The 20 Best-Selling Essie Nail Colors of All Time—That You Can Still Buy
Essie—without a doubt—is one of the most iconic and beloved nail polish brands of all time. As of this year, approximately 818 bottles of the cult-classic shade Ballet Slippers are sold each day in the U.S. alone. (Ahem, that's roughly 24 per hour, folks.) The second and third best-selling shades are Blanc and Mademoiselle, and the ever-so-cheekily named nail polish Bikini So Teeny is the top-selling shade in history. Impressive, no?
Since the fever for the perfect mani is exponentially rising, we had an itch to conduct some nail polish research. After reaching out to the experts at Essie, we now have the brand's official list of the 20 best-selling shades still available for us to buy in bulk. Curious to see how the list plays out? Keep scrolling!
20. Summit of Style
19. Fiji
An opaque, full-coverage baby pink.
18. Licorice
17. Wicked
16. Hi Maintenance
15. Mint Candy Apple
14. Wild Nude
13. Muchi Muchi
12. Topless & Barefoot
11. Marshmallow
A powder-puff shade of sheet white.
10. Forever Yummy
Essie's quintessential "tango" burst of red.
9. Bare with Me
8. Sugar Daddy
7. Lady Like
6. Mrs. Always-Right
5. Eternal Optimist
Essie describes this nail polish as "a spiced tea rose with a dash of cream."
4. Bikini So Teeny
A sparkling, dewy shade of blue.
3. Mademoiselle
2. Blanc
1. Ballet Slippers
Essie's number one best seller? This sheer wash of ultra-light pink.
This article was published at an earlier date and has been recently updated.
Erin has been writing a mix of beauty and wellness content for Who What Wear for over four years. Prior to that, she spent two and half years writing for Byrdie. She now calls Santa Monica home but grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and studied writing, rhetoric, and communication at University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. She studied abroad in Galway, Ireland, and spent a summer in L.A. interning with the Byrdie and Who What Wear family. After graduating from UW, she spent one year in San Francisco, where she worked as a writer for Pottery Barn Kids and PBteen before moving down to L.A. to begin her career as a beauty editor. She considers her day-to-day beauty aesthetic very low-maintenance and relies on staples like clear brow serum (from Kimiko!), Lawless's Lip Plumping Mask in Cherry Vanilla, and an eyelash curler. For special occasions or days when she's taking more meetings or has an event, she'll wear anything and everything from Charlotte Tilbury (the foundations are game-changing), some shimmer on her lids (Stila and Róen do it best), and a few coats of the best mascara-type product on earth, Surratt's Noir Lash Tint.
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