Nutra Nail Gel Perfect UV-Free Gel-Color: Mixed Results

Sometimes I go to Rite-Aid and it's such a bonanza of cool items and new displays that I want to go completely bonkers and buy everything. Last Friday night was one of those times.

I didn't go completely bonkers, but I did see a display that intrigued me.

The picture's not award-winning because I was trying to be stealth about it, but these are Nutra Nail Gel Perfect UV-Free Gel-Color (phew!) kits. There are 10 colors available (the Nutra Nail website lists 12; but there are clearly 10 in the display. I'm not sure which ones are missing). Also featured in the display are several packs of No-Mess Express, the remover kit that is suggested to go with the polishing kit. The gel color kit was $11.99 and the remover kit was $5.99. However, there is a tear-off pad on the display with coupons for $1.50 off either product. That sealed the deal and I had to buy it.

I've been thinking for a while about doing Gelish at home, mainly for pedicures. It's a not-insignificant upfront investment, but it would pay for itself after a few pedicures. I'm pretty boring when it comes to pedis - I like dark pinks, classic reds and the occasional vampy shade. Maybe a purple sometimes. But mostly I just don't like to change it very often. The Nutra Nail kit seemed like it might present a good option for my lazy woman's pedi and even for the occasional manicure.

Most of the shades in the Gel Perfect line are pretty safe - reds, pinks, neutrals - though there were two that stood out: Moonstone is a pretty blue shimmer and Torenia is a vibrant violet shimmer. I chose the Orchid shade, a medium red-purple creme. It's exactly the kind of shade I'd choose for a pedicure most of the time.

Don't worry, by the way - I'm not going to show you my feet! I decided to do my fingernails for the sake of experimentation. Besides, I'm much better at painting my nails than my toes.

Here's what comes with the kit: A bottle of cleaner (you use this to clean the color brush), a bottle of activator and a bottle of color. The color is .17 ounces, so it's quite small. For reference, an Essence Colour & Go polish is .16 ounces.

There are also two coupons inside the instruction booklet, which is nice. One is for the color kit and one is for the remover.

You can read the how-to on the Nutra Nail site. I read it through a couple of times before I applied the color. It's really not difficult at all. Basically you apply a layer of activator (which smells exactly like nail glue) followed by a layer of gel color. You do five nails at a time, cleaning the brush in between every five nails, repeating the activator-then-color process for the second coat.

So this isn't hard, but there is a bit of a learning curve. If you're the type of polisher that just slaps on color and then relies on a lot of cleanup afterward, this may not work for you. However, if you tend to be  neat and precise in your application then this shouldn't be a problem. This is because the color goes where ever you've applied the clear activator - so if you flood your cuticles with the activator, they're going to get flooded with color too. The color doesn't sit on top of the activator, it blends with it - so you definitely want to keep the activator out of your cuticles.

Here's what the bottle of cleaner looks like after you switch the brushes a few times.

Overall, I didn't have any problems applying this, and I did go back and clean up a little with a small concealer brush and pure acetone, which worked fine. For removal, Nutra Nail tells you to use the No-Mess Express removal kit, but as an alternate they suggest the foil method. So I'll try that and let you know how it works.

Anyway! Enough blabbering. Here are the finished results.

You probably can see some issues here. (That's a glare going diagonally across my nails...that's not a flaw in the application or polish.) There area a couple of bubbles and some slight unevenness - you really want to use a steady hand with this because it's not as self-leveling as some polishes and top coats. I have to be honest, though, in real life? It looks pretty darn good. Macro mode is very unforgiving, so you're seeing every single flaw.

The claims that you can "dig in your purse" and "step into your shoes" in five minutes seem to hold true. Immediately after I did this manicure, I fed the dog, washed my hands and put on lotion, pushed a cardboard box into the trash, did some typing and just generally went about my business. I didn't get any dings, smears or dents.

I also like that there is a troubleshooting guide on the back of the how-to guide. There are Facebook and YouTube logos on the instruction sheet included in the box, but I couldn't find Nutra Nail on either site, and there are no links to videos for this product on the Nutra Nail site. You can order Gel Perfect online though, just click "order now" under the color you want.

After one day of wear, however, I think it's safe to say these are not a great fit for my fingernails.

To be fair, I was hard on my nails on Sunday (the day after I put Gel Perfect on). I cooked, I cleaned, I bashed them into things. Because Gel Perfect cures so hard on the nail, when the gel cracked, my nails cracked too. I had two large chips on Sunday that took a layer of my nail with them. I did patch the chips, which worked fine, but I had several more chips that afternoon and evening...even on one of the nails I had just patched!

My nails are having a brittle moment, and as I said, I was unusually hard on them. But the drying effect of Gel Perfect is hard to deny. If your nails are better hydrated, perhaps you'll have better luck. And if you typically you wear your nails short, you might not experience the breakage that I did.

I'll still try Gel Perfect on my toenails, but I think I will steer clear of it on my fingernails, at least until I feel they are better hydrated.

