I am slowing building up my collection of Essence nail polishes, and in this post I'm swatching and reviewing four shades from The Gel collection. These are four matte (or 'matt') shades.

Miracle Stone

I got this polish a little while ago and instantly feel in love with it. I posted something on Instagram along the lines of, 'I love matte, I love grey and I love flakie glitter'. All of these things combined makes me absolutely adore this polish. The polish is opaque in 2 coats and applies evenly and dries untextured even with the flakies. I love this polish as a base for nail art.

Va Va Voom

This polish is a super vibrant coral red, this is a lot brighter on the nail than I thought it would be, and it looks beautiful. Out of the four polishes this dries the least matte, which is what I was expecting as it's labelled 'soft matt'.

Write On My Chalkboard

This is a perfect spring shade. It's a super pale, pastel green. This can be a tad streaky in applying, but I manage to get it opaque with 2 relatively thick coats.

Engaged

I am not a fan of nude shades so I was surprised by how much I love this polish. It's a beautiful pink nude with a stunning silver shimmer. I struggle to find nude polishes that I think look nice against my skin tone, but I adore this shade. It's a subtly and elegant shade, and is perfectly name and the shade is definitely perfect for sophisticated occasions like engaged parties and wedding. Opaque in 2 coats.

- N :)