Essie ‘Hot Coco’ vs. OPI ‘Over the Taupe’ vs. Essie ‘Mink Muffs’

With the success Essie had in ‘Mink Muffs’ from their Fall 2009 collection, it’s not all that surprising that they would want to introduce a similar shade in their Winter 2010 release. At first glance, Hot Coco and Mink Muffs seem to be almost identical, and even after swatching them, it’s so, so, so hard to tell them apart. I also found that OPI’s Over the Taupe was the triplet of the other two and so I swatched them all together to compare. All are with base coat and 3 coats of polish in total.

The first coat shows barely discernible differences between the three; indeed, they even all have basically the same application pattern!

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (sunlight)

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (natural lighting)

With the second coat, you can tell that Over the Taupe is slightly lighter in hue, but still so close to the other two.

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (sunlight)

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (natural lighting)

The final coat gives the best indication of any differences, but even at that, you’d need a microscope to really tell them apart! In natural or indoor lighting, if I didn’t know which was which, I would never be able to tell them apart. Only in sunlight or very bright light can you see that Mink Muffs seems to have slightly more depth and pulls the ‘coolest’ out of the bunch, Over the Taupe is the lightest with trace lavender hints and Hot Coco seems to be a perfect mix between the other two, with a negligible touch of mauve. All three have that melted milk chocolate goodness to them!

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (sunlight)

ring: Hot Coco, middle: Over the Taupe, index: Mink Muffs (natural lighting)

Final thoughts: If you missed out on Mink Muffs, then snatch up Hot Coco from this year’s Winter collection as it is basically identical. OPI’s Over the Taupe was from a past collection as well, but you can probably still find it at your regular OPI retailers. Can you tell which one is which in the picture below?!