My Go-To Navy | Essie Caviar Bar Swatches + Review
Published 2026-08-28
Despite the name, Gel by Essie is not a traditional gel polish that requires a UV lamp to cure.
Instead, it's an air-dry polish designed to deliver many of the benefits people expect from gel nails—long wear, a glossy finish, and faster drying—without needing any special equipment.
Here's the easiest way to tell the difference between a true gel polish and a gel-like formula:
Look at the bottle.
True gel polishes always come in opaque bottles because ambient UV light (sunlight) can begin curing the formula inside the bottle.
If you can see the polish through clear glass, it's an air-dry formula with gel-like performance.
Essie does make professional gel versions of some of its classic shades, like Ballet Slippers, and those come in white opaque bottles. Gel by Essie, however, is the air-dry version and it's easily one of my favorite long-lasting nail polish lines available today.
One of the biggest reasons I keep wearing it is how simple the system is.
Even better, it actually lasts on me.
Most nail polish chips within 1–3 days because I have oily nail beds and I'm rough on my hands. No matter how carefully I prep my nails, that's just how it goes.
Gel by Essie is one of the only lines I’ve tried so far that consistently breaks that pattern.
I can paint my nails on Sunday night and they're usually still presentable by Friday. Since Essie updated the formula, I'm even getting 5–6 days of wear with some shades before I refresh them with another layer of top coat.
When I find a polish that genuinely lasts that long on my nails, I recommend it to everyone.
Caviar Bar, a deep, inky navy blue that has become one of my all-time favorites. It's fully air dry, but what really makes it stand out is the pigmentation. It's completely opaque in a single coat, which is surprisingly rare for a polish this dark.
Of course, you can apply two coats if you prefer a slightly richer finish, but the swatches below show just one coat of Caviar Bar topped with the Gel by Essie Top Coat.
Gel by Essie Caviar Bar Swatches
One of the most overlooked benefits of this line is the value.
Since you skip the base coat, you're automatically buying one less product.
Then there's the fact that Caviar Bar reaches full opacity in a single coat, so you use far less polish with every manicure compared to the typical two-or three-coat formula.
Combined with the excellent wear time, you end up painting your nails less often, using less product overall, and replacing your bottles less frequently.
It saves both time and money, which is something I appreciate today more than ever.
That's why, even after nearly a decade on the market, I think Gel by Essie is a better option than it’s ever been.
If you're ready to try it, you can find Gel by Essie at CVS, where you can often stack coupons and ExtraCare rewards to bring the price down to an even more budget friendly price point.
