{REVIEW} Essence The Gel Nail Polish

We all know I love me some nail polish, I'm currently sitting with about 168 bottles in my nail polish teacup...and now I have some 8 new babies to introduce to the family :)

Look how lovely they all are :)

I have loved Essence's Colour & Go polishes since they first came out, so I was super excited to try out their The Gel polishes. I loved to get gel put on my nails years ago, I loved how my nails would always look super shiny and my colour lasted. But what I wasn't so keen on is the fact that I couldn't change the colours as often as I wanted to...so this for me was a dream come true.

I started out with purchasing 2 colours, 2 lead to 4, 4 lead to 8 and who knows where this is going to go from here, but that's future Natalie's problem.

Besides the colour being long lasting and your nails holding a shine for days, the best part about this is that there is no UV lamp necessary. In fact, no lamp needed at all...except for if you're painting your nails at night, then you'll probably need a lamp to see...if Eskom keeps the power on! Anyway, as I was saying, you don't need to sit and cure your nails, this polish works exactly as it would with a normal nail polish.

I decided to swatch my 8 favourites that I purchased, each colour has been applied with two coats...

05 Sweet As Candy

21 A Whisper of Spring

40 Play With My Mint

These first three colours I feel are perfect for Summer/Spring time, they are such pretty pastels. When I was swatching these the other day, I painted Whisper of Spring first and then added a light layer of Sweet As Candy, oh my word, such a stunning game changer. Sweet As Candy can also be used when doing a French manicure.

19 Indigo To Go

37 Serendipity

23 Wonderfuel

These next three I felt suited better for winter. I loved the name Indigo To Go, probably because I have a student named Indigo and she is spunky as hell, like this colour. Serendipity is a lavender/taupe/grey colour that thankfully doesn't give you the "dead hand" look. Wonderfuel is all kinds of crazy, it almost reminds me of those galaxy marbles you could get as a kid, you know which ones I'm talking about? The colours change in different lights, so always something new to look at.

33 Wild White Ways

43 Girl's Best Friend

The last two are polishes I felt were necessary for my collection. You know I love some white nail polish, its so versatile. Either wearing it plain on your nails or as a base to intensify any of your favourite colours (as the Tip states on the lid). And the last one is just plain pretty, clear based polish with little flecks of silver circles. I only applied one coat of Girl's Best Friend and this is the result I achieved, I'm pretty impressed with that, I hate having to fish out the little decals and hope you can get them onto your nails.

The drying time on two coats I found wasn't any longer than when applying regular nail polish, you're also not left with a super thick layer on your nails.

I haven't put a single stitch of top coat onto my nails, do you see what I mean about the shine, its amazing!

And as if the fact that the colours are intense, the polish is high shine and is long wearing (I tested this on a weeks worth of guitar playing, only 1 minor chip) the price of these little gems is only 

R 24.99 at either Dischem or Clicks. 

Have you tried these? Which one is your favourite, I'd love to know!

Until next time....