I haven’t had a red mani in ages and I felt like starting this week off with a deep red. This is the one I ended up choosing from my collection and it’s called True Love from Essence. Essence is one of the drugstore brands that really has an fantastic variety of nail polishes to choose from. The nail polishes also have different finishes such as gel (that you can do on your own without a lamp), nudes, metals and more recently jellies. Apart from nail polishes, Essence really has a great range of nail care tools and products which makes doing your own mani and pedi at home a breeze, especially if you are on a budget.

As a base coat, I applied the Essence Studio Nails Ultra Nail Repair, and then I painted two coats of True Love over that. This is probably the longest my nails have been in a while, thanks to the Ultra Nail Repair that I have been wearing on my nails for a few weeks now.

The Gel Nail Polishes from Essence wear for at least 4 to 5 days before chipping, are rich in colour, and have a beautiful shiny finish. These gel polishes are really affordable at R25 a bottle so you can splurge on more than one bottle at a time, especially if you want to try out some nail art with two or three different colours. I have purchased a number of the colours in the range and have even converted my mom to them recently as she enjoys trying out new colours on her nails.