How To Make Your Manicure Last Longer

There is very little worse - from a beauty bloggers point of view - than a nail varnish that lasts around 30 seconds on the nails.  It's heartbreaking to discover that the beautiful shade you've just splashed out on has all the lasting power of a soap bubble.  Especially if it's an £18 soap bubble ...

Anyway, there is help, and you can make those ephemeral polishes last longer.  It's a technique called the "Sticky Sandwich", and it's very simple.  I didn't originate this technique, btw, but I use it all the time, because I'm lazy and can't be bothered doing my nails more than once (twice if it's a special occasion), in a week.

Anyway, here goes, you need a sticky basecoat, and the irritating polish of your choice, I chose these:

Orly Bonder, which is a rubberised basecoat, and Chanel Le Vernis in Barcelona Red. 

Important Note: 


You must make sure that whichever basecoat you use is a STICKY one, ie, one that feels tacky to the touch no matter how long you leave it to dry.  A couple of brands make them, make sure they say something like "high adhesion" or something on the label.  Orly Bonder just happens to be the best one I've found, and this is my second bottle.  The first bottle lasted over a year of more than regular usage and cost me about a tenner from eBay - nowadays you can get it from the newly-revamped BeautyBay for a more bargain-friendly price of £7.95.

Do not be tempted, whatever you do, to use one of those two-in-one Top and Basecoat jobbies, as they dry too shiny for this technique to work. Normal basecoats won't work either, you need something that gives a texture to your base to give your chippy-polish something to grip to.  This is the only time you'll be told that a nail product being stick is a good thing, by the way ... anyhoo, I'm digressing.

Okay, let's make a "Sticky Sandwich"

Step one:
Apply a coat of your sticky basecoat, and leave it to dry.

Step two:
Apply a coat of polish, leave to dry for a couple of minutes

Step three:
Repeat steps 1 & 2.

Step four (optional):
Seal with glossy topcoat.

It's not a complicated technique, admittedly, but it's one that does work.  The sticky basecoat allows both coats of polish to have something to cling to, and this means it takes longer for the colour to chip off the nails.  Even the chippiest of polishes will last at least two-to-three days after this treatment, and if you try it with better polishes, you should get at least a week of wear.  (Ignore anything you read about Orly Bonder giving you up to two weeks of wear, btw, it's total marketing guff).

So, what do you think?  A £7.95 investment that can give your crappy old polishes a new lease of life? Would it be worth it?

The Fine Print: Products are purchases, but the technique is shamelessly stolen from a bazillion other (mainly nail-centric) blogs, I wish I knew who'd invented it, so I could give due credit.  Links are for informational purposes only, and are not affiliate links.
 
This post: http://getlippie.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-to-make-your-manicure-last-longer_14.html originated at: Get Lippie All rights reserved. If you are reading this anywhere other than getlippie.com, then this content has been stolen.

Review Roundup!

Even if I do say it myself, living in Get Lippie headquarters does have some advantages for the poor harrassed girlies who have to put up with some of my less savoury habits.  Recently, I gave my glamorous housemate Kerry (you may remember her from this makeover) a bag of bits and pieces and asked her for her thoughts.  Here's what she came up with:

Anne Semonin Global anti-aging cream

A £130 face cream.  This is exciting stuff!!  When I was generously asked to try this by the gorgeous Ms. Lippie I must admit I wondered what amazing things would happen when this was applied.  Skin like Angelina Jolie surely?!!.  So I set about slapping this on religiously every morning & evening… :o)

The product comes in a very smart silver lidded pot, quite scientific looking but definitely dressing table friendly.  It smells a little unusual for a face cream – sort of milky sweet.  And actually when I first dipped a finger in the pot, the texture reminded me of a lovely smooth vanilla yoghurt, which I found quite pleasant.  I hasten to add though that it doesn’t actually smell like one!!

When I applied it (to freshly washed skin) it felt nice and smooth.  It doesn’t sink in very quickly and after a few moments of massaging it into my skin it started to feel a little tacky and sticky.  I did  briefly worry that it wouldn’t actually sink in well enough and I would be left with a sticky face but after a few seconds more it was absolutely fine.  Although, I would still leave it 5 mins before trying top apply anything over the top.

After 10 mins my face felt very well moisturised and very lovely and plump, and I think this would be great on drier skins.  I am quite willing to believe it would plump up those lines and wrinkles.

However, despite being described as for all skin types, my confused skin (like combination skin types – but, well, more confused), found it a little too heavy and eventually even started to break out.  So, unfortunately, I will not get to find out whether I could have ever had that A-list skin…

One other note.  It doesn’t appear to contain an SPF, which for most people these days, especially those looking for an anti-aging product is a must.  Perhaps you could use it as night cream only.
 
