Wear and Tear

Since I was so excited to use my new Rimmel London base/topcoat, I figure I should post an update on the results, which, sadly, were a little disappointing.

One problem -- which actually happens to me a lot when layering nail polish so it might not be the topcoat's fault -- is that adding another wet layer makes the dry layers underneath vulnerable to smudging and smearing again.

What happened this time, which seemed to be unique to the topcoat's interaction with the Covergirl gold polish I used, was the formation of tiny bubbles on the surface of the nails. This kind of thing is not  really noticeable to others but drives me crazy! I love having the surface of my nails feel smooth.

I'm not sure if you can see the bubbles in the gold, but you can definitely see the chipping!

Another problem is the chipping. The whole point of using a topcoat is so that I can go through a whole week (hence the name of the blog) without devising and implementing another manicure. I think that last week's green-on-green held a lot better - without topcoat!

So, I've asked this before but I'm still curious - What are your favorite topcoats? Did I get bad results because I was using a cheap one? How do you apply your topcoats? I ended up putting a layer between each of the polish colors, so maybe that is the problem. Let me know how you do it and what kind of results you get!

EDIT: (a couple of hours later)

Now I am super convinced this Rimmel base/topcoat should not be used as a base. I took a bath and this was the result:

Talk about a different way to remove nail polish!

All of the polish pealed off, easily and, as you can see, in astonishingly large pieces. This has never happened to me before, ever, so I can offer no explanation except to blame the base coat. I'll try to pick up a different one soon and try it out. Several people have suggested OPI, so I might try that, depending on the price. 

You can also see my naked nails, my new green bathroom, and my signature pink robe.

Normally I would include a shot of the products I used to achieve a certain look, so here is the shampoo I used in the bath. Also some bar soap, which did not photograph particularly nicely.

The upside is I now have naked nails without the yucky nail polish remover smell.