Essence Nail Polish Collection

To my surprise, Essence has just landed at Watsons in Singapore! It is currently available at the Watsons in Ngee Ann City and hopefully, it will be rolled out to other Watsons stores progressively. I actually purchased a clutch of Essence nail polishes last week in Europe, so I thought I'd share photos and some quick thoughts on them. Essence's nail polish line is impressively wide and comprehensive for a budget drugstore brand, and they even offer nail stamping kits and magnetic nail polishes.

From the Color & Go line, I picked up #78 Blue Addicted and #4 Space Queen. Blue Addicted is a new shade and immediately reminded me of Deborah Lippman's Across the Universe with its mixture of blue and green hexagonal glitter and smaller blue glitter bits in a midnight blue jelly base.


While it is a close dupe, I feel the Deborah Lippman formula is definitely superior and applies more smoothly. Blue Addicted tends to be gloopy on the brush. With two generous coats, the nail line is still somewhat visible. It started to show tip wear and some minor chipping after two days.


I also picked up the Nail Art Special Effect Toppers in 02 Circus Confetti and 06 You're A Gold Mine, plus the Nail Art Twins Glitter Topper in 08 Troy.


I haven't tried these out yet, so I can't comment on the texture and wear time. Circus Confetti looks like a dupe of yet another popular Deborah Lippman shade, Happy Birthday.

Troy has much finer glitter in purple, bright blue and silver. This is supposed to form a pair with another shade, Gabriella, but it was sold on its own.


The Quick Dry Top Coat didn't impress me at all as it was not that quick drying or shiny. It also doesn't prevent tip wear well. Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat is still much better in that respect, except that Seche Vite tends to thicken in the bottle quickly. The Allround Talent Nail Perfector can be used as both a base coat and top coat, plus ridge filler, hardener, optical whitener and nail sealer with a glossy finish. It works quite well for me as a base but without any discernible optical whitening effect.

Overall, I was impressed by Essence's shade selection. Although the formula isn't always as smooth as higher-end brands, it is so affordably priced that one really can't complain too much. All the Essence nailpolishes in this post are made in France.