Hi darlings!
I love, love the Essence gel nails at home kid! The only downside is that your nails must be healthy for a good staying powder. Or just use some regular base coat under their gel base coat, as a trick.
Anyway, I went with nude nails because it's been quite a while since I did them. Years, actually.
I digged two old polishes from Essence and went to town.
I used 1 layer of each (Essence iced chai latte and Essence glamour style). The second polish is ah-mazing and I am sad it's not available anymore. Tho I am sure you can get a similar one somewhere.
They looked fine for two days, then the tip wore out. And I could survive that, but I managed to hurt one nail and the polish went off.... so I picked at it until it went flying off. Damn, I am not very good with that.
I feel that the nude manicure is very classy, maybe even too classy (boring?!) for me.. :P