Essence Sun Kissed TE – Swatches and Review (Hello Summer!, My Sunny Side & Sunset Paradise)

Hi readers!

I love Essence products and when they announce new collections on their Facebook page I always keep a lookout at my local Shoppers Drug Mart for them to come out. When I saw the Sun Kissed trend edition (TE) last week (which I posted on my Instagram) I obviously grabbed the 3 nail polishes.

I had no plans last night so I took the opportunity to have my very first swatch-a-ton, yay! I don’t normally swatch polishes because (a) I don’t usually have the time, and (b) I like to keep the colours on for a few days. That being said, some of the polishes I buy are not colours I will wear (like orange and gold), but I might need them for some nail art and Essence polishes are only $2 (CAD) a pop so they’re hard to pass up.

Our good camera was having a hard time capturing the colour of Hello Summer!, it really hates neons, so I had to grab our other camera which seems to have an easier time with them. However, the resolution on that camera is lower so once I zoom in and crop the pictures they are not as sharp and crisp like they are with our good camera, so I apologize for the lower quality of these pictures.

Now onto the polishes…

I love their brushes, they are wide and thin with a rounded tip. I find the rounded tip is key in wide brushes because they help give a nice curve at the cuticles. I always clean up afterwards anyway, but I find I have way less cleanup to do with these brushes, and it’s more to give nice clean lines rather than cleaning up messy cuticles (which I often get with other types of brushes).

All of these swatches are without top coat.

Hello Summer! is a beautiful bright creme orange, leaning towards a neon. The formula was a bit sheer and I needed 3 coats for full opacity, but if you go with thicker coats you could get away with 2. It’s also self-leveling so you get a nice smooth finish. This polish is a tad brighter in real life, but bright colours like this are always hard to capture on camera.

My Sunny Side is a beautiful shimmering gold and the formula was really nice. It is a bit sheer as well, but I only used 2 coats in these pictures. If you have long nails you might get some visible nail line so it could require 3 coats.
Side note: this is my first gold nail polish.

Sunset Paradise is a beautiful cream nautical blue and this formula was the best out of the 3 polishes. It was almost a 1 coater, but I put 2 coats for safe measures.

There is a 4th colour in this collection, Soak Up The Sun (a dark eggplant), which unfortunately was not released in North America. It’s too bad because I would have really loved that colour.

Have you bought the Sun Kissed collection? What do you think of these?

In Canada, Essence is exclusive to Shoppers Drug Mart and their nail polishes retail for $2.

I swatched Sunset Paradise last and I’m keeping that one on for a few days. I have not had a dark polish on my nails in quite a while and man I love it! As much as I’m enjoying all the pastels and brights that I’ve been wearing lately, my true nail polish love lies in dark colours. And I find dark colours on nubs have this rockin’ vibe to them.

– Chantal 🙂