Sally Hansen Miracle Gel

Hello, hello everyone,

I have a review for you today on the Sally Hansen miracle gel system which includes a wear test. Now I know that this system has lots of reviews, some sponsored and some very negative ones. As for myself, one of my very close friends uses the miracle gel polish and the Sally Hansen insta-dry top coat. She works as a lifeguard and regular nail polish does not last on her as long as the miracle gel does. So I thought it was high time for me to test it out. I picked up the shade Pretty Piggy and I got the regular miracle gel top coat, not the 2x volume top coat.

This set typically retails for $15 to $17 CDN in various stores. The main claims behind this system is that you can get 14 days of color and shine without a light to cure it. Also it is supposed to be more chip resistant that regular nail polish while being easy to remove. I have prepped my nails using Pretty Womans nail detox and will be testing two top coats as well as no top coat.

Two coats of Pretty Piggy

The application for this shade was really lovely, it has the same brush as their complete salon manicure line so it covers the nail very easily. This particular shade was really opaque on the first coat and fully opaque on the second. The polish itself dried very quickly and with ease. Now, because I wanted to give an in depth review, I put the miracle gel top coat on my thumb and middle finger. On my pointer and ring finger I have used seche vite. And lastly, on my pinky I have no top coat.

So starting with the pinky, you will notice a crack near the tip and that was due to user error and does not reflect on the polish itself. The shine was a very good amount, the same as the miracle gel top coat in my opinion. As for the pointer and ring finger, seche vite dried very quickly and has a high shine finish. The miracle gel top coat on the other hand, did not work out so well. In the bottle I had noticed it was very thin and heard that it can smudge your nail so I applied a thicker coat so as to avoid smudging. It did not work at all. No matter how dry my polish was underneath, the miracle gel top coat smudged it so badly that it created patches if you look up close. Also even though my base color was dry, my brush still got stained pink. Dry time was fairly long, when I had thought it was dry I could still leave fingerprint marks and then smooth them out. The shine was also fairly nice.

Day three, my right hand (my dominant hand).

Day three, my left hand.

By day three my manicure was still looking very fresh with minimal tip wear on my right hand. On day four however, I did notice that the polish had started to crack on my left thumb and both of my middle fingers, which all had the miracle gel top coat. On day five, the cracking had also shown up on my right thumb and both my pinkies which had no top coat.

Day eight, my right hand (my dominant hand).

 Day eight, my left hand.

 By day eight, I had noticeable tip wear on my right hand and minimal wear on my left. While my manicure looked nice because there was no chipping, the cracking was really noticeable and ruined the manicure for me. It looked worn out even though the shine was still prevalent. And it was on all my fingers except for my pointer and ring which were topped with seche vite.

Day ten, my right hand (my dominant hand). 

Day ten, my left hand.

I did not make it to day 14 because the chipping on my middle finger kept spreading and the cracking of the nail polish just looked horrible in person. Overall, even after ten days, I thought it had held up nicely especially when topped with seche vite. The color was still vibrant and there was still a good amount of shine on all of my fingers. It also did remove easily.

The miracle gel polish itself, is definitely something I would recommend. Looking at the polish itself, I did not have any issues with it until day five which is pretty amazing considering I had no base and top coat. The color popped and the shine was still there to make it look like a gel manicure. To extend the life of the manicure, I would recommend you use either seche vite as I did or try your own top coat. I think if I had used seche vite on all ten fingers, I would have made it through 14 days without my manicure looking horrible.

As for the miracle gel top coat, save your money and effort. The top coat smudged my nail color to the point where it reduced the opacity of the coat I already had on; so it would be horrible for nail art. It also took longer than the nail color to dry. The worst part is that on me, it caused my manicure to crack two whole days before my finger that had no top coat! So save your money on the top coat and just buy another color you like.

I will for sure buy more miracle gel colors because I was impressed with the formula and wear time. When I want my manicure to last I will reach for this and my own preferred top coat. If you've used the 2x volume top coat or have used this system, I'm curious to see how you found it so leave me a comment below!

Pretty Woman NYC Gelogic

Hello all,

Today I have a review and wear test of Pretty Woman NYC gelogic line. Their gelogic system is a two piece system which consists of a color and a top coat. The claims made by this system are that their formula resists chipping, cracking, fading and peeling. They do not make any claim for how long this polish will last, it is simply long lasting. Other claims from this line is that one coat should be enough for it to be opaque, it is self leveling and plumping, it dries quickly without a LED or UV light and that it removes with acetone nail polish remover.

For my review, I actually tested the gelogic line using only the color coat because I did not have the titanium top coat that comes with it. I did prep my nails with the Pretty Woman NYC nail detox since the instructions said to clean your nail with nail polish remover. So before I get into the details and results of my wear test, there are a few things I want you all to keep in mind while you read my review. At my job, I am constantly opening drawers that have no handle so I have to reach my fingers in; this eats away at my nail polish quite quickly. I have found that even with using my favorite base and top coat, my nails will have significant wear after one shift and definite chipping after a second shift. So I change my nail polish very quickly because of that and when I am working, I am putting way more "stress" on my polish than with usual wear.

Two coats of Something Blue

The application of the gelogic polish was easy enough, while I do think it was very opaque at one coat, I did two coats. Also even though this shade has a lovely shimmer running throughout it, I found the application was still smooth. I would agree 100% that it self leveled and it dried very quickly. As to the polish being plumping, I really noticed no difference from a regular nail polish. Even though I did not add a top coat to this polish, it had a fairly nice shine to it where I felt I did not need to add a top coat.

