go with the design they suggested, as I wanted mine to look a bit more random.

I started by applying White Page.  This is one coat:

As you can see, it was a bit streaky.  It dried to a sheen rather than a shine.  If it was wall paint, think "eggshell".  I applied another coat after this.  It was reasonably fast drying, and by the time i'd done both hands, I didn't have long to wait before I could start again on the first nail.

Then I went on to randomly blob on No Shrinking Violet.  I did do them in the order suggested on the box, just in case there was a reason for that:

As you can see, very random.  I didn't go OTT with the first colour, because I wanted to leave room for the others.

Then on with Love Sheen:

Again just random blobs.  Was expecting a bit more merging between the two, but was pleased that the pink didn't completely obscure the purple.

Next on with the last colour, Muse, Myself.  Not sure why it's called that, I'm guessing some kind of pun on amuse myself:

Sorry for the blurry pic here, I'm guessing it was getting too dark by that time.  However when I went outside to take a better one, I dented my middle finger on the door **CRIES**:

So there we go, that was all of the colours on.  I was a little bit underwhelmed at first, but actually as the day went on, I got quite attached to it.  The colours really complemented each other, and in different lights there were different effects.

OBVIOUSLY I was not satisfied to stop at this, so I decided to stamp over it.  I went with GALS stamping plate GA22:

I went with the sun image on the right hand side of the plate.

And here we have how it came out:

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Yes, I can hardly see it either!  I have no idea why it came out so pale.  It was fine on the stamper, and I tried both Konad stamping polish, and OPI Alpine Snow, which I've successfully stamped with before, and had the same result with both. 

Here's a picture in different lighting.  You can "kind of" see it here:

This isn't to say that I don't like it.  As Bob Ross would have said, it's a "happy accident".  I like the mixed up look of it, but it definitely isn't what I expected, or aimed for.

As I always do (when I remember), here is a pic of the brushes.  Weirdly the brush in the mini is larger than the brush in the full size polish:

So what did I think?

Obviously as this was a present I don't know what it cost, but knowing the cost of Essies, I'm guessing it was mid-range.  A bit more than Rimmels, but a bit less than OPI's.  

It does have a lot of potential, and I will experiment more with it.  However, I haven't been blown away I'm sorry to say.  I know that the colours are intended to be sheer, but for me, they were a little *too* wishy-washy.  Even over white, the yellow is very subtle.

It does however create a lovely girly pastel look, and with some holo glitter and a bit more imagination on my part, this set could really make something incredible (and I'm sure some people have done so).

In summary, it was a kind wonderful gift from a lovely person, and although I haven't got the best out of it on my first try, I am sure that I will have something better to show you in the future.

Thanks for reading, and until next time...

MASPOOASE
xx Wendy xx