Sensationail - Long Lasting Gel Manicure! {Review}

I know that this time of the year, a lot of people will be planning their Christmas and summer holidays. When you are super busy or are going away on a holiday, you will definitely want your nail polish to last a while! Who wants to be re-painting their chipped nails on holiday?!

Today I have a review of Sensationail for you. Sensationail is a gel polish system that will give you up to 2 weeks of wear! Perfect for this busy time of year, or for your summer holiday. Or a perfect Christmas gift for someone special in your life!

I have a few Sensationail products to talk about, but I'll start with the Starter Kit.

The Starter Kit comes with a Pro 3060 LED Lamp (which you must have to use Sensationail products, as it's used to cure the gel - the polish will not set without it), the gel primer, gel cleanser, base & top coat, the coloured gel polish (choose between Scarlet Red and Raspberry Wine), as well as some lint free pads to use with the gel cleanser, a nail file and a cuticle stick, and the instructions, of course.

(If you're interested in seeing HOW TO apply/remove these products, check out the How To page on the Sensationail website. I won't be going over that in this post, as I have already done so in other posts.)

Here is Scarlet Red, the day after I applied it. It's a gorgeous, classic bright red. I used just two coats. I've tried a few red gel polishes and this would have to be one of the nicest. However, when I was applying the top coat, I did experience some of the red transferring to the top coat brush. Other than that, I had no problems at all!

Here is Scarlet Red after 1 week of wear. There is no visible wear, apart from my nails having grown out, obviously. It still looks exactly the same as when I applied it, and is still very shiny! I definitely think it would last the two weeks that they promise. I get tired of my nail colour after a week, however and wanted to change it up.

You can also buy Sensationail colours separately. Here I have Pink Chiffon, Pink Daisy and Taupe Tulips.

So far I have only had a chance to try Taupe Tulips but I hope to try the others soon and give you a look at those.

Here is Taupe Tulips after about 6 days of wear. It looked exactly the same as when I first applied it! Perfect and shiny. I used 3 coats for this one, as it was a little sheer with just two. This is such a nice nude colour. I absolutely love it.

Here are a few other items that are in my opinion, optional but are definitely handy to have:

The Gel Polish Removal Kit includes a 125mL bottle of Gel Polish Remover, as well as 30 foil removal wraps. (Nail file and cuticle stick are also included - not pictured).
I really liked this but honestly, I wouldn't purchase it when I run out. I usually use pure acetone to remove my gel polish, with some regular aluminium foil and cotton balls and it does the job. But it is a nice kit to have.

I really like the Gel Polish Removal Tool! However, I would not say that it is the most "gentle way" to remove gel polish. If you use a heavy hand, you could definitely damage your nails with it. You must be very careful when using it.
I don't know if it's intended for this, but I actually like using it to push my cuticles back! But again, you have to be extremely careful!

The only problem I had with Sensationail, was the removal. I found it a bit harder to remove than other gels I have tried. You have to file the top surface of the nail first, to remove the top coat and then soak as normal. I soaked my nails for 15 minutes but found that I had to re-wrap my nails another time because it was very hard to scrape off. I also had some base coat left over even after buffing my nails. But if it's harder to remove, that means your polish will last longer so it has it's pros and cons. Having said this, I still recommend Sensationail. I think the removal process is worth it.

I absolutely recommend Sensationail to anyone who is interested in trying out an at-home gel manicure kit! It's the best one I have tried so far. I love that their products are so easily accessible.
You can purchase Sensationail products online (free shipping over $50!), as well as Priceline, Target, Terri White Chemists, Woolworths and Chemmart.

*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review. For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

Mani Monday: Arte Clavo - Cake Pop

Happy Mani Monday friends! Hope you had a fantastic weekend & Father's Day {for those of you in Aussie-land}. What did you get up to? :)

I can't remember if I mentioned here on my blog or not, but my nails are very damaged at the moment. I committed a nail crime a couple of weeks ago when I was wearing fake nails, and pulled them off, instead of soaking off like you're supposed to.
Needless to say, my nails are now extremely weak, peeling and awful! They were also super painful at first, which was horrible. Thankfully they aren't really painful anymore.

Since my natural nails are awful, I'm trying to grow the damage out. I decided to try and stick to mostly gel manicures for a while, as they last longer and many people also say that gel manicures add a layer of protection to your nails and help them to grow, which I do believe is true.

This is a gel polish from one of my favourite brands, Arte Clavo. I don't know a lot about the brand, to be honest, but I found them by accident on eBay. They sell very affordable gel polishes, and almost all of them are dupes {or similar - some aren't exact dupes} for CND Shellac polishes. I don't know about you, but I'd never be able to afford all of my favourite colours if I used Shellac polishes. Which is why I love these Arte Clavo polishes. I use them along with my Gelish Foundation & Top It Off base and top coats. :)

This polish is called Cake Pop. It is a gorgeous light pink creme. I needed 3 coats for opacity.
I don't believe it's an exact dupe for the CND polish, but it is similar. {I think the CND polish might lean a little more on the blue-y side of pink, and is a little lighter.}

I totally love this colour! Lately I have been gravitating towards light pinks and other pastel colours. I guess that's because springtime is starting.

