Essie Sable Collar

Hello and Happy Sunday!!  With the new Picture Polish and Rescue Beauty Lounge blogger collections imminent, I started to think about what kind of polish I'd create if given the opportunity.  I'm fairly easy to please and fairly uncomplicated in my taste, polish wise, so in my little experiment I tried to think outside the box of my favorite red cremes, vampy wine colored jellies, and slick blacks.  It's hard to come up with a unique idea in this supersaturated industry, but I had this notion that my dream polish would be a dark grey with a red shimmer woven throughout.  Red would have to play a role, somehow.  So I'm trying to picture how this whole thing would work, so the shimmer is apparent but subtle, how it wouldn't be drowned out on the nail by such a dark base, when I come across Essie's just released winter 2013 collection.  I took one look at Sable Collar and thought, Holy Smokes, that's IT!!

As it turns out, it's not; the store lights were a bit deceiving (but not necessarily disappointing).  It's not what I was imagining, but it would make a nice prototype, lol.  Sable Collar is a dark grey with warm brownish red undertones, saturated with a reddish-mauve shimmer.  All this reads as a dark, dusty plum both in photos and on the nail and looks warm, luxurious, and plush but also carries a bit of a chill, as if you are wearing such a collar during a clear, icy night.  The name is perfect and this polish feels inspired to me. 

The color is fascinatingly unique and I love it.  Essie's been stepping up their game this year and while their collections are still playing it rather safe, they're also throwing in some interesting and intriguing polishes and this one is their best this year, in my opinion.

Essie's formula is widely known to be a little tricky and while that's also improved, you can see I still had a few application issues with Sable Collar.  This is opaque in the standard two coats.  It's on the thin and runny side (GAHHH I so dislike that word but there it is, it's the best way to describe this); a thin first coat and a slightly thicker second coat, plus a steady hand, will minimize issues.

I like Sable Collar a LOT, maybe even more so since it's not what I had first envisioned (it's fun being surprised and I think my mind played a trick on me, lol) and I'm surprised at how drawn to dusky plums I've been this fall.  The only place I've seen this new Essie collection is at Fred Meyer for $8 a piece but the release date is early October, so if you haven't seen this yet, keep your eyes peeled :)

One more thing... I mentioned in my previous post how I has hot on the trail of a pair of faux suede booties to wear for C's and my late Oktoberfest party this past Friday (which was a blast, so much so that I somehow managed to not take any pictures which might be a first for me)... well, mission accomplished but I ended up wearing something else, lol.  Here they are... Aren't they smokin'?  I love being way up there but it's been a while since I've sported something this high.

Did I mention they were on clearance?  This fact made C happy, even (or perhaps less unhappy would be more accurate, lol).  Thank you all for reading and have a relaxing day ♥♥