Olive & June Quick Dry formula is such an unexpected winner in my beauty collection. Every time I use one, I'm continually stunned at how well they perform. 

During my shopping spree when I picked up a few summer quick dry shades to add to my ever growing collection, one of the colors I bought was 'Lollipop' because I needed a summer red to bake into the rotation when I wasn't in the mood for a pink or orange.

In my opinion, red nails are a neutral; there is never a bad time for a red nail. They are always chic and especially for summer, they feel incredibly right.

I told you last week that we were in for a marathon of Olive & June manicure Monday posts... and this week it's all about the new quick dry shade for summer 'Melon'. 

There are few things that feel like summer more than a bright peachy, orange manicure. It reminds me of summers when I was a teenager, the beach, and being tan. It reminds me of Florida vacations, late nights and back to school season.

I haven't found a shade that truly matches that feeling in a while so when I saw Melon pop up on Olive & June's website... and as a quick dry shade, I was immediately sold.

We're officially in Christmas nail season and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sad to see my fall manicures go. It feels like fall flew by! Don't worry though, I won't be giving up brown manicures any time soon...

However, this week we're talking about a beautiful, rich, cranberry manicure from Olive & June. For Thanksgiving this year, I was really feeling red instead of brown, probably because I've been wearing brown manicures all season long. 

Olive & June recently released the shade Cabernet into their Quick Dry line and I had to have it. I have quite a few reds from Olive & June but I think this one is my favorite so far. 

It's described as a wine red with undertones of plum and purple to add depth to the manicure. It's stunning and Cabernet really is the perfect way to describe the shade. 

In the second installment of reviewing the Olive & June Quick Dry polish fall collection, we have the shade 'Americano' up next. This past summer when I was decluttering my nail polish collection I got rid of a lot of old, expired polishes that were basically unusable. 

In that declutter I got rid of a lot of my brown, neutral shades so I needed to restock those colors. Americano was ideal because I wanted another quick dry, and a lighter brown. I already have Tip Your Barista, which is from last year's fall collection and it's a smidge deeper than Americano.

Americano is almost more orange toned than Tip Your Barista, which is more of a traditional espresso color. I think both are gorgeous, and I'll wear them both this fall, but I'm particularly excited about Americano as it's not as dark. Some times I just want a brown manicure without it being super bold. 

A few weeks ago I got a message on Instagram from Olive & June asking for my address to send me some new polishes they had. I nearly cried seeing the message because they know who I am and value my nail polish opinion.

I then began the wait by the window, waiting for this package to arrive. When I saw Olive & June launched their new quick dry polishes I figured that was the package I was getting so I didn't purchase any. 

Well, on Friday, the package arrived to my door and I was over the moon. The colors they sent me are so pretty and perfect for fall. I received Sagey, Smooch, Lippy, Vintage and Koala along with the quick dry top coat. 

 It was years ago that I posted my first review of the Essie Expressie line of polish. It was released in 2019 and I bought two shades to try out. The idea of Essie Expressie is that it's a quick dry polish that you can take with you on the go. The brush is just as thick as a regular Essie polish but with a little bit of an angle so that you can have a little more control while applying nail polish somewhere other than a flat surface. 

Back in 2019 when I first posted the Manicure Monday, I gave the polish a glowing review but after trying another shade, I was not into the formula. I found it very messy and almost unuseable; the polish chipped easily, the shades I had were dark so it got all over my cuticles and nail beds.

After a few uses, I was unimpressed and threw the polish out. In general, I'm a little over Essie because I haven't found anything to love in their new collections and Olive & June is a better formula but that's not why we're here today.

Essie continues to release new Expressie collections so clearly someone was enjoying them. The new collections and shades were gorgeous and always stopped me in my tracks because I needed the polish color. However, I controlled myself and didn't buy a new shade because why I would buy something that didn't perform well?