Essie Gel Couture Nail Polish Review

I was fortunate enough to trial this nail polish for BR and it’s actually the perfect shade for me. It’s great for when you want something classic but more than a nude pink!

I love these essie bottles as well. They are so fun. And I found the applicator very easy to use and the perfect size.

The polish went on really easily - it’s not gluggy or too runny - and the polish (with the top coat on) has stayed on for almost a week already!

I chose the shade 'Take Me to Thread' - its a mauve-y nude.

The twisted square bottle is super easy to hold while applying - why do they make round bottles anyway?!

I tried this on both my hands and my toes. It was really easy to apply the colour coat evenly and smoothly and it only took a couple of minutes between coats to be dry enough for the next layer.

The colour is deep and quite true to the bottle and without the top coat has a nice finish, smooth and semi-sheen.

Colour me impressed!

Also - shout out to the shade namer who came up with sexy-sewing themed names! They gave me a chortle!

I chose the shade Rock the Runway as my shade to trial. It was described as 'a fierce classic red nail colour. Gorgeous. Striking. Untamed.' and oh my god...it really it is! It's a deep but bright red, perfect for summer toes!

The bottle is very cool and just looks that little more edgy on the dresser. The brush is very easy to handle and use, you can do the classic, 'middle, side, side' and cover your nail in 3 strokes. It applies really evenly too, its not too thick, but also not runny.

I left my nails for about 3-4 minutes between coats and the second coat went on just as smooth.

I'm quite hard on nails - I'm pounding the keyboard for many hours a day, so I usually see the first signs of wear right on the tips. These started to wear at about day 8.

I think the price is about right for a quality, long lasting nail polish.

I think this is a great polish for long lasting nail colour that you can achieve at home. I'll definitely be picking up another shade...maybe one of those stunning nudes!

I love using this nail polish. It looks like gel when it’s on. My fav thins is it lasts 5 days min before chipping. When I say chip very minimal at tip and usually on my one finger I use a lot to pry things open . I have found even with a small chip I can put another layer over it and it covers it up nicely till I want to replace it.

I selected Essie Gel Couture in “Spiked With Style” (#360) for this trial. The polish is bottled in a clear twisted Essie branded glass bottle, and the colour of the deep red polish is visible through the glass. There is no base coat with this gel couture system. It’s designed to be used as a two-step process; two coasts of colour followed by one coat of ‘platinum grade finish’ top coat.

To start, I filed and shaped my nails, pushed back the cuticles, gave them a light buff and then cleansed them well with nail polish remover to remove any natural nail oils before applying the first coat of polish.

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 polish is well pigmented, gives a good opaque colour in just two coats, and dries in 30 to 60 seconds if applied correctly (thinly). By the time I’d painted my second hand, the thin layer of polish on the first hand was dry and ready for the second coat.

Something I did notice is that this polish has a very cold feel on the nails with each layer. It’s a little strange, but disappears as soon as the polish starts to dry. Any accidental messes on the skin around my nails were easily cleaned up with a bit of nail polish remover on a cotton bud.

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 3 hours of typing the next day, the tips 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. I removed the polish and reapplied on day 8 and found that my nails had a definite pinkish tinge to them. So, yes, even though this polish is designed to be used without a base coat, the dark red colour of Spiked With Style does definitely stain my nails slightly.

With Essie’s Gel Couture it’s said that you can get up to 14 days wear, but with other enamel polishes I usually end up with wear and chipping after 2-3 days, so 7 days wear before chipping for gel couture is really not bad.

This gel polish is a nice consistency not to thick or thin, it applied really nice and the applicator really shaped to my nail to help get good even application. It does have a very strong nail polish fragrance, which was a little over whelming but only smelt while the bottle was open and once it was dried it was gone. This gives great coverage and i only needed 2 coats to get a nice even colour. It lasted so well on my nails i'm a mother and always have my hands in water or cleaning and i got a good 7 days with this, which i would never get out of nail regular nail polish. Its a good full bottle and i will get 13.5ml and i will get a lot for coats out of this bottle and at $18.99 (while a little pricey) i actually think is a really good price for the amount of wear i can get out of it. Its in a sleek glass bottle with a twist though it very minimal and very pleasing to look at, it the type of bottle i will have displayed not hidden in a box or draw. I really like this product and it apples well i did find it dried really quickly and you cant really go over it and make again until it dried otherwise it doesn't apply quite as smooth. Second time i found it easier and it came off easily with no damage to my natural nails. I would recommend this to anyone as an alternative to the salon polish and gel its a quarter of the price and i was happy with the results.

This is a great formula. The brush is flat with a domed tip which makes application quick and easy. The formula is thick and opaque and doesn’t rub off on the ends which I have found with some other gel nail polishes. The formula is long lasting but I wouldn’t say it lasts 12 days. For me it began to chip at about day 7. the polish still looks nice and majority has stayed on, other than some chipping on then end of my index and middle fingers

I love the Essie Gel Couture range! The brush is nice and wide, and the formula is very smooth so it glides over your nails quickly and easily. I like how the bottle has a fun twisted design too. I find the formula to be a little on the sheer side so you definitely need to apply two coats to avoid any streakiness.

This polish does last longer than most others I've tried, usually my nails chip after about a day, but when I used this polish with its matching top coat I didn't get any chipping until day 3 and even then it was barely noticeable and only on the very tips of my nails. I do wish it lasted even longer but this is still a decent wear time and is easy to do touch-ups. I'll definitely be trying more shades from the range.

I loved my colour choice and several of my work buddies commented on the summery look! I applied two coats, which both went on very easily. I love the roundedness of the brush..it looked like a real pro-job as the top part of the nail bed (up by the cuticle) was covered perfectly (and didn't need any touchups to the shape).

A bit nervous applying the colour directly to bare nails (without a basecoat) but after removing the colour from one nail this morning, the colour hadn't stained my nailbed.

Also I am tending more toward vegan products so I don't know if long term the polish would cause any dryness or damage to my nails.

On the whole, very very happy with the colour and the durability.

Thank you Beauty Review for this very cool trial team product!

The bottle is a twisted version of the standard Essie bottles - a really nice touch for brand recognition but a different product.

I chose the shade Walk the Hemline, because who am I to turn down a Johnny Cash pun. And also a stunning deep mocha nude shade!

Super easy to apply, clean and quick. 2 coats went on smoothly.

Normal nail polish chips within a few days, but this lasted closer to 10 before starting to look ratty.

Highly recommend!