Essie - Cherry Pop

Essie in Cherry Pop

I've fallen in love with Essie after trying out a couple of free samples of their Nail varnish this year. This has led to a few purchases including Cherry Pop which I wasn't so sure about. I'd been looking at Cherry Pop online for a while, I've not been out shopping for a while but even if I had I've never seen an Essie stall to browse. I'm obviously shopping in the wrong places. So I've only been looking at it online and wasn't able to tell how sheer it really is. Fortunately I waited for it to go down to a more reasonable price on Amazon otherwise I might be a little disappointed.

Essie Cherry Pop nail varnish with Korres Baby Pink nail varnish as a base coat

Essie Cherry Pop Nail Varnish no base

I'll start with the good points. Like all the Essie I've tried it goes on evenly and dries quickly on its own, I found it slower on the hand with a base coat which led to smudging in the night. It has a standard brush, I always prefer squares brushes, it isn't really a problem with a clear varnish though, although you can see I managed to get it on my skin, this was mainly down to doing it late at night when tired. To me it seems to be completely clear, I did expect a slight tint of red to the finish but having tried it on one hand on its own and the other with the Korres baby pink varnish as a base coat, using two coats with the Korres and three with the Essie varnish. I didn't really see any colour. I did think my nails on the clear hand did look slightly healthier though, I've been having problems with yellow stains after wearing green varnishes, even with a base coat, this kind of corrected it. It is a nice varnish but I wouldn't pay full price for it, I'm happy I've got it but won't bother with it again. The other thing, I'm not sure whether I'm imagining it or whether it is supposed to be scented as I could swear it smells like cherries. I've never understood the point of scented nail varnishes as the overwhelming smell is always chemically and there is no escaping that. This actually made me rather nostalgic, the heavy nail varnish smell with a hint of cherry made me think of vodka-cherry slush puppies, but just like them, I started to feel sick after a while.