Over the last few months I have brought quite a few of Essence's top coats, all of which I use quite regularly, and thought I would do a swatch and review of the different one I own. I love Essence top coats, they are all great quality and super affordable.
For most of these swatches I have applied the top coats over 2 coats of Black Is Back by Essence. (the photo below is of the polish without any top coat)
The Gel
This is a classic glossy top coat, although I don't do my nails with a glossy finish as much as I do matte, this is my go-to glossy top coat at the moment. It is great for nail art and stamping because it doesn't smudge my designs (see this polish used in my stamping top coat comparison here). It dries fast and is super glossy. This is the only one of the top coats that doesn't have a name, it is simply The Gel.
Matt To Meet You
This is Essence's matte top coat, and I use this loads. If you follow my blog or Instagram, you'll have noticed that I much prefer matte nails to glossy, and I brought my first bottle of this a couple of months ago and finished it so went and brought another last week. This, like The Gel, works great as a stamping top coat. The finish is perfectly matte, and dries really fast. I compared it to Barry M's matte top coat and I couldn't see a difference between them.
Glamaxy Far, Far Away
This is not only one of my favourite ever top coats, but probably in my top 10 polishes of all time. I love this polish so much. This polish is labelled as a top coat, but it a glitter topper, which I always wear with top coat on top anyway. This is a scattered colour-shifting iridescent flakes. It fits the space-themed nail perfectly. I have yet to find a base colour that doesn't look 10x more beautiful with this on top. (I saw that Essence are discounting this and that sucks, so if you don't have it yet and see it in a store, buy it!)
Girl On The Moon
Essence's glow in the dark top coat, I was skeptical of this when I brought it because I wasn't sure how 'glowy' it would really be. But it surprised me when applied over a light base. My nails did actually glow in the dark, it was super fun to stare at my nails when I was laying in bed in the dark. However this top coat does not work over darker base colours. For the swatch photos I used white and black and the black did not glow at all. (The glowing white was super hard to capture in a photo in dark lol). The polish does create a grainy finish over the base polish, which you can't see over white but is very obvious over black. I was wearing this other night in bed in pitch black and my husband freaked out "WHY ARE YOUR NAILS GLOWING!?"
Where Is My Crown
This is another top coat being discontinued by Essence, although it isn't as devastating a loss as Glamaxy. This is similar to Glamazy, is the sense that I don't wear it as a top coat, I wear it as a glitter topper, with another top coat over. This polish is packed with silver and gold glitter, of different sizes. Although I'm not the biggest fan of wearing it over a black, I adore it over white, teal and gold shades. Adds something to spice up your more 'mundane' polish colours.
Not mentioned: I also own the Metal Shock top coat, but I didn't include it as I only use it with the Metal Shock powders. You can see and first impressions and demo of the Metal Shock powders and top coat here.
What is your favourite Essence top coat? Let me know by leaving a comment or tweeting me @nimynails.
- N :)
- February 21, 2018
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