Review: Essie Matte Top Coat

A while ago, I bought L'Oreal's matte nail polish as a substitution for the Essie matte top coat, which I couldn't find in stores. I was disappointed with the L'Oreal version, so I finally pulled the trigger and ordered it from Amazon.

It goes on like any normal top coat, for me, after two coats of a color. It dries incredibly quickly, much more quickly than a shiny top coat. And, this my be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it, but if you are painting it over a shiny base coat, you can see where you've applied the top coat. Also, the polish was a cloudy white color until I painted it over a deep red and transfer tinted the bottle. Hopefully it won't taint any future colors I paint it over.

It's a nice top coat and it has a nice effect, but it's nothing spectacular. It's not as matte as the L'Oreal polish and quickly buffs itself smoother with normal finger usage (that's a weird phrase...). And it's not any strong or more protective than a shiny top coat, giving me about two days of coverage before it starts to chip. The following picture is after roughly 48 hours, the same amount of time when I took pictures for my L'Oreal review.

I would buy it again, but I don't know if it met my expectations. It needed to be more matte and more protective, but it'll be a fun novelty every once and a while.