Anyone who likes awesome nail polish, rocks blue shades or simply wants to have a top selection of unusual and beautiful Goth-friendly staples will already have heard of Essie’s Starry Starry Night (SSN to nail polish aficionados), an almost indescribable deep translucent blue with golden star-like glitter in it. However, Essie stopped selling this colour back in 1997, which did little to diminish its popularity but instead saw it turned into a cult classic that fans would sell a kidney to get their hands on-no really, partially used bottles of it would crop up on Ebay now and then, and sell for several hundred ££’s in some cases.
Finally having the common sense to cash in on the metric fucktonne of money that had ready to throw at the shade, Essie have finally done the right thing and brought SSN back, as part of their Retro Revival collection. No doubt this has really pissed on the bonfire of them that were flogging their old bottles off to pay their credit card debts, but for the rest of us, learning that this exclusive shade is now back, and in Boots for sub-£6 at that, is GREAT news.
However! The Retro Revival version is not 100% the same as the original, as beauty bloggers the world over have been quick to point out. So, what are the similarities and differences, and which is better? Read on to find out.
In the bottle
As you can see from the above image posted by Pointless Café, who is lucky enough to have a bottle of the original, the original is slightly darker and more steely, with smaller glitter particles. I actually prefer the appearance of the new one in the bottle, as I like the slightly brighter blue and more jelly-like appearance.
On your nails
This image comes from Serenity Nails’ blog, showing just how different the original and the new version look on your nails. Again I like the shade and the jelly-ness of the new one, but the glitter particles are much rougher and less subtle, which really lets the finished look down.
The original has a really nice steely-blue, subtle Gothy look to it, while to me, the new version looks a little too K-pop for my liking.
Matte effect
For them who like matte nails, back to Pointless Café who has done a side-by-side comparison, which really shows up the differences in the glitter and shade.
Is it worth the cash?
For the sake of owning the closest thing that most of us will get to a real retro classic, the new version of SSN is worth £6 of anyone’s money. However, it is disappointing that their supposed revival of their most popular shade is actually no more true to the original than any one of a number of good dupes out there, and in fact, some of the dupes are actually better.
If you want to check out a review and swatch of the other shades that Essie has brought back this year too as well as SSN, check out this blog post by Beauty Geeks for more. In the meantime, I’d be tempted to stock up on loads of the new version and just sit on them for 20 years… Just in case some possibly as-yet not even born nail polish geeks of the future decide that 2037’s sold-out shade to crave is SSN Retro Revival.
