Essie Gel Couture Top Coat Review

Let me start by saying that I love wearing nail polish and painting my own nails. I’ve tried multiple brands of polish and top coats including gel type polishes so I was super keen to try this Essie one to see how it compares. I’ve only used it for one week but so far I love it. Continue reading below to find out why.

I have used this top coat on top of the Essie gel polish colour I have. This polish has lasted really well. I have worn this polish for a week now and only one nail has started to chip (index finger on one hand). I’ve washed dishes my hand without gloves and I’m constantly typing at work too. There has been no tip wear or chipping or peeling around my cuticle area either.

This top coat is super shiny and adds a high shine to your nails making them look like they’re professionally done. This shine has lasted the whole time as well and has not dulled at all.

The consistency is slightly thicker than a regular top coat. But I’ve found all gel top coats to be on the thicker side. This polish went on smoothly and did not leave any streaks or bubbles.

The brush is really nice to use. The size enables you to apply the polish on your nail with three strokes. I also like to cap my nails when using a top coat. The brush is quite dense which allows you to fan the brush out across your nail when you are applying the polish. The dense brush also means it holds the right amount of polish to deposit on to your nail.

The bottle is a standard glass bottle with a twisted rectangular shape. It’s easy to hold and use. I like that this bottle is also white instead of being clear glass. This means that the polish is not exposed to too much light.

Overall I really like this polish and would definitely recommend this to everyone else.

I found the top coat did a really great job! It definitely made a difference as i found without it tje nail polish doesnt last as long! It is probably one of my top 5 top coat nail polishs. It has a great price tag aswell i just wish essie was available in more stores.

The application was a little tricky at first as the formula is very runny, but considering this was my first use it is probably good as it will thicken slightly with more uses as it dries out a little. Probably better to paint your nails on a surface rather than on the couch like I tried and almost got polish all over my pants a few times. It layered fine on top of previous coats.

While it has the shine of a gel, it didn't have the staying power, although better than other formulas I have used. The polish dries to a consistency like a flexible plastic, so if you flood your cuticles you may get a bit of lift on the side of your nail like I did. On nails where I didn't flood my cuticles the edges stayed down fine. The polish on the tips started to wear after three days but I only had some chipping begin about 6 days after the application, so decent staying power compared to some other polishes.

Overall there was nothing too special about this nail polish, better longevity than regular polish but nothing really more than other polishes aimed at longwear.

I tried this over my existing nail polish and worked well over a week. I applied 2 coats and made my nail polish look like I had spent loads of money at the nail salon and even had a few lovely compliments. Hardly any smell, dries super quick and goes on super easy with a really nice consistency. Would I use this again?? ABSOLUTELY!!!

So I don’t usually use a top coat because - well I’m lazy. But BR sent me this to trial and I will never forego a top coat again.

First of all I love the packaging and the applicator for this polish. The consistency is perfect and I found that as I was applying the top coat I could smooth out any imperfections in my application of the actual polish. It smoothed our perfectly and went on very easily.

My polish has stayed in tact for almost a week so far so it was definitely worth the effort and I’ll keep using this product going forward!

A nail polish combination that everyone should use. The stylish packaging is very cool, but if a bummer it doesn’t allow you to stack them easily. Following the instructions prior to using the top coat I applied 2 coats of the gel colour and followed but the top coat. Like the gel colour the top coat was very smooth and had a thick flawless coverage. The top coat seemed to make the gel colour shine even more and just seal in the vibrant colour. Along with all nail polishes these need a decent amount of time to dry just to make sure you don’t ruin the overall finish. On my hands which are constantly being washed, the polish stayed on for about 8-10 days on different nails. I’m sure if you were more careful it would last the advertised 12 days easily. Definitely be using again.

Essie’s Gel Couture top coat is packaged in an opaque white twisted bottle (the coloured polish is in a twisted clear glass bottle). The twisted shape of these bottles makes it horribly uncomfortable to roll the bottles before use, and Essie should have considered this, especially since they recommend that polish bottles be rolled not shaken. (Shaking polish introduces air bubbles, which affect both the formula over time and the polish application.) These bottles also don’t fit into each other, the twists and bases don’t line up, so they take up a lot more room than Essie’s traditional square bottles, or round polish bottles do.

After applying two coats of Essie’s Gel Couture in “Spiked With Style” I appliedone coat of this top coat. The wide, flat, round ended brush mirrors the cuticle area perfectly, making it really easy to get a perfect coat in just four swipes of the brush; one down the middle, one down each side, and then one across the tip to cap the free edge. The top coat has a really nice thin consistency that applies really well, and does have a rather cold feel upon application, that disappears quite quickly.

This top coat is better than any other traditional enamel top coat that I’ve used the the past. It doesn’t smudge the colour coats below (like some top coats do), and has a very smooth, glossy looking finish with a vibrant high-shine.

Silly me dinged one of my thumbs before the top coat was dry, and smudged the colour underneath, but it was easily fixed by rubbing a finger dipped in a tiny bit of nail polish remover lightly over the dented polish to smooth it out, and then simply reapplying a coat of top coat after the initial application had dried fully.

After 3 hours of typing the next day, the tops of my nails started to show signs of wear on the tips. By day 6, the wear was quite bad on my index fingernails, and on day 7 it began chipping on multiple nails. Essie’s Gel Couture states that you can get up to 14 days wear, and I only got half that. With other enamel polishes I usually end up with wear and chipping after 2-3 days, so 7 days wear before chipping for this Gel Couture range is really not bad.

I tried Essie Top Coat on the Beauty Review Trial Team along with the Essie Gel Couture Polish 240 in the colour Model Citizen, a pink shade of nail colour. The glass bottle, jar it comes in is a cool, it's white so you can't see inside it and it's a twisted glass shape. It's white with 'essie' embossed on the front. The lid is a cylinder shape with a silver label that says, 'platinum grade finish' on it It also has a label with 'Top Coat' on it. This is applied after the 2 coats of nail colour to seal the Gel Couture. I applied it to my nails once I had applied the colour and it went on easy, didn't smell and it dried pretty fast. It's clear in colour like a clear coat of nail polish. This coat of Top Coat did seal the nail polish on well. I've had it on for a good few days now and my nails are still looking pretty even after having hot baths, hot showers, doing dishes in hot water aswell as other things that usually make my nails brittle and fragile. Usually, my nail polish has chipped off by now but this Top Coat is making my nail colour last.

I will use this until it's empty as I'm liking my results so far. I don't think I would buy it myself as it's a little pricey for me but if you're wanting to spend some dollars to stock up your manicure supplies this and the collection would be the go. I had a browse online at Farmers, this is priced at $18.99 along with the 19 colours in the Essie Gel Couture range.

This top coat is fantastic its a medium consistency its so easy to use and the brush seemed to just curve to my nail shape and which means less brush strokes each application. It does have a strong chemical scent but only lasted as long as the bottle were open and the top coat was drying, then gone. As its a top coat you really only need one coat on each nail. It really does last longer than a regular nail polish, i got around 7 days and with only needing one coat this will last quite a long time. I think that $18.99 is a reasonable price to pay when you can use this with multiple colours from the Essie Couture range. Its in a white Glass bottle that twists up vertically and looks very shiny and sleek. Overall this i a great top coat it dries quickly and leaves your nails so shiny and smooth. Its a good consistency that goes on smoothly and evens out any bumps or knocks that might of happened while painting that you have tired to fix. I found that it lasted well and came off with ease with a acetone nail polish remover and no damage to my natural nails at all. I love this and would recommend this to anyone that loves nail polish but hates that it chips so easily with regular life activities!