Essence Metal Glam Gold Topper Steel-ing The Scene (swatched twice)

Hi all! This morning I almost walked past an Essence display without even checking for new stuff, the previous LE stood there for quite some time and I kinda forgot about the Metal Glam collection. Luckily this blingy golden bottle pulled my attention, because I was curious after this one and it was the last one already! They still had a bunch of the other polishes in the collection (you can check out the preview here), but somehow, I managed to resist checking them. Metallics often work well for stamping, and I knew that if I'd open the bottle and see a pigmented polish, I'd throw them all in my basket in the blink of an eye! I have several stamping polishes in similar shades, so I figured to be brave and continue shopping instead. (Shush it, inner hoarder, I ain't going back!)

Anyway, here's the Gold Topper called Steel-ing The Scene, a polish with golden plastic(?) flakes in a clear base. The polish has plenty flakes, so no fishing needed, but a little dabbing here and there was needed to get this result. I used 1 coat of it on the swatches below. I'm sure the real deal looks better, but for €1,99, I'm fine with it not being real gold. Especially since this isn't the kind of polish I'd wear often! If you do want a real gold leaf top coat, you can of course buy one, or make one yourself! There are several tutorials for that out there, for example this tutorial by the awesome Deborah from Love Varnish!

Revlon Mistletoe with Essence Steel-ing The Scene.

Mistletoe looked a lot more sparkly under the lamplight (swatches of it here), normal light made the flakes stand out more. So I also tried it out on a red creme base, but as you can see on the tip of my indexfinger, it didn't work as well with this base and dragged the color a little! I didn't have that at all with Mistletoe, and the Catrice is an older polish (from when they still had golden caps!), so I think that might be what's caused that. Regardless, if you're looking for a festive polish for the upcoming holidays, I think this one will do the trick just fine! :)

Catrice Brocade Red with Essence Steel-ing The Scene.

Thanks for looking and take care!