Five days of wear

I have to say I was blown away by the quality of this polish. On me, with base and top coat, regular nail polish lasts two work shifts before showing major chips forcing me to change it. I wore this polish for five days, through four shifts at work! I was able to get double the wear of my nail polish by using this gelogic color as opposed to regular nail polish. You can see that the major chips are on my index and pointer fingers while my ring and pinkie finger still only have tip wear. Adding the titanium top coat would also help prolong the wear of your manicure. Overall, I have to say that this gelogic system met all of their claims. The color did not fade or peel and I found it very resistant to chipping and cracking. It also removed easily with my acetone based nail polish remover.

The gelogic polishes have 9.5 mLs in them as opposed to Pretty Woman NYCs regular polish which have 10 mLs. However, they are the exact same price ($7.99)! So it really is up to you which formula you want to try without the worry of it being much more expensive. Also remember that Pretty Woman NYC has free shipping regardless of your order size! If you've tried any from their gelogic line or if you want me to pick up the titanium top coat and put it to the test, leave me a comment down below.

Wet n Wild 1 Step Wonder Gel swatch and review

(L-R Left Marooned, Condensed Milk, Stay Classy, Pretty Peas, Lavender out Loud)

Hello everyone, hope you are having a wonderful day. Two weeks ago, I wandered to my local Loblaws Superstore and found that they had the new Wet n Wild 1 Step Wonder Gel for $6 CDN and of course, I grabbed as much as I could.These polishes are supposed to mimic a true UV cured gel polish without the use of a UV light. So if you are interested in seeing my swatches, pros and cons, as well as the results of my 2 week wear test, just keep reading!

So lets start with some swatches, the range of this product consists of 18 different shades however, I only picked up 5.

Starting with the lightest shade I picked up, this is condensed milk. I did use three coats for this swatch and if you look carefully, you will see that there are still some spots where the polish is not completely opaque. Furthermore, the color that you see on my nails is lighter than the color you see on the bottle.

Next we have pretty peas, which is a beautiful seafoam green. I did use three coats for my swatch and I was able to get it fully opaque but I tried not to overwork the polish. On the first and second coat, I found that the more I brushed the polish, the streakier it got. Therefore I would recommend using the three strokes method with this particular color.

Stay classy is a wonderful mauve shade, and had the best formula of the bunch. It was almost opaque in one coat, however I did use two. This is the shade I chose for my wear test so you will be seeing it again soon.

Lavender out loud is probably the second best of the bunch but did need two coats to be fully opaque. It is a light and sightly dusty purple.

Last we have the worst of the bunch, left marooned. This was opaque in two coats but the formula was really tricky to work with so you might need three. This was incredibly hard to photograph using my regular lights, so I also took a picture in the sun.

 Nope, I did not change my polish. Left marooned is a cherry red. This color did not deepen on a third coat, and as you can see the color is nowhere near the same as the label. Also as I mentioned, the formula was tricky; it was goopy and hard to work with.

Next, lets talk about the wear test I did; I wore stay classy for 2 whole weeks with no base or top coat.

Say hello to my Cinderella hand, this picture was taken 9 days later. I do have a disclaimer, I hit my hand while closing a cabinet and I bent the nail on my middle finger which resulted in the chips you can see on the side. So please keep in mind that those chips have nothing to do with the formulation of the polish itself. Overall, I have to say I was definitely impressed by this polish. I do have a good amount of tip-wear, but this my dominant hand  and for nine days, it really held up well. As for the shine, I felt like I had the same amount of shine as the day I applied it.

Day 14, as you can see the chips on the side of my middle finger have gotten worse. I have more tip-wear and some chips on the sides of my other nails. However, the shine is still pretty prevalent and after fourteen days, I'm still impressed.

Overall, this polish by Wet n Wild has three main claims; color and shine for up to 2 weeks, no base or top coat needed, and easy removal. It has been my experience that all of those claims were true. After two weeks, it's still on your nails and it was a easy one step process. A lot of the time, if you don't use a base or top coat to extend the life of your manicure, your polish won't last for even a week. Also it did remove as easily as regular nail polish.

To wrap up, lets talk about some pros and cons, starting with the cons. $6 is expensive for Wet n Wild, their regular megalast polishes retail for about $3 CDN. This polish is really prone to bubbling, you really have to let it sit before you go in to paint your nails. The bubbles show up easy and since there is no top coat, you can't smooth out the polish is you do get the bubbles. No top coat also means that the shineyness of the polish itself is all you have, so if it's too dull for you, this line doesn't have a top coat for you to add on top. My major con with this line, is that since the bottles are opaque (the lacquer is light sensitive) you really depend on the sticker to depict the color. And while I can overlook the variation on condensed milk; it was a little lighter than the label, left marooned was really off. The label showed a classic maroon shade and the polish itself turned out to be a cherry red. So, what you see on the sticker, is not necessarily what you get.

To end on a positive note, I have a lot of pros for you. As you could see from my wear test, the polish did last a really long time. I got tired of the color long before I thought the manicure looked bad. For four out the five polishes I used, they applied really smoothly, self leveled nicely, no issues. The brush is the same as their megalast brushes so you can cover your nail easily. The polish also dries really fast! It is supposed to cure from regular ambient light or sunlight and I found that I only had to wait a handful of minutes in between coats and in the end.

While $6 is expensive for Wet n Wild , if you consider the other brands in the drug store, none of them have this kind of gel formula. To name a few, Sally Hansen Miracle Gel is a two step process; the polish and the top coat. Loreal Gel-Extraordinaire is a three step process;  base coat, polish, and top coat. Even Essence, gel nail polish has a base coat and top coat in addition to the colors. Therefore, since you only have to purchase the color you like, it is still an affordable polish.

Overall, I think this product is a 4/5 and my favorite color is pretty peas. Thank you so much for reading my review, if you've tried any of these comment below and let me know your thoughts!