Essie: Head Mistress

I was curious how this would look.  I was also looking forward to wearing a vampy colour.  It's a little darker in real life, but the pictures capture this as red.  We all know I'm not big on wearing reds.  I have nothing against wearing red, I think I'm just not used to seeing red on my fingers.  My comfort zone are cold colours.  A small story to share.  I was telling a friend how red was so eye catching and I would like to not be so obvious, which is why I stick with cool tone colours (green, purple, blue).  Then she pointed out that red is a classic colour that probably started it all.  So in fact all the colours I wear are eye catching because they are not as accepted as red.  She has a point.  I think this blog and blogging about swatches as allowed me to get out of my comfort zone, and I'm wearing more colours that I own but probably wouldn't have worn.  I don't buy reds, I probably have only bought two reds in my collection.  Usually I'll buy pink or hot pink but red is different.  I received this for free as part of my win of the EXPRessie contest last year on instagram.

Thoughts
The formula is similar to that of Skirting the Issue.  It's a creme but the application was pretty smooth and water like.  It's buildable, I'm pretty sure if you added more layers, it'll become a bit more darker?  The polish is very shiny and pretty.  I accidentally hit my nail on something before it was completely dried so it smudged.  I removed the polish from that nail only so that I could fix it, but it stained a bit.  For me, staining is more like when I remove it, there's some residue left over, and I have to go over my nail with a nail polish soaked cotton pad once more.  

This could be that it wasn't completely dried but it wasn't wet either.  I do like the finish look a lot though, so this will become the red shade for me.

Breakdown
Basecoat: butter London Nail Foundation
Colour layer: Essie Head Mistress (2 coats)
Topcoat: butter London Hardwear

I didn't pay anything for this since I won it from a contest.  It is still available at nailpolishcanada.com if anyone is interested.  My bottle has 13.5 mL