Toggle to the Top by Essie

Hello ladies! I have a stunning polish to share with you today - "Toggle to the Top" by Essie from their Winter 2013 collection.  This is one of those polishes that is so much more fun on the nail than you'd guess in the bottle.

Toggle' is a dark blood red jelly with a ton of tiny red glitter particles suspended in it.  The effect on the nail is a gorgeous vampy shade with constant red flashes from the glitter that somehow look like they're fire from within the polish rather than glitters if that makes sense.  It's like an intense shimmer polish rather than a glitter, until you look really close.  It's such an unusual effect that I found this really eye catching. 

Toggle to the Top by Essie - Artificial Light

Formula was a little tricky on this one, due to the glitter content.  It suffered a bit from the clump-and-drag effect so it was better to do thin coats without going over the same area until it had a chance to dry a little.  Here I'm wearing three thin coats on NE base with SV topper.

Toggle to the Top by Essie - Artificial Light

In the bottle the glitters seem to have a tendency to stick to the sides.  I gave it a good shake and didn't have a problem with getting a good amount of glitter on the brush.  This was my first experience of an Essie mini-bottle, and I was impressed to find that the tall and thin bottle design they use lets them have a full size brush in a mini bottle, which I think is unique to Essie.  The only downside is that the thin tall bottle is a little less stable and would be easier to knock over.

Bottle shot

Finally, a quick in-bottle comparison for you....When I saw Toggle it reminded me a bit of 'Bloody Bride' by Pretty Serious.  I did a side-by-side to compare them and....they couldn't be more different.  So that was just me then.  I didn't swatch Bloody Bride when I wore it last, and although its a lot of fun on the nail its one of the hardest to remove glitters I've ever come across.  I thought amputation would be my only option. So you might have to wait a while to see a swatch of that one....Toggle on the other hand was refreshingly easy to remove for a glitter polish which was another nice surprise from this little bottle.

Toggle to the Top by Essie - vs Bloody Bride by Pretty Serious

I borrowed Toggle from my friend the lovely Hannah, and I liked it so much I went straight out and bought my own bottle.  I think that's a pretty good indication of how much I liked this one....highly recommended :)  You can pick this up for £7.99 in the full size from Boots, although in the two branches I visited they each only had a single bottle so you might have to try online....