Review: Essence Gold Old Buffy Nail Polish

So Twilight: Breaking Dawn comes out today in Spain (wahoo!) although it isn't being shown anywhere near me in English. :(  But Essence, a newish, affordable drugstore brand, came out with a Twilight-themed makeup collection to coincide with the movie called 'Vampire's Love.'  It has perfume, cheek highlighters, nail polish, and a few other things.  I've tried Essence polish before and wasn't all that thrilled about it, but when I saw this polish from the collection, Gold Old Buffy (like Buffy the Vampire Slayer!) I had to get it.

This polish was 2 euros for 10 ml.  For reference, OPI polish is 15 ml for $8, so by the ml this is quite a bit cheaper than OPI or Essie.  It comes in a round bottle, a lot like the Nails Inc ones, with 'Vampire's Love' on the front and the polish name on a sticker on the cap.  The brush is short and pretty flat, but easy to deal with.  I took a bunch of pictures to try to capture the color, and totally failed.  In real life it's a blackened olive-green packed with gold shimmer and tiny, tiny flecks of pinky-orange shimmer.  It is absolutely stunning!  The blackened aspect makes it dark enough to feel vampy (hehe), and the browny-olive-green makes it a fun, off-beat twist on a neutral shade.  The shimmer makes it just look magical.  I've never owned a green polish before, but now I'm totally obsessed.  I usually have a 5 day manicure rule, where I can't change my manicure until I've worn the polish for 5 days or it's chipped off (to save my pathetically weak nails some stress), but this polish made me change my manicure at day 4.  That's a big deal, y'all.

As for application, the first coat went on sheer and patchy, but a thicker second coat fixed that right up and made it opaque.  All in all it was very easy to apply, self-leveling with no pooling or dragging at the cuticles and it was fast-drying. 

I really, really like this polish.  I think the color works for the vampire theme because it has a bit of a gothic, antiqued feel and it's a deep shade.  The pretty shimmer could theoretically work into the shimmery vampires in Twilight (probably taking that too far haha) and vampire thing aside, this color is just so pretty.  I think it would be flattering on most skin shades, light to dark and warm to cool, and it's a great value for the money.  I would definitely get other colors from this collection.


Awkward Chic rating: A+.  I'm not sure if you can get this online, so hit up your usual Essence retailers.