Nic's Sticks Rainbow's End

A few months ago there was a big frenzy for Nic's Sticks in Silver-ella and Rainbow's End - both holos! People were finding them at Tuesday Morning stores, buying two or three at a time and decanting them into regular bottles.

Why would you do that, you ask? Because Nic's Sticks are not easy to use, and they come with probably the worst brush I've ever seen. Worse even than the Missha brushes, which is saying a lot. For all of that, I will admit that the final result is not bad. I didn't have to do a ton of cleanup, just some tidying around my cuticles. It just took a lot longer than usual to paint my nails.

To use a Nic's Stick, you have to press down on the cartridge that holds the polish. This releases a small amount of the polish, which then flows down into and over the brush. Sounds good in theory, but it results in very clumsy application, and it's very difficult to control how much polish you get on the brush from nail to nail. Add to that the inherent challenges of a holo polish and you stand to have a real mess on your hands. (Literally! Ha!)

I only found one stick in the Rainbow's End color, a peachy/nude holo. It's a shame OPI didn't just bottle these colors up because Rainbow's End, at least, is gorgeous.

 This is a linear holo and it shines and glows even in low light, including my dreadful office lighting.

I love this color because it's almost a neutral/office appropriate shade while still being interesting and incredibly pretty.

I used my regular base coat for this (don't ask me why it slipped my mind to try my new Nfu-Oh Aqua Base) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri as a top coat. It's held up remarkably well - I've been wearing it for four days and it still looks great. I have some tip wear and one small chip on my left hand. (Another good thing about this color - it doesn't show wear very easily!)

I'm a huge fan of this shade, which is why it bums me out that it's no longer widely available. Even if it was, to truly use it the way I'd want to (often, and with minimal fuss), it would need to be in a real nail polish bottle with a real brush. And this is something I don't understand about the nail polish biz: How is it that OPI can put this awesome shade in a Nic's Stick with a subpar brush, but not in a Nicole or OPI bottle with a regular brush? I love the OPI ProWide brush, it's probably my favorite aside from RBL.

The bottom line is that I'd love it if OPI released a collection of awesome, high quality holos like this one, but I'd also want to enjoy applying and wearing it. And for that, it needs to be in a real bottle.

What do you think? Have you ever used a Nic's Stick? How did it work out for you?

Rescue Beauty Lounge Piu Mosso

Good morning. Today I have for you one of the new Rescue Beauty Lounge polishes from the recent Firebird collection. I chose one shade from the collection, Piu Mosso, and pre-ordered it way back in July. I received it in late August and finally got around to wearing it yesterday.

Unfortunately my experience with Piu Mosso was not what I had hoped, in general and certainly not based on my previous experience with RBL polishes. However, some of that was definitely due to operator error and was not the fault of the polish - so I'll have to give it another try to know for sure. Perhaps my thoughts will be helpful if you're considering buying this shade.

I chose Piu Mosso because of the gorgeous murky blue base color and the sunset-orange shimmer.

Doesn't it look awesome? Amazing? Delightfully unique? Well in the bottle, it is.

Part of me knew the shimmer would not be that strong or dramatic on the nail but...I couldn't help hoping otherwise. You do get flashes of it from time to time:

But mostly, it looks like this.

Indoor lighting

Natural lighting

In the picture above, you can see a bit of the dragging (near the cuticle on my middle finger) and the dullness of the finish. These are two of the issues I had with Piu Mosso.

To be fair, I didn't exactly set myself up for success with this manicure. I put the polish on at around 11pm, when I should have been going to bed. I was dead tired, exhausted actually; and to make matters worse I decided it would be okay to drink a Diet Coke before/during doing my nails. So my application skills were probably not what I would call "ideal." I was impatient and cranky and probably rushed a little.

However.

The formula was definitely thick and definitely difficult to control. It was pasty, resulting in drag marks like you can see in the picture above. I did a very thin first coat but went fairly thick on the second coat; this would also prove a bad idea when not 10 hours later the manicure began chipping. (I do think that's my fault...I used too thick of a second coat.)

I used Seche Vite as a top coat. I don't remember this giving me problems with RBL previously but I'll definitely try something different with Piu Mosso next time. The chipping got much, much worse and I actually removed the polish less than 24 hours after putting it on. Typically I leave manicures on for at least 2-3 days and if I need to, I often get 5-6 days of wear. So this was annoying.

I dearly love my other RBL polishes - they are heavily pigmented, easy to apply and have good wear with my usual base coat/top coat combination. I might try a couple drops of thinner in Piu Mosso.

The fact is, however, that none of these tactics will change the fact that the color isn't quite what I'd hoped. Someone suggested trying Piu Mosso over another polish with a similar base color, and I'm willing to give that a try as well.

The biggest bummer of all is that when you lightly swipe a cotton ball soaked in acetone over the polish, it lifts up just enough of the murky blue to let that coppery orange shimmer really glow. ARGH!