Mint Nail Polish Collection/Review

Hey Everyone, 

After featuring Essie Mint Candy Apple Nail Polish in my January Favourites video (which you can find here) I realised that I had quite a few nail polishes that fell into the mint category and, as I said in the video, it took me quite a long time to find my perfect mint. So I decided to do a blog post on all my mint polishes and a mini review of them so hopefully if you've been searching for the perfect mint too, then this might help! 

Without flash in lamplight

The four that I have in my ridiculously large extensive and varied nail polish collection are from left to right/top to bottom- MUA Nail Varnish in Pistachio Ice Cream, Lacura Beauty Nail Polish in Number 520 (I think this brand is only available in Aldi supermarkets so I couldn't find a link!), Essie Nail Colour in Mint Candy Apple and finally, E.L.F Nail Polish in Mint Cream. They vary in colour from very green mint to more blue mint and they vary greatly in price from £1 for the MUA polish to £9.95 for the Essie Polish. 

With flash

(Also, I know the edges of my nails here are atrocious but I tried my best to apply it neatly, but really, this is only so you can see the colours on nails instead of in the bottle and next to each other for better comparison!)

My least favourite and the one I would use the least is the Lacura Beauty Polish because it's a very dark green colour and almost can't be included as a mint colour but I did just for green comparison with the others. It's only been recently that I've branched into mint/greeny toned anything because I have such a dislike for the colour green (I won't even use green pens if I can help it!) so when my mum picked me this up, I would have much preferred a different colour! I can't fault the application or opacity but it's just not for me! 

The E.L.F nail polish and the MUA nail varnish are the two more green toned mints but because they are much paler in green than the Lacura I can trick myself into pretending they aren't green at all! The E.L.F polish is slightly darker toned but I prefer it as it has a better opacity and application on the nails than the MUA polish. I've mentioned a few E.L.F  polishes on my blog before and I really love them. They aren't too expensive (I think £2.50 if my memory serves me right) which is a total bargain given how nicely they apply, the chipping is about the same as any other brand but a good top coat always helps a lot and they come in a load of different colours so even if you don't want mint, there's bound to be something you'll love! The MUA polish can be a bit streaky and needs a good few coats to make it look opaque, I would say about three or more whereas the other polishes you could get away with only two coats. Having said that, for a nail polish that only costs a pound there are lots of colours (although disappointingly like with most MUA things, most of the shades are numbered rather than named) and with a bit of patience and time the finish can be decent at the end. 

With Flash

Without Flash

The star nail polish of these four and I'm definitely saving the best for last here is the Essie Mint Candy Apple. When I got the E.L.F and MUA polishes back in September/October time, I liked them and knew I would wear them but I was slightly disappointed that they weren't more bluey toned, because of my dislike of anything green. I'd heard absolutely everyone raving about the Essie but I'd never bothered to buy it because it looked so green toned on all the websites and because it used to be quite difficult to buy Essie polishes in the UK. Now, I wish I'd bought the Essie one first and then I wouldn't have bothered buying the other two even though I do love them now. In the bottle and even on the nails, the Essie and MUA polishes do look very similar but when you look closely you can see the more blue tones in the Essie Mint Candy apple. Now, £9.95 is definitely in the higher end bracket of nail polish prices/brands but personally now I've tried Essie polishes I totally think they're worth every penny, plus the fact that they're more readily available in the Boots diffusion line and online makes it easier. One thing I can never have enough of is nail polishes, judging by the ammount that I have in my nail polish drawer (yes, I've got that many they need their own drawer!) of every colour and finish and varying degrees of glitter and shimmer but I have to say Essie is now one of my favourite brands. They last for ages with no chipping, they're easy to apply and opaque with two coats, there's such a huge range of colours with such cute and quirky names, which I am always a sucker for (on more than one occasion I have bought a nail polish purely because of it's name, or at least it helped a lot in the deciding process!)... I could go on!! I am a total convert to Essie-ism basically. Essie's Good To Go also needs to get a special mention here for glossiness and keeping chippage at bay... is chippage a word?... well, it is now!! 

Well... that turned into a bit of an Essie fangirl moment there didn't it? Oops, didn't mean for that happen!! But hopefully this has helped with any green and blue toned mint nail polish dilemas you may have been having... I bet it's just me that's so picky!! Anyways, leave me a comment if you own any of these polishes or have them on your wish list. Also leave me a comment if you know of any other blue toned or pale green mint polishes that you reccomend because, lets face it three bottles of nearly the same colour of nail polish is never enough hehe...

Thanks for reading!!

Lauren
xx