Orly Nail lacquer - Shade: Lola
I have only good things to say about this gorgeous nail polish!!  I have only had the pleasure of trying this once before, whilst having a manicure at a well known spa, who have unfortunately now developed their own range.  Since then I have found it quite hard to get hold of so this is the first bottle I have owned.  Well actually, I swiped 2 bottles given the opportunity and a couple of cocktails…  but that’s our little secret… ;o)

Firstly, the colour ‘Lola’ is gorgeous.  A bright corally pink.  Coral colours are in fashion apparently if you are in the know about these things… :o)

The polish is great to apply.  This is due to several factors: A good texture with no gloopyness but gives good even coverage, a slim brush which doesn’t pick up too much product and has a nice rounded end to give a nice shape at the base of the nail.  And most of all, I absolutely love it’s rubberised lid which gives brilliant control over the brush and is comfortable to hold (with no cramp from trying to grip the lid too hard).

I applied a base cost, two coats of polish and a top coat.  The first coat gives a good coverage but for a strong colour like this you still definitely need two coats.

The varnish dries quickly and with a fast dry top coat I was good to go (touch dry) in a minute or two (please note this was not scientifically timed…)

I have only applied the polish this afternoon so I can’t report on it’s staying power yet.  I seem to remember that it had chipped by the day after at the spa.  But I was at a spa (swimming pool, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi… back in the pool… you get my drift).  It was tough (for the nail polish, not for me) so I’m not sure any polish would stand up well in those conditions.

I have my eye on several other colours so please Orly start selling these where I can buy them…

Dirty Works Get set go – mini luxuries

This is a cute little miniatures set containing a 100ml each of body wash, body scrub & body lotion, all in pastel blue and yellow, spotty or stripy bottles, with the obligatory glamorous girl on the bottle.

The whole set smells basically of shea butter.  I’m not a fan of this smell and find it a little sickly, but it’s not overpowering, so if you like that smell it would be fine.

I took the set to the gym with me to try out.

The ‘all of a lather’ body wash is a straightforward shower gel.  It doesn’t lather up particularly well so it doesn’t feel that luxurious.  It also doesn’t feel particularly moisturising.  But I smelt clean & fresh afterwards so I think it did a perfectly good job for a body wash…

The ‘buff your stuff’ body scrub is based in oil (sweet almond oil), which made me nervous as I find oil based scrubs can leave a greasy residue on my skin and leave me feeling like I need another shower.  But actually it washed away quite cleanly.  It exfoliated well, but the sugar is a little scratchy.  Also, all of the sugar had sunk to the bottom of the bottle, so the first few handfuls were just oil.  I had to give it a good shake!

The ‘bare necessity ‘body lotion was my favourite of the set.  It has a nice creamy texture, a light smell and sank in quickly, leaving me able to get dressed straight away without feeling at all greasy.

All in all, it is a cute looking, functional little set in the perfect size bottles for a gym bag or a weekend away.

Melvita Face Cleansing Foam (anti-pollution care) & Eye Contour Gel

The face wash is really a very pleasant product to use.  I have been using it after the gym in the mornings for a few weeks now… 

It is essentially a face wash and needs to be applied to a damp face and then rinsed off with water.

It was a bit of a surprise when it came out as a light foam (it does say that on the bottle, so it shouldn’t have been really!) and then disappeared quite rapidly when I applied it to my face.  I am used to using much thicker feeling face washes.  Especially after the gym, I want something that feels like it washes all the muck and grime away properly.  Once I got used to the texture though, I really enjoyed using it.

The foam smells fresh and herbal and it left my skin feeling clean, but without any hint of dryness or tightness that you can get with a lot of face washes.  And I will certainly keep using it to the end of the bottle.

The eye gel is for bags, shadows and wrinkles.  I am lucky enough not to really suffer from any of these things (apart from the odd laughter line developing in a bad light) so it is difficult to say how much effect the gel had on these.  However, I suspect it is too light to have any meaningful effect on existing wrinkles.

It is a lovely light textured gel, which feels refreshing and lightly moisturising with a very light neutral scent.  It sinks in well with no greasy feeling and can be massaged around the eye for a few seconds before it does to de-puff. (like the magazines tell you :o))

The skin around my eyes did feel slightly tighter after using, so it may well be good for keeping the bags at bay.  And perhaps I will keep using it, just in case it can work a little bit of magic on those crows feet…