I bought this a couple weeks ago from Amazon for $4.76, but shipping costed a couple extra dollars. This top coat has some really great qualities, but also some not-so-good qualities. The great qualities are that it dries super fast and it is really, really shiny. Well, I guess there is only one bad quality, but it is pretty major: this top coat shrinks the polish underneath it. This means that, once it is dry, you will notice that it looks like you have worn the polish off of the very tips of your nails and if you missed a tiny strip of polish near your cuticle with the top coat, you will be able to see a very thin, blank crack-looking thing between that tiny strip and the rest of the nail's polish. Here is an example from my last manicure. It shrunk more after this picture was taken:
You can see the tiny divide between the majority of the polish and that small spot that I missed when I applied the top coat. The Nailasaurus reviewed to coats a while ago and she said that when Seche Vite gets older it shrinks her manicures.( http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2014/01/indie-top-coat-comparison.html ). Mine is new, but I don't know if I got a bad bottle, or something. It really isn't that terrible, but I can buy Sally Hansen Dries Instantly anywhere and it is cheaper and it dries fast and holds up and does not shrink my manicures. So, I will still use the bottle of Seche Vite that I have, but after that I think I will stick to Dries Instantly.
Okay, now for the other product: Essie Protein Base Coat:
When I ordered my Seche Vite I decided to add another item to my cart while I was at it. This was $5.87 and a couple dollars for shipping. I had been wanting a base coat and I saw one person on the internet say that they liked it. I should have done more research, though, because I am not happy with it. I have used it twice so far. The first time that I used it, I thought I hadn't waited long enough to apply my base color because the base coat made it very hard to get a thin, even coating of paint. The first coat of base color was streaky and uneven. Well, today I used this base coat for my second time. I applied a coat in the morning and waited until almost 3:00 in the afternoon to do my manicure. So, it had hours to set and was completely dry (I had gone outside in the snow and had worn gloves and the base coat still looked fine.) But, when I applied my base color, it was extremely hard to get an even coat and if I went over an area more than once to try to get it evened and smoothed out, the color would streak horribly. The next coat of polish covered all of the problems, but I do not want to be wrestling every time I try to apply a first coat of nail polish. This product is very good on its own, but not very good as a base coat.
I hope this was a little helpful. If any of you know of a good, not-too-expensive base coat, I would love to know what it is! I hope your week is going well! =)
No comments:
Post a Comment