Tag: Avenue Maintain

Of Life and Lacquer > Avenue Maintain

Blues Smackdown

Posted on by Cynthia

With all the gorgeous blues that have come out lately, the questions about possible dupes is inevitable. As a blue polish lover–and hoarder–I knew that I would cringe when I finally sat down to evaluate all the possible bright blue polish dupes. Today I chose two older and two newer blue polishes to compare. For my blues smackdown, I have the following four polishes:

1a

Color Club Bright Night – Essie Butler Please – Kiko Electric Blue – Nails Inc. Baker Street

2a

3a

4a

5a

While all of these colors are fairly similar, I think that Color Club Bright Night and Kiko Electric Blue are dupes while Essie Butler Please and Nails Inc. Baker Street are dupes. All of these polishes have a glossy creme finish except for Color Club Bright Night which dries to a satin finish.

These are 3 other polishes that I thought might be close to these as well:

from dusk till dawn

Nubar Dusk Till Dawn (I suspect it’s pretty close to Nubar Blueberry too!)

sky

Cacee BFF Sky

6a1

And lastly, this is Essie Avenue Maintain which is NOT a dupe for any of those blues. People had asked me how close this is to Essie Butler Please, and it’s obviously not close at all.

I hope this helps some of you decide if you REALLY need certain blue polishes, but I have a sneaking suspicions that the true polish addicts won’t care.  And just for the heck of it, here is my polish haul for this week. I had commented that I basically blew through my polish budget for the next few months…if I had a polish budget.

DSC00750

I picked up 3 of the 4 new Essie Resort Collection polishes and also got an extra set for a giveaway so be on the lookout for that. Thanks for stopping by today!

Essie Madison Ave-Hue Collection Spring 2013

Posted on by Cynthia

The new Essie collection for Spring 2013 has landed! I was pretty excited when I found these at one of my nail places so I grabbed them all. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been excited about any Essie collection for eons. In fact, I think that the last collection I really loved from them was the Bikini So Teeny collection. Let’s take a look at the Essie Madison Ave-Hue Collection, shall we?

Essie Madison Ave-Hue

Essie Madison Ave-Hue

Madison Ave-Hue is like a Pepto Bismol explosion on my nails. This polish was a little difficult to deal with because it felt kind of runny but also goopy. I know that sounds weird, but that’s what it felt like. I ended up really liking this color because it has this very pretty shimmer that isn’t very visible in my pictures but you can definitely see it in real life.

Essie Maximillian Strasse Her

Essie Maximillian Strasse Her

I was really excited about Maximillian Strasse Her but the formula was super runny. I don’t know if maybe I needed to shake it up a bit more to mix the polish, but it was way too thin for my liking. I had to apply 4 super thin coats to avoid flooding my cuticles as well. It’s too bad because I really like this type of color.

Essie Avenue Maintain

Essie Avenue Maintain

Avenue Maintain is definitely the winner of this collection. This polish is so incredibly gorgeous and pigmented that you can get away with one coat if you’re careful.  This is one of those colors that just screams for attention, and I can see myself wearing this all summer long.

Essie Hip-Anema

Essie Hip-Anema

I wasn’t very excited about Hip-Anema when I first saw it. It’s a very nice fiery red-orange crelly, and I always appreciate a great formula which this one has. I love how glossy and shiny this polish is!

Essie Bond With Whomever

Essie Bond With Whomever

Are you getting tired of these bright lilac polishes such as Bond With Whomever? I do continue to appreciate these colors but I don’t think I want to have a million of them. The formula on this was decent, and I got complete coverage at 3 coats.

Essie Go Ginza

Essie Go Ginza

I am conflicted about Go Ginza. I really want to love it, but I think I would have wanted it to be a little less pink/purple. The formula on this was also a bit difficult and it applied a little streaky which you can probably see in these swatches. I also don’t like that Go Ginza and Bond With Whomever are so close in hue. They obviously are not dupes, but did we really need them both in the same collection?

So what do I think about this collection overall? Well, I really do love Avenue Maintain and that’s about it. hahaha I actually do think this is a very pretty collection but it’s so ho-hum that it feels uninspired. Don’t we all have dupes of these colors even from Essie itself? Eeehh….most of these are going on my blog sale. I’m really interested to hear what you think about this collection. Do you have a favorite color here? Let me know!

Thanks for the visit today, and I hope to see you around here again soon.