Essie on eBay: Lady Like and Case Study

eBay can be a wonderful site where you can get great deals and find limited edition or hard to find items. But it can also be extremely addicting. Bidding on an item is like gambling, but if you win you get an item you really want and if you lose, you don’t lose any money. It’s great, but can also be trouble.

As my love for nail polish was rekindled, so was my love for eBay and it’s selection of polish auctions. I recently won an auction of a lot of four Essie bottles pretty much by accident. I wasn’t planning on buying them, I was just curious if I could win the auction.

They were still at a decent price with the auction ending in under 10 minutes, so I put a bid in. Automatically I was outbid, so I tried again, and again was outbid. After a few more tries and telling myself I would only go up to x amount of dollars, I was the high bidder (and only 50 cents over my price limit). I sat there thinking that someone would have to outbid me in the last minute, but they didn’t. I was happy that I won, but then felt guilty for getting caught up in the auction and spending more on nail supplies. (I had told myself that I wouldn’t buy anymore nail polish that week.)

So there is the story of my love/hate relationship with eBay and how I came to own 4 new Essie colors, bringing my Essie collection total up to a whopping 5.

About two weeks later, my Essie polishes arrived in the mail. There was a picture with the eBay sale of course, but it’s always different seeing them in person. I split the polishes into two groups for the blog, since all four are not part of a specific seasonal collection. The first two are Lady Like and Case Study, which are from Essie’s Fall 2011 Collection.

Lady Like is a mauve creme, which at first reminded me of the types of shades that my mom usually wears. It is not a bad thing, but from the bottle it looked like something that I normally wouldn’t pick out on my own. After applying the two coats and my top coat though, I was pleasantly surprised. The Essie polish applied very well and the color definitely grew on me as I wore it. It’s a flattering shade and perfect for the fall. It’s subtle and understated, making it one classy color that lives up to its name.
I can’t say that trying to photograph the color went as well as the application, but it may be because I took the pictures at night with just one light. Here are my results below:

I kept Lady Like on for two days, removed it of course, and then applied Case Study. Case Study, being from the same collection, applied just as well as Lady Like. It is also a creme polish, but in a light brown /  taupe shade. Again, it is not a color I would normally choose for myself or catch my eye in a drugstore, but I also liked the color more than I thought I would. From the bottle it looks like it would come out a bit lighter and for some reason I kept thinking Case Study would be more of a khaki color than a taupe. 

Here are my results below:

I wore Case Study with a purple top and the colors complimented each other well. For my job in a non-profit office setting, the color was perfect. I also liked how shiny both Lady Like and Case Study were with just one top coat of Brucci’s Acrylic Top Coat. 

 
I’m enjoying trying different colors and getting acquainted with the Essie brand. I can’t wait to try my two other Essie polishes! I was prepared to give both colors a Fail’d It, but after wearing them, I would give both a Nail’d It!