I realize that since I've sort of kind of stopped blogging I've fallen in love with a ton of different products (but sadly, not books. Last book I fell in love with was A Court of Mist and Fury and that was in 2017, sad, I freakin know) but haven't mentioned/talked about/reviewed them and if you know me you know that's not how I work.

I've seen the Expressie by Essie brand around, mostly at Target and always just passed by them. Well, sometimes the husband doesn't come with me in Target if the baby is asleep in the car sooo this was one of those days lol. I picked up the last two in the photo (I'll edit this once I remember their names, sorry) and ordered the first one off of Ulta (Afterpay is the death of my bank account).

As a new mom who only has a window of maybe 2-3 hours a day to herself you're gonna need to utilize that time (or what's left of it after you're done cleaning) as best as possible (I edit pictures at 3am when I wake up to make her another bottle, I haven't had a full nights sleep in a year and a half ya'll)! I was a little iffy about this actually being quick dry cause even with my favorite "fast drying" top coat my nail polish doesn't exactly dry quickly. And a polish without the top coat? I don't know man.

Well I'm here to tell you THIS IS QUICK DRYING. I applied it during my bubble bath and scrolled through Pinterest and IG for awhile (cause you know, not much you can do in the bath or while your nails are wet) and I noticed they dried pretty quickly. Like solid smooth dry. Not sort of dry or even mostly dry. It was completely dry. I don't know exactly how long since I didn't time it (I should and I'll update this when I do), but it was at least within half an hour!

I'm absolutely impressed with this line from Essie, I just wish they had more shades. There's a good range of shades to choose from now but I'm hoping for some dusty vibes for Fall!

Julep's Elise was released in the December mystery box along with several other shades. One being a cobalt blue. So since there was already a blue in the mystery box I didn't think they would release two blue's. Not to mention that Julep's Elise appears to be a dark purple in the tube with silver shimmer.

Imagine my surprise when I started applying it to my nails that it in fact was not purple but a dark indigo blue.

Wait what?

Yes, a dark indigo blue with purple shimmer that I guess made it appear purple in the tube. You should had seen my face at how baffled I was.

The formula is smooth, as must of Julep polishes are and easy to build up the color to a darker shade. But it is, still without a doubt, blue on the nails.

The thing that I really really did not like about this polish was the fact that when I removed it, it left a rather intense stain. I tried almost everything to get it to come off and it just wouldn't budge. I eventually gave up and passed it off as one of those stains you'll just have to wait out. For the most part the stain did come off of most of my nails except my ring fingers. Those stains are still there, two weeks after removing it. It's pretty insane.

I don't think I'll be giving this polish another go at any point considering that the stain it left behind was pretty bad and pretty intense. Beautiful shade but not worth the hassle in my opinion. 

Places To Buy :  Amazon (if you would like to try it for yourself)

Retail Price : $14

Rating : 2/5