Essie Bobbing for Baubles

   Essie is a fairly well known salon brand, but I haven't given them much love on here even though I own a decent amount.  They have recently expanded their market presence by creating what they call a retail line.  The retail line is mostly the same as their salon line, aside from a sticker on one side of the bottle and the color name on top of the brush, but with a few exclusive colors.  Basically this means you can go to your local drugstore/box store and find a selection of core colors and some of their seasonal collections.  This also means that if you're lucky you might be able to occasionally find some on clearance.  I always get excited about clearance polish.

   Bobbing for Baubles is from Essie's new fall collection Cocktail Bling. On their website, they describe Bobbing as a deepest darkest sapphire.  I call it a dusty navy creme.  At least in the bottle I do.  On the nail however, their description is more accurate.  Bobbing dries a couple shades darker once it's on than it looks in the bottle.

   Sometimes I love Essie's formula and sometimes I hate it.  In general I have not found a brand wide consistency of formula.  I'll try one color and the formula is amazing- smooth, covers evenly in 1 or 2 coats.  Then I'll try another color and the formula will be thin and streaky and take 3+ coats.  Luckily Bobbing for Baubles fell into the amazing formula category.  Application was smooth, the formula was just the right consistency so the polish stayed where I put it, which made for very minimal clean-up, and pigmentation was strong, I only used one coat for full, even coverage.  I used Barielle Nail Rebuilding Protein for my base and Barielle Manicure Extender for my top coat.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor

   In the sun and most indoor lighting you can usually tell that Bobbing is a dark dark blue polish.  But on a quick glance inside or in the shade it can easily be mistaken for black.  I do like the dry on nail color, but I would have preferred the polish stay the bottle color.

   If you've never tried Essie, this is a good polish to start with.  Good formula and application and is easily found in drugstores like CVS and Rite Aid right now.  I've also seen the collection at Target, both full sizes and sets of a mini polish and mini top coat for some of the colors.  Plus, Target had the full 6 piece collection while I've only seen the smaller 4 piece display at the drugstores and no mini sets.