Make My Mani Last! ~ ECV

Sep 23, 2013

Make My Mani Last!

7:33 PM E-Class Ventures No comments

How many times has it happened? You just paint your nails or worse, pay for a manicure, and a day later your color is already chipped. I feel your pain.

Although ECV took a summer hiatus from posting it doesn't mean we weren't working hard to solve the beauty problems that bug us and you to no end. We did the following nail polish experiment after researching a lot of different base and top coats to try to find the best.

And now for the how-to...

Before we even get to the polish we soaked our nails for a few minutes. How often does this happen at your average strip mall nail shop nowadays? Please let us know in the comments if your manicurist does this. But here's the reason: soaking your nails gets them soft enough to cut evenly and the nails swell slightly. Having them swollen when painting is important if you wash your hands as much (or as long) as I do.
Next we applied a thin base coat of Seche Clear^TM crystal clear base coat. It had the best reviews from the various national beauty editors and mags we researched.
Two thin coats of color were applied to the nail and the edges of nails. If you don't have nail tips that extend past your finger, don't try to get the polish on that extremely thin edge or you'll just end up with a lot of color on your fingers. We used Avon Nailwear Pro+ nail enamel in Tangtastic mainly because it's a color we retail so we wanted to see how long we could get our product to last. Unfortunately, as you'll see in the photos below, it didn't live up to the "12 days of lasting color" as advertised.
Finally we finished up with Avon's Speed Dry top coat. We applied a thin top coat to the top and edges of the nail and under the nail edge.

Photos are not retouched in any way (only cropped so you won't see so much sheet or desk) and no additional top coats were added. Sorry for the brightness variations! Please send comments of what you think.