I'll start with my fave. You shouldn't be shocked to see a pink. (I'm so predictable!) Bottle Service is described by Essie as a "scorching neon fuchsia". It's not in-your-face neon, but the fluorescent quality is there and so is the typical satin finish. I used three coats.
Shake Your $$$ Maker is a gorgeous shade of squishy, bright kelly green. This one was the sheerest…so coverage over the white was really difficult. I used three coats of color and there’s still some streakiness which you can see in my photo. I should have gone for a fourth. It looks much better in person. I think my strong lamp penetrated the layers of jelly and magnified the patchiness. I honestly do love this. I haven't swatched Neon Green from the Nicole by OPI Notorious! NEON mini set yet...but it looks awfully similar in the bottle.
Essie calls Saturday Disco Fever a “superhot fire coral”. It doesn't lean pink like I expected from the name. It’s really just a clean, glowy neon orange. My swatch is way too red. It's really more of a "safety" orange. This one had the best formula, but I still needed three coats.
Boom Boom Room is the lone crème of the bunch and the least neon. I first swatched this with a white base. Even though I was patient and let the white dry, the color dragged through the white and made a swirly mess. I started over and skipped the white for the photo below. Boom Boom Room is a bright bubblegum pink that's less lavender and more "punchy" than my pic shows.
Bouncer It's Me is an electric blue jelly. So vibrant! Again, the final mani is gorgeous, but the formula was really sheer and difficult to build without getting thick. This one is also eerily similar to a NOPI Neon, Neon Blue from the Scandalous NEON! mini set. You definitely don't need both.
And the last shade (and a close second place behind Bottle Service for me) is DJ Play that Song. Essie describes it as a “jam-miest neon plum”. I love this shade. If you know what Munsell Purple is…this is it! The pigment was separating and streaky in my bottle and no amount of rolling/shaking got it mixed. But it didn’t seem to come off the brush that way. It took patience and three very generous coats to cover the white. I do love the final result. Maybe next time I’ll skip the white and just aim for a bright purple jelly.
So my final verdict? These are beautiful bright jellies. If you go into it with that mindset (and skip the white base and your expectations for ultra-bright neon), you won't be disappointed.
Essie’s Summer 2013 Neons Collection retails for $8 per bottle and is available now at essie.com and a variety of beauty destinations nationwide, including ulta, CVS, Rite Aid, and Target.
