Thursday, May 4, 2023

Essie Smooth E Base Coat Review

 

I have to hurry up with this post because I'm about to binge Queen Charlotte which just dropped on Netflix. I just reviewed an Essie top coat which I wasn't thrilled with it but it's not unusable or anything like that. I bought a ton of Essie base and top coats so that is probably all I'll be using for the next little while. Somehow I have convinced myself I really love the brand, but I'm not so sure now that I've become a bit more critical.

Essie claims: 

our new ceramide-infused formula fills uneven surfaces on the nail to provide a sleek finish. instantly primes nails for a smooth and even surface for color adhesion. provides a barrier to help prevent nail staining. the result: even and smoothed out ridges for a perfectly beautiful manicure.

Made in USA

So this is meant to be a Ridge filling base coat. I didn't realize it when I bought it, I just grabbed it because it was one of the few Essie base coats that was still available in the store and I wanted a back up for when I finally ran out of the other one I've been using.

It's meant to fill the ridges. Ridges on the nails don't particularly bother me. I've been watching this lady that does manicures and she does talk about the ridges in the nails and whether certain polishes accentuate ridges. Which made me really look at my own. Mine have slight ridges, that aren't really noticeable except on one of my ring fingers. I even managed to convince myself that it hurt slightly...it doesn't, but my mind is really good at playing tricks on me. 

But anyway, I thought why not give this a try and see if it makes a difference. First thing I noticed was the excellent brush. I am really loving the new wide and curved shape brushes Essie has. Once I'm done with this bottle, I'm keeping the brush and using it in an old Essie polish with the skinny brushes. So the brush is excellent. The polish itself looks milky in the bottle but goes on clear. It also goes on matte and very textured feeling. Not sure if that's because polish is meant to stick to it better. Kinda like if you roughed up the surface of your nails with a buffer to make polish stick better without doing any actual buffing.

It dries super fast and then you can go on polishing as normal.

I don't think it does much to make my nails appear smoother. Maybe if I used two coats but I found that the added layer makes all the other layers of polish take forever to dry. It's not worth all the waiting and inevitable smudges. I don't feel like it really looks any different to all the other base coats I've tried. 

It doesn't make my nails feel any stronger. And it doesn't make the polish go on any more evenly. Some of my Essie polishes are still so streaky they need 3 coats. 

And I don't think it makes polish last any longer either. It does really help prevent staining though. I had some pretty badly stained orange looking nails that have grown out and you can tell the new nail growth is not stained at all. So it does really well at that.

I'm just not impressed with it. I don't hate it, I'll use it up. But I won't repurchase. 



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