As most nail bloggers would say – it’s time to cleanse the palette! I’ve worn so many bright colours and layering combos and glitters recently that I just need plain and neutral for a little while. So today I have Essence – The Dawn Has Broken to show you from their Vampire’s Love collection. I was psyched to find an Essence stand at my local Target the other day (actually my boyfriend noticed it, then instantly regretted bring it to my attention – he literally groaned while I was explaining to him the relatively new introduction of Essence to Australia and it’s history!) I also picked up Hunt Me If You Can from the same collection and Blue Addicted.
The Dawn Has Broken is a greige shade to me, it leans more grey in the sunlight, but a bit more beige in the shade. I’m on the fence with this one, in some lights I adore it, but in others it literally looks like concrete courtesy of the small silver and charcoal grains in it (I can’t call it shimmer because it’s not reflective). The formula was nice on this one, took two coats for opacity and I really like the Essence brushes which have quite short firm bristles and are wide without being overly fat. It did dry very gritty and needed two top coats to even it out. It was difficult to do clean up on and you can see on my middle finger where I couldn’t get it to budge!
Sunlight Photo
Shade Photo
Detail Photo
I’m really enjoying having a neutral color on my nails that isn’t nude. I don’t own that many, any suggestions on must have non-nude neutrals? I’m eyeing up the new Zoya True collection and really liking the look of Farah and Bevin but I doubt I will be able to get my hands on them for a while as I can’t order directly through Zoya because I’m overseas :(
I got the entire Vampire’s Love set for Christmas from my sister… Haven’t got around to trying them yet, but this polish is the one I’m most excited about! :) I think it looks really unique… though there is a new-ish GOSH polish out there that looks somewhat similar… Fossil Grey. :)
It was the first to catch my eye in the store. I thought it might be similar to Butter London All Hail The Queen but its much too grey, so that one is still on my wish list.
Have you tried China Glaze’s Stellar? It’s one of my favourite “neutral” glitters… :)
You’re right that this REALLY looks like concrete but it’s kind of cool for that reason.. I like it.
I don’t know if it’s neutral enough for what you’re asking about, but I loved wearing the muted color by Cult Nails – My Kind of Cool Aid. You can check it out on my blog.
To be honest this is the polish I like least from the Vampires Love collection. It looks ok in the bottle but it makes my skin look horrible! Maybe I’m too pale for this. Oh and you definitely need All Hail The Queen, it’s so pretty and not similar to The Dawn Is Broken at all!
I think if it was autumn/winter here I probably would have been more drawn towards the darker shades. Greys are hard to wear sometimes too, I have some that look terrible on me.
This is such a pretty color!! See you on Twitter!