Essence Hidden Stories Nail Polish Swatches

New Essence collections always make me happy, you can buy the whole collection for around $50 and get Optimum points!  Sadly, a lot of the Hidden Stories collection was already sold out in my favourite store but I picked up the nail polishes.

These limited edition Essence polishes offer effects, effects, effects! From frosted to iced to a fabulous sparkle, each polish has a surprising wintery ice-breaker finish. You have a choice of pastel shades including trendy frosted mint and metallic ice-blue with high coverage.  There is a fifth shade, Rose in Winterland but if it is available in Canada, my store did not have it.

Essence Hidden Stories: Where Did I Park My Unicorn?

I didn’t even look at the nails of the polishes when I picked up the Hidden Stories collection, but when I saw that this soft metallic blue was called Where Did I Park My Unicorn? I had to love it.   Us Canadian Beauty Bloggers have many things in common, and we often chat about our cats, tea and more.  One of the more weirder things that we have in common is a fascination with unicorns.  Rather random, I know, but we love unicorns.  It is like Essence made this collection for the CBBers.

Unlike many metallic polishes, Where Did I Park My Unicorn? does not suffer too badly from brush strokes.  They are there, but not as noticeable as many pastel metallic polishes I own.  for a paler colour, Where Did I Park My Unicorn? is fairly pigmented.  It is almost a one coater, but the second coat helps even out brush strokes.

Essence Hidden Stories: Enchanted by a Hint of Mint

Essence Enchanted by a Hint of Mint from the Hidden Stories collection is a light mint green with a frosted look.  When I first applied it,  I thought it would be more like a pixie dust finish as you can see some glitter in the bottle.  However, the frosted look on the nail is more bumpy than glittery.  It is still nice to look at, but the finish feels like it needs top coat which ruins the look.

This one is a three coater for full opacity, otherwise you will see the nail line under the polish.  It also looks good as one coat on top of the soft matte white included in the Hidden Stories collection.

Essence Hidden Stories: Enter Wonderland

I am still not sure how I feel about Enter Wonderland from the Hidden Stories collection.  This off-white matte leans ever so slightly grey and is not a true white.  While matte, does not look overly chalky but I am not sure how often I would actually wear it other than as a base colour for matte nail art.  It is less streaky than other pale/pastel matte polishes I have tried, which considering the price-point is amazing.

Shown with two coats, it looked fine to the naked eye but the camera does not lie, and it could probably do with a third coat.  Let coats dry between applications (the dry time is great) to minimize brush strokes.

Essence Hidden Stories: Mauve-llous Fairy

I love purple polishes but I wasn’t a huge fan of Essence Mauve-llous Fairy when I tried it alone.  Three coats was not enough for full opacity so I decided to try it as an effect coat instead and fell in love with it.  I mean, it is obviously full of fairy dust, and it is purple so you have to love it!

Over black polish, the colours in the glitter really shine and the base pink-purple polish completes the look.  The mix of reds and blues in the glitter pick up the purple perfectly and show so well over dark polishes.

Since I was swatching Enter Wonderland, I also tried it over this matte white and while the effect is very different, I love the lilac base with pink and blue glitter.

Since I have never really thought of unicorns being blue, I wish this one was named for a unicorn, because glitter.  That being said, mauve-llous fairy suits it too.  Oh how I would love to get a job naming nail polishes!  These limited edition polishes are out in Shoppers Drug Mart now and retail for $2.99 each.