Essence Black Out

A couple of weeks ago, I realised I that in my collection of around 170 polishes, I didn't own a black polish, a shocking omission really (like, how was I ever going to let my inner rock chic out?!). I was in boots and bought what the nice lady assured me was a black no 7 polish (it was sitting on the counter beside the till and I had a voucher for no 7)  but, alas,  when I got it home realised it was just a really dark purple polish but more on that another time. So the search continued, I wandered in to a local pharmacy and found an Essence limited collection called Black and White, and perhaps unsurprisingly there was a black polish in the collection, so I promptly purchased. Black Out is a black polish with what essence call a "soft touch finish", the finish looks kind of  like plastic as seen in the photos below,

The application is ok, you have to be a bit careful to make it even, as it doesn't have great self-levelling properties and the polish is a bit thick. The soft-effect finish means it isn't as harsh as just black polish. The more you wear the polish, the shinier it becomes from hand washing and hand cream applying. While the finish changes over time, the polish does have good wear, I've no worn it twice and got 4 days before it chipped and in fact the polish chipped before I got tipwear.


I think that this a good dupe for Illamasqua Scorn, which matches their nail quills. (more info from Scrangie here), but I haven't seen Scorn in real life, so I'm just going by photos.


What do you think of this finish, it's not quite matt and not quite cream?