I forgot about this post. It got lost in my drafts after I was in two minds of whether to include this tape manicure in a post, but then I went to the trouble of doing the hideous thing I might as well! :P
I threw out all my old top coats and bought a new one after this bubbly disaster! I saw a post a little while ago on Lipglossiping about Lumos top coat as a non-gloopy, non-shrinking alternative to Seche Vite. I ordered a mini bottle from eBay to test it out, only £3.50 including postage, bargain! I’ve been using it for a month and I really like it. In fact I’ve used half of the mini bottle already. I will definitely grab a full sized bottle next time and perhaps try their base coat too.
My previous attempt at taped tips (Principality of Sealand Nails) I really liked and it lasted over a week, so I thought I’d go for something similar.
I used Revlon Plum Seduction as a base, taped off the tips and used Models Own Snow White, taped off the tips again and used OPI Charged Up Cherry. I thought these looked ok together, kinda reminded me of candy canes! I like the white stripe separating the colours, but my application was a bit crummy this time. I have a very ridgy index finger nail and my tape refused to lie flat so my line looks rubbish. The rest of the nails weren’t too bad though. After a few hours I thought I’d add a top coat. BAD IDEA! All of my top coats have wronged me lately, either by being gloopy or shrinking my lovely polish! Only Models Own 3 in 1 had not incurred my wrath so I put that on. Moments later lumpy bubble city! I hate you crummy old top coat, to the bin I cast you all! Lumos is my only topcoat from now on :)
Have you tried Lumos top coat and base coat? What did you think? I’ve quite impressed so far with the top coat. I’m going to write a review on it now as I keep forgetting, but as my spoilers in this post suggest, I love it :P
Aisling
/ June 13, 2011On the plus side the colour combination looks really good!! x
KarenD
/ June 14, 2011These colors do look good together! Maybe the MO top coat just needed thinning–SH Insta Dri is my favorite top coat but it does tend to get thick as I use up the bottle and that makes it not behave as well, so I add thinner and it’s back to its usual self.
Gemx
/ June 16, 2011Aisling – Thanks! I liked the colours so I kept it on all week, even if the lumpy top coat did annoy me! :P xx
KarenD – Thanks for the tip! Thinning is a bit of a mystery to me, I should try it though! It would rescue some of my non-compliant polishes :) xx
radiantmakeup
/ June 16, 2011Loving this colour combo – definately going to be trying this out soon :)
lovely post!! x
Billie Houghton
/ June 20, 2011the colour combination is beautiful:) really lovely nail pattern!
http://www.billiehoughton.blogspot.com
xx
Gemx
/ June 20, 2011radiantmakeup – Thanks! I really liked the combination of the colours :) Would love to see what you come up with! Just make sure your top coat is dry between colours, I made that mistake once and took all my polish off in one pull of the tape! :P
Billie Houghton – Thank you! :)
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