Very popular trend among beauty brands is releasing nail polishes with gel formula. These are not the polishes, for which you would need an UV light, but their characteristic is that they dry into a very glossy finish. This year Essencereleased 46 new(and old) nail polish shades with gel alike formula in The Gel nail polish collection, for which you don’t need any light. I personally adore polishes with this formula, because they are usually much pigmented, easy to apply and they look shiny on nails. When I visited DM the other day, most of the polishes were already sold out (I guess I wasn’t the only one excited because of these polishes), but I did find few shades that I liked. Eight of them, to be exact. Lately I wasn’t buying much of Color&Go nail polishes, so I don’t have any old similar shade to my 8 new shades, but they did keep the colour and change the name or keep the colour and the name by some of the polishes (check out this Katja’s review).
Although the brush of new The Gel nail polishes looks practically the same as old one, I’d dare to say that they changed it. It must be cut better, because application is easier with it. The formula of these new polishes is amazing. Most of them are very good pigmented and opaque in two coats. All polishes apply like a dream. By none of these 8 shades I didn’t have any problem with application, not because of a formula and not because of the brush. All polishes look very shiny when they dry, even the shimmery ones. I can’t say how long they look glossy, because I always use a top coat with my manicures (except for the swatches). I also can’t say anything about the duration time, meaning how long they will last on your nails. I personally have very weak nails and none of the polishes (no matter how good it is) lasts longer on my nails than 2 days. When I was testing these polishes I had a lot of dishes and cleaning to do and water is never kind to a nail polish, so these chipped quickly. The drying time depends from each polish and from the thickness of coats.
Love is in the Air is a pastel yellow creme shade. This polish is amazing. Its formula is much pigmented and it covers nails in two thicker coats. The application looks very even and not streaky at all. If you like to use thinner coats you’ll probably need 3 coats.
Don’t Be Shy is a lime green creme shade that’s also opaque in two coats.
Play with My Mint is a gorgeous mint creme shade with great formula that covers nails in two coats. No matter how many mint shades I have in my collection I always allow myself to buy another one. And although I currently probably have around 15 mint shades in my collection, this one is quite unique as you’re going to see lower in this post.
Prince Charming is a turquoise shade that contains tiny green shimmer. I used two coats for this swatch. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Essence constantly uses the same name for different nail polish shades? Few days before I bought these polishes I bought a lilac satin nail polish from Cinderella collection with the same name. Gosh, Essence should really know better.
Wonderfuelis a purple shimmery shade with sheer formula, so at least 3 coats are needed for it to be opaque on nails. This polish is very interesting; on nails it looks like it is slightly duochrome, which is probably because of the blue shimmer in it.
Electriiiiiicis my favourite shade from all 8. It’s a royal blue jelly shade. It has nice formula that could be opaque in two coats, but I had to use three for this swatch, because after two nail line was still noticeable on photos, although not that much in person.
True Loveis a berry red creme shade with nicely pigmented formula and it’s opaque in two coats. I thought I’d find dupes for this one in my stash, but it’s pretty unique, because most of the shades I have are either more berry or more red.
Do You Speak Love? is a dark red cream shade, also nicely pigmented and opaque in two coats. I don’t know why I don’t wear dark red shade more often, because it’s really pretty.
Essence The Gel nail polishes are available at DM, Müller, Tuš drugstore and Click2Chic. There are 46 shades. One polish contains 8 ml and the price is 1,69 €. I personally love the new formula and also brush seems better to me, so I’m definitely going to get few more shades.
Comparisons
As a person who adores nail polishes I often buy shades that I maybe already have in my stash. Because Essence shades seemed familiar to me I went through my stash and picked up few nail polishes that could be dupes/similar to new The Gel nail polishes. As I said before, I didn’t buy much Color&Go nail polishes lately and those that I have in my stash aren’t similar to these new polishes, so I can’t compare them for you.
Yellow comparison
Yellow is the shade I do like and yes, I have many yellow nail polishes. I was a bit afraid that I might already have a dupe for Love is in the Air, but in the end the closest shades were Claire’s pastel yellow, which is paler, Catrice Bye, Bye Birdy!, which is darker, and Essence My Yellow Fellow, which is similar shade, but it contains shimmer. I have only quarter of this polish left so I plan to use it up this year.
Lime green comparison
Lime green is such a pretty shade to me, although not everyone loves it. I always hesitate before buying a lime green polish because they all look the same to me. Well, when I compare them one near the other, they don’t look so same anymore. I compared Don’t Be Shy with Catrice Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeesy, which has more yellow undertone, Catrice ACid/DC, which is darker, and Essence Colourbration, which is a shimmery shade. No dupes here.
Mint comparison
I adore mint colour, what can I say. Two years ago I made a mint nail polish collection post, which you can read here. Since then I got few more mint shades and Play with my Mint is one of them. I didn’t want to post all of my mint polishes again, so I searched for those that looked the closest to new Essence polish and found three shades: H&M Bella’s Choice, China Glaze Aquadelic and Beauty UK mint. Although they are close, none of them is the exact dupe, because Play with my Mint is the brightest of them all.
Turquoise comparison
Prince Charming is quite unique shade in my stash. In the bottle it looked the closest to Catrice (S)wimbledon, but on a nail wheel they look completely different. The closest shade to Prince Charming is Essence Mojito Green, which is an old polish from Soul Sista trend edition, but it’s darker than Prince Charming.
Purple comparison
I had to compare Wonderfuel with duochrome shade and the only purple duochrome shade in my stash is Essence Power Girl from Superheores trend edition. Comparison side by side on a nail wheel shows how different they are and that Wonderfuel has only slightly duochrome effect because of a blue shimmer.
Royal/navy blue comparison
Royal/navy blue is one of my all time favourite shades. I don’t have so many polishes in this colour as I do have in mint, but the collection isn’t small either. Usually these polishes look almost the same in the bottle and on nails you can actually see, how much they differ. Bourjois In the Navy looks very similar to Essence Electriiiiiic on a nail wheel, the difference between them is in finish. Essence has a jelly finish, while Bourjois has a creme one and a very opaque formula. Electriiiiiic is actually a new release of an old Essence shade Cool and the Gang. I don’t know why that isn’t visible on a nail wheel, but these are exact dupes. Both have jelly finish just that new shade has a better formula.
Berry comparison
I already said before that Essence True Love is a unique shade in my stash. I compared it to Essence Be Berry Now, Essie Bahama Mama, Essence Don’t Bite Me – Kiss Me and Essence Hot Fruit Punch. True Love has red tone to it and that makes it different from all other shades.
Dark red comparison
I don’t have many dark red nail polishes. I don’t buy them much, because I don’t wear them much. But not matter that I did find a dupe for Do You Speak Love? in an old Essence polish from Eclipse trend edition Thirsty. Maybe Thirsty is slightly darker, but they are very close.
How do you like new Essence The Gel nail polishes? Have you tried them already? Which one is your favourite? Thank you for reading!