Battle of the Old Essie's (And a Dark Horse)

I think I've had Essie Viva La Vespa for a long time now. I've never worn it really and never compared it.

I always had a throwaway thought that it was a dupe of Essie Sexy Divide. I thought I better get busy on this action and do a comparison!

Here my nails are longer. I attribute a few things to this: round edges and no real horse activity. The minute I start really using my hands I got a break very low (below the quick) and they all went. Sigh. It was a nice month!

The photos are all taken with my telephone, so bear with me on that front!

Essie Viva La Vespa

A gorgeous deep plum base with a strong purple shimmer. It's got depth and complexity. It is also rather stinky (pre-3-free) and a bit loose.

Three coats, no clean up and no top coat. 

I was pleasantly surprised!

This is a very hard to find polish. I did have it listed on eBay, but after trying it, I am keeping my back up. I love the depth.

Essie Sexy Divide

Very similar, but the base is a dark vamp with a similar purple shimmer.

I see that it's the base that makes or breaks this polish.

Three coats, no top coat or clean up and a lot of loosie-goosie-ness.

Generic and kind of a middle runner for a dupe.

Here's a comparison:

Left to right:

Essie Viva La Vespa

Essie Sexy Divide

Essie Viva La Vespa

Essie Sexy Divide

I will say that though on the surface there are similarities, if you like the more complex type of polish you probably need to rustle up Essie Viva La Vespa or go in another direction because Sexy Divide is not merely generic, it's pretty pedestrian by comparison.

Bottle shots of the two in the same order:

Int he bottle you can see the plum better around the edges of Viva La Vespa

Here's a dark horse, Guppy 59 :

Two coats and a formula that is pure heaven!!!!!

Look at that glow!

The actual warmth is in the shimmer, not the base, so it isn't a dupe, but it's a surprisingly beautiful alternative.

Now the point is't to find this polish (...it's long gone) but to consider things like indies or other brands like Duri, IBD, Seche, etc because frankly the formula on Essie's is really astonishingly thin and drippy.

Here's a comparison of the three:

Left to right:

Essie Viva La Vespa

Essie Sexy Divide

Guppy 59

Of the three, VLV is really quite the beauty, my favorite.

However, I think the Guppy is a close contender and I wouldn't miss VLV if I didn't have it.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!