Essie Camera: the name says it all (and then some)

I wasn't even planning on swatching any of the Essie shades that I purchased in that crazy clearance haul from a few weeks ago.

But when I did a manicure yesterday with Essie Camera, which I purchased at Rite Aid, it was so gorgeous that I had to photograph it. And it was THEN that I realized that Essie must have had a tounge-in-cheek idea in mind when they named this color Camera (from the Summer 2012 Poppy-Razzi Collection).

 Essie Camera

(retail: $8, 0.46 oz)

Sorry for the clearance stickers, but I couldn't find my Goo-Gone and I didn't want to mess up my mani trying to peel the stickers from my bottle.

In the bottle, Camera looks like a bright, hot pink (much pinker than my pics indicate). The fact that I couldn't capture the bottle shade with my CAMERA (get it?), caused me some frustration and only added to the cheekiness of the name of this color.

But here's the thing: not only is this polish nearly impossible for my camera to capture accurately, but the COLOR ITSELF plays the same trick in REAL LIFE. In other words: it looks more orange on camera, and it ALSO looks more orange on the nails vs. how it appears in the bottle. How clever, Essie!

If you do a Google image search for Essie Camera, some of the photographs you'll see make this color look more pink. In my swatches, you're going to see that it's not pink at all, BUT, allow me to explain:

With one or two coats, Essie Camera looks like coral and actually has a lot of pink to it. However, this is a sheer jelly polish, and it really demands three coats (even with three coats you'll have visible nail line). But when you apply three coats of this polish, it becomes far more orange--almost to the point of being tomato-red.

Here are lots of swatches taken in a variety of lights (three coats + Seche Vite top coat):

See how, in the pic above, the bottle looks pink, yet the color on my nails is tomato-orange? That's exactly how it appear in real life as well.

So the moral of this story is this: Camera is a perfect name of this polish because, as anyone trying to photograph oranges and bright pinks knows, cameras have a tendency to distort those types of shades. But the fun thing is that this distortation also takes place in real life with Essie Camera: it looks like a hot pink in the bottle but after three coats, it turns tomato-orangey with just a TOUCH of pink to it.

If you're thinking of buying Essie Camera and you're looking for that bright, hot pink you see in person when you look at the bottle, just know that you'll only get that color after one coat (maybe two). But this is a sheer jelly, so unless you like lots of visible nail line, three coats is practically a necessity and, after three coats, you're NOT going to get the color you see in the bottle. Thankfully for me, I happen to love this polish after three coats, so I don't mind that one bit.

Do you own Essie Camera? If so, have you experienced a similar situation after three coats?