hi guys! a few months ago, i received a couture gel nail polish kit as a giveaway prize. the kit comes with three polishes of your choice, a base coat and top coat, a nail prep kit with cuticle pusher, toe separators, emory board, and a buffer, uv lamp (with bulbs), and an instructional dvd & booklet.
after midnight
initial thoughts: ok, so i was lazy and didn't watch the instructional dvd; but i did read the instruction sheet. lol. anyway; it says to use the included buffer block on your nails, apply basecoat and cure for 2 minutes. apply first coat of colored polish, cure 2 minutes, apply a second coat and cure if desired. then apply the topcoat and cure 2 minutes. apply additional topcoat and cure if desired. apply rubbing alcohol (91% is better) to cotton balls and wipe nails to remove the stickiness. done! (be sure to remove any polish from the skin before curing nails.)
so my first run through, i was lazy and didn't use the included buffer. instead, i swiped on some orly primetime to prep my nails. i then went through the process mentioned above, using 2 coats of polish and 2 coats of topcoat. i did sectione off my hands: four fingers, both thumbs, and the other four fingers; and painted each section individually. also, before curing my nails, i would take elf's pro angled liner brush in some acetone and cleaned up the edges. it took me about 2 hours for the whole process, but it was my first time doing it, so i don't think it was too bad. i did them on a sunday afternoon and by end of the day monday, i lost my first 3 nails. by tuesday, i lost another two. and by wednesday evening, i just felt like peeling off the remainder because they were all lifting up around the edges. so. a 2-week manicure lasted me 3 days. i did like how they peeled off, all in once piece, and my nails were basically clean*.
*because peeling polish off removes a layer of your nails and weakens them, i gave my nails a few weeks' break before using this kit a second time.
2 coats of vip list (pink) & 3-4 coats of super model (purple)
additionally, this purple (super model) is ok. it took 3-4 coats each to get to the opacity i liked. which, is forever: 2 minutes to cure x 6 coats of polish (base, ~3x color, 2x top) + cleanup = ~30 mins. i initially was going to do all but my ring fingers in super model, but yeah. no. so that's why my thumbs are pink (vip list), which is gorgeous by the way.
this second time wasn't too bad. i painted them on a thursday evening, and i wasn't seeing tip-wear until about sunday night (mostly because my actual nails were breaking or flaking underneath). they also didn't lift up around the edges. around the one week mark, there was some lift-age and i peeled two off that were coming up really bad. there weren't really chips in the polish, but if it would peel and crack into a smallish piece, i'd pull it off..so it kind of looks like it was chipping...but not. and by the 8-day mark, i decided to peel off the rest of them because they were starting to lift off.
top: day 7, bottom: day 8
2 coats after midnight & vip list
round 3: idk. it still pooled on the edges of most of my nails. on one thumb (pictured above), it pooled only on one side and the other looks nice and flush with the nail. ~.~ this time, i used 2 coats of polish and 2 coats of topcoat on each nail, after the basecoat. i'm not sure what happened this time. relative to last time, the first one lifted up and was promptly peeled off on day 3. then a bunch of them began lifting up by day 4, and i peeled them off too. my ring fingers lasted until about day 6, and my remaining thumb lasted to about day 8.
overall thoughts: i have no freaking clue. i think that if i got this whole "no pooling on the edges" thing figured out, it would last a bit longer and for a consistent length of time..... this set is a meh because of the amount of time invested for each manicure session relative to how long on average each mani lasted.
this kit retails for $129 on couturegelnailpolish.com.
~Lin-chan ^.~
