2011-09-26

Essie Anniversary Gala #562 Nail Polish Lacquer review/ swatch

Essie Anniversary Gala (code 562)  is a pearly pink (with slightest hint of peach- not sure whether the peachiness comes from my natural nail color or from the polish itself though), semi opaque finish polish, which flashes a touch of firefly green and at some angles, slightly white/yellow flash.


Not sure how many people have seen firefly in real life, but they flicker with a very gentle, slightly green and yellow tinged light in the dark, at least in Taiwan. (In NZ I remember they looked just yellow).

It's a very very soft green flash, that doesn't standout glaringly.  It adds a touch of cool-toned feel to the polish but overall shade I would call it neutral.

I had to tilt the bottle to show the sligtht green flash , see the top of the picture it captures a little bit of green.


It's semi opaque so probably need 2 coats or 3 for the pink base to show up. It will never build up to full opacity. Depends on which base coat you wear, you can manipulate the finish of this.


Here's 2 coats on the nails- on the middle and index finger I did a 3 coat but turned it a bit goopy and uneven =(  However it seems 2 coats is sufficient to build up the pink color base, without going to 3 coats.


You can see how it's a pearly finish- however it's sort of not a full pearl, the shimmers are just a bit larger than a normal pearl finish which means when applied not carefully enough, it can look a bit streaky or uneven.


I'm wearing Seche Vite base coat which is a slightly opaque white pearl. So it enhances the pearliness of Anniversary Gala and hides my natural nail tip white a little bit and brings out the pink base more as well. In the bottle above you can see the pink base much more clearly.

Overall I'm not sure what I really feel about this shade- it's unique enough for me to keep and obviously I've worn it at least 4-5 times judging by how much is left in the bottle (which is rare for me! I have so many it's hard for me to go back to same shade like 5 times).

Overall 3.5 or 4/5. It's a gorgeous pearly pink with a flash of green/gold shade, however wish the pearlised pigments/shimmers were finer (like OPI Tutti Fruitti Tonga would be nice- bytheway this a a fair bit pinker than Tutti Fruitti Tonga and totally different), the consistency would also be improved as it can look streaky even with careful application, and does not seem to dry fast at all.

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