How Many White Nail Polishes Do You Need?

White Nail Polishes essie essence sally hansen

White Nail Polishes essie essence sally hansen

As I took photos of the latest Essence Mountain Calling collection, my boyfriend asked me “how any white nail polishes do you need?”. While I am impressed he can even tell that the bottle is not the same each time, the answer is, not as many as he thinks I have but a few.  I rummaged through all of my nail polishes and while I have some older ones I no longer use (now purged from the collection) and some off white, I only have five white nail polishes including my most recent one.

Like many essie lovers, Essie Blanc has long been my go to white polish for base polish or brightening a neon.  However, it is not very opaque and you need three coats for full coverage and to get rid of streaks.  It  still gets a lot of use because I am just so used to reaching for it.

When The Gel collection came out from Essence, Wild White Ways became my new favourite.  A little brighter than Essie Blanc, it suffers from that slightly chalky look that many pastel polishes do.  Since I rarely wear white without a significant amount of stamping or nail art over it, this was not an issue for me.  I doubt I would ever wear it without nailart though and it is not opaque enough for stamping and looks kind of grey-ish over a dark base.

I probably would have not bought Essie Private Weekend since I already had Blanc but I received the set for free and fell in love with it.  It is an actual wearable white.  It has a slight shimmer to it that helps with the chalky look and makes it ideal to wear alone.  It also seems like a real white on the nail, not appearing slightly toned.

Essence Snow Alert! from the Mountain Calling collection is a little brighter than Wild White Ways and less chalky.  However, after 2 days of wear, it does not seem to have kept the brightness and looks like white paper rather than bright white nail polish.  It is a little smoother in application with less streaking which is always good for a pale polish.

Finally, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White Out is a bright white nail polish with a great application.  Probably the most opaque of the five, I have used it for nail art and even stamping with no issues.  It dries fairly quickly and unlike Wild White Ways, is not lifted or smudged as badly when applying top coat.  Sadly, it does not live up to the Xtreme Wear name and as a base, chips after a day.

All swatches of white nail polishes above are shown with two regular coats and no top coat

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One Reply to “How Many White Nail Polishes Do You Need?”

  1. […] already mentioned Snow Alert! in my comparison of white polishes.  It is a nice bright white polish that does not have that chalky look that many white and pastel […]

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