Good afternoon, Dear Reader! I had a reader request that sounded like a great idea to me, so I thought I'd get about the business of doing it: a post about the nail products I use and why I like them. I expect this post to get long, for I am not married to any one product - I find that many serve different purposes for me for different reasons. We'll look at them in the order I'd use them doing a manicure.
1. Remover: I use two. First, I use pure acetone to remove the polish using one cotton pad's worth per hand, then I use a third cotton pad with Studio 35 Salon Formula Nourishing acetone-based remover (blue) to go back over all ten nails. The reason I do it this way is that although pure acetone is faster and more effective than remover, it also tends to deposit dissolved color on my skin and nails. The remover does not, so I use that to clean up after the acetone. I use Studio 35 from Walgreen's because it's the cheapest and most effective I've found.
2. Cuticles: Most of the time, I push my cuticles back using my thumbnail. I never use metal tools on my cuticles, and the only time I use a cuticle nippers at all is if I have to trim anything around my cuticles (never the cuticles themselves). Every week or two, I'll use a cuticle remover with a worn (thus not sharp) orange stick to clean my cuticles up a bit. My preferred product is SpaRitual's Cuti-Clean, which doubles as a stain remover. I like it best because it's quick, effective, and painless. My second choice is Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover, which also works well but causes my cuticles to sting a bit. I follow the directions on the bottle for both.
3. Base Coat: Here, there's much more variety. Depending upon what I'm doing, I use a different base coat. My everyday product is Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth Treatment, but I believe that's being discontinued, so I'll have to find another everyday base coat. It allows the polish to go on smoothly and does a great job of preventing staining. If I'm swatching, I use Precision Base Coat because it dries the fastest and provides a smooth base - by the time I've painted the fifth nail on my left hand, the first is dry and ready for polish. Also, I've found certain brands of polish to be chippy unless I use the same manufacturer's base coat. That applies to Chanel, Essie, and Zoya, and I use those for those brands. For a long lasting manicure, my favorite is SpaRitual Lacquer Lock Colorstay Basecoat, followed by Zoya Anchor.
4. Color: My overall favorite brands of polish for application and wear are Rescue Beauty Lounge and SpaRitual. Since RBL costs exactly twice what SpaRitual does, SpaRitual gets the number one spot. I like both because my nails are quite curved over the nail bed and they flatten out a bit when wet, which can lead to chipping with many other brands. These two seem to have an elastic quality to their wear that allows them to stay on my nails for days - when travelling, I've gotten up to five days without a chip out of both, and only changed polish because I felt like it when I got home. For color, though, I'll use any brand that has colors I like, since I generally change my polish daily - I can love a $0.99 Wet N Wild as much as a Chanel. Color Club, Misa, OPI, Sally Hansen, CHI, Precision and Zoya are other favorites for color selection (in no particular order).
5. Top Coat: My very favorite top coat is SpaRitual Tout de Suite Quick Dry Topcoat. It dries polish faster than any other, has an unbeatable shine, doesn't cause "shrinkage" at the tips, and it prevents tip wear. My second favorite is Precision Quick Dry Top Coat because it also leaves a great shine and does the job well without shrinking the polish beneath, also preventing tip wear. The down side to both is that they cost a little more than others and are less available. I also use Seche Vite, avoiding its shrinkage issue by applying it around the edge of my tips. SV has a great shine and works well, but I get tip wear quickly with it. Poshe is another good one that I have on hand, which works faster than SV (especially on harder to dry colors, like some from Chanel), but doesn't shine as well as SV. I apply Poshe in the same manner as I do SV, but the tip wear isn't as bad with it as with SV.
6. Konad! I've been using the Konad for every mani lately, and am just beginning to try polishes other then the Konad Special Polish with it. [redacted]
7. Post Konad Top Coat: If I worked quickly and my base polish isn't totally dry, I've found a thick coat of Seche Vite will not smudge the design. The other options, if the base polish is dry, are Color Club Art Club Sealer (first choice, less likely to smudge) or Sally Hansen Megashine (second choice). Whichever I use, I use a thick coat to ensure that I don't smudge the stamped design. When I use something other than SV, I follow it with SpaRitual's Andale Dry & Shine Drops, which are magical. They really do work, and the polish is smooth, shiny, and dries quickly.
Then I'm done with products! I'm sure you see a theme here - I'm a huge fan of SpaRitual products. I love them. But since I change polish most days, I don't use them every time because they're a bit pricier so I have the others on hand. If you're a once-a-week gal like I used to be, they're well worth the extra money.
I'd love to hear additional product recommendations and experience from you, Dear Reader, so please feel free to chime in with a comment. While you're at it, why not enter the Get In-Spider-ed Giveaway? It's open to readers worldwide through the sixth.
That's all for today, Dear Reader. Love and nail polish to you!
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