It’s been a minute since my last nail polish reviews… truth be told I’ve barely been wearing polish for the past few months, I’m just so tired and low on patience at the moment since starting my new role and the thought of painting my nails most of the time is torturess. There’s nothing like spotting a gorgeous polish whilst doing your weekly pop in to Wilko to pull you out of your no polish rut though – and I walked out with Essence Gel Effect Polish in Midnight Sky.
I regularly look at Essence’s line here, despite the fact we don’t seem to get the most exciting releases over here, and collections seem to be very delayed in arrival. I’ve tried a few of their concealers and regularly swatch things but one thing I’ve not caved at all for is a polish, whilst the line looks pretty nice and very affordable – it’s nothing unusual, and I’m only really about buying polishes which I feel like fill gaps in my collection now, especially as I’m barely painting my nails at the moment and if I do I usually opt for gel. However Essence Gel Effect Polish in Midnight Sky caught my eye.
In the bottle this looks like a very deep navy, but when you look up close you can see a bright blue ultra fine micro glitter which runs through the polish, when it applies in the light it shifts between navy and a more purple indigo hue with the hand. Sadly, that indigo shift proved hard to capture in the light the day I photographed this!
Whilst I do like the shade, once it’s on it didn’t feel as unique as it was in the bottle – but at a mere £1.60 I could forgive it, I’ve reapplied this twice in the past week, the first time around I was feeling pretty lazy and was hoping this would be a really good all in one base, colour and glossy top coat effect – but sadly it chipped very quickly, within a day. I reapplied with a proper base coat, two coats of polish (although it’s basically a one-coat-wonder) and a topcoat, whilst it looked no different as the gel like finish of this was actually pretty good but I was hoping to see a better performance.
Whilst this didn’t chip as quickly, I did get wear to the tips pretty quickly, I painted my nails in the evening not long before bed and noticed the next morning at work the tip wear was already there, almost like a gel that had been on for 2-3 weeks. I’d normally be more inclined to blame the topcoat, however I’ve used the Orly Epix topcoat as my go-to since last year and I’ve never noticed it with any other polishes happening. By day 2 they were starting to chip and by day 3 it looked awful and needed to be removed.
Sadly I’m not sure I’ll be caving for another one of these polishes in future, even thought they have a cheap price tag, I’d rather deal with less nail admin and have a polish that will at least look good for three days, it only adds to my “I can’t be assed to paint these” feeling.
Have you tried essences polishes? Let me know if you think this might be a blip with this particular shade!
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That is such a pretty colour but I agree – it’s not worth the hassle! I’ve found this with all of their polishes sadly although their glitter ones are worth a gander at xxx
Not my subject Rachel, but as your committed follower I read through your post and feel happy about it 😊
I used to have a shade exactly like that but I don’t remember the brand but I loved it
I have a similar shade from MAC!
This colour is perfect!
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Such a pretty colour! Great review xx
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What a pretty color! I’ve had good luck with the Essence line of polishes. That is a super pain when your polish doesn’t last long. Great post!
Damn, maybe it was bad luck with this shade!
These is a gorgeous colour 💙
Essie – for polish that doesn’t chip. It’s my go to
This shade is so pretty! The blue glitter is stunning! Shame about the chipping but at least the polish was cheap x
It is really pretty – sad it didn’t last as long as I’d want!
Is there another brand with a similar polish you would consider?
I do have a similar one from MAC but it takes so many coats to be opaque!
I love this colour! Essences polishes seem to work quite well for me, so maybe this shades just a bit more prone to chipping xx
I haven’t tried the Essence gel line yet but this shade looks really pretty. Too bad about the wear time though – I find dark colours always show tip wear rather quickly.
Hey stranger! Yeah, it is a really pretty shade, me too, this one was particularly terrible for wear!