I find that the Arte Clavo polishes apply great and last just as long as any other gel polish. I know that some people don't agree with using the cheaper gel polishes but I don't have a problem with it.
I wore this gel manicure for about 5 days before I got bored of it. I do think it would've lasted at least a few more days!

I also wanted to share with you a mini nail haul that arrived in my mail box today! :) I bought two items from the seller "enchantedbeautyspot" on eBay.

I made this eBay order mainly for the Nailtiques Formula 2 nail strengthener. I heard about this from Lindsay Does Nails on YouTube. You might know that my favourite strengthener has been Duri Rejuvacote for over 2 years now, but lately I haven't really been seeing results when I use it, so I decided to try something new! :) I will update you on my thoughts.

I didn't want to pay shipping for just one item, so I also bought the Orly Gel FX gel polish in Beach Cruiser! This is a super bright neon pink. I am sooo excited to try it out when summertime comes around! {Although I am not excited at all for the sticky disgusting-ness that comes with summertime.} I think it will be an amazing pedicure colour.
This will be my first time trying an Orly gel polish so that's exciting too! I only own a few "name brand" gels.

Thanks so much for reading. Especially if you got all the way to the end. ;)

What is on your nails this Mani Monday?! ♥

Red Carpet Manicure Gel Nail Polish Review.

For the past month and a bit, I have been loving wearing gel nail polish. You may have realised that I am not as into nail polish as I used to be. I don't feel the need to change my colour every day or own a million polishes. I wore gel polish for my wedding, and it lasted about 9 days chip free! I thought that was amazing!
I have a gel nail polish kit from Red Carpet Manicure to share with you today. Red Carpet Manicure is a brand of gel nail polish. Before I share any more, I will let you know that gel nails and gel nail polish are not the same thing! Gel nails are a nail enhancement, similar to acrylic nails. Gel nail polish is a nail polish that needs to be cured under either an UV, or LED lamp to dry. If applied and removed correctly, it should not damage your natural nails.
I have received Red Carpet Manicure's Gel Polish Pro Kit to share and review for you. In the Pro Kit, you receive:

• the Professional LED Light (to cure the polish)
• Prep (nail dehydrator/bonder)
• Structure (base coat)
• Brilliance (top coat)
• Revitalize (cuticle oil)
• Red Carpet Reddy (classic red gel nail polish colour)
• Purify (gel cleanser)
• Erase (gel polish remover)
• Instruction manual

I applied the red gel polish Red Carpet Reddy, on the 24th of April, following the instructions that they provided. I found the instructions to be very thorough and helpful.

The colour is a classic red, it sort of has that jelly-ish formula. 2 coats was fine, but a third would ensure 100% opacity. The manicure was definitely very shiny when I was finished, which was awesome. I did notice that while I was applying the top coat, the red colour did transfer onto the top coat brush a little. I made sure to wipe the brush off on a tissue before I put it back into the bottle.

I like the polish brush on the Red Carpet Manicure polishes, it was easy to control the polish so that it didn't get on my skin.

Here is what my manicure looked like right after I finished:

By day 3, I had experienced slight (very slight) tip wear on a few of my nails (you can't tell in the photo) which was a little disappointing.

By day 4, I had one or two small chips on a couple of my nails. However the manicure was still extremely shiny and looking nice. On that same day, I had a bad nail break and decided to cut all of my nails down very short - with the nail polish still on! To my amazement, I had no additional signs of wear after this. I wouldn't exactly recommend that you do that though, because for most people I would imagine that would make your manicure chip much faster. I just wanted to share my experience.
I removed the gel manicure on day 5 (sorry, I don't have a photo) because I wanted to change up the colour. The removal process was super easy. It is just like removing a glitter polish with the foil method (video tutorial here). I soaked my nails for 10 minutes and when I removed the foil, the polish flaked off of my nails very easily! I had a cuticle pusher ready to gently scrape at any bits of polish that needed it, but I barely needed to do that! The removal process was awesome.

I also received a second colour, Leading Lady, to review. I had an even better experience with this colour!

Leading Lady, is a creamy lavender pink colour. I used 3 (very thin) coats for this manicure. It had decent coverage at 2 coats, but I decided to go for 3. I think the consistency of this polish may have been slightly thinner than Red Carpet Reddy. This polish did not transfer at all onto the top coat brush.
I absolutely adore this colour, and I got a lot of compliments on it, too! :) My husband even commented on it! :P

Here is my Leading Lady manicure at day 3:

I was SUPER impressed by this colour. Because this colour lasted NINE DAYS, still looking as perfect as the day I applied it! I had no tip wear, no chips, no wear signs at all! It was still very shiny! The only thing that changed is that my nails grew out, so there is a gap at the cuticle. Because it lasted so long, I believe that the Red Carpet Reddy colour started showing signs of wear due to user error. I'm sure Leading Lady would have lasted even longer than 9 days if I had left it on, but I felt like changing up my colour.

(Sorry for the awful quality iPhone photo for this one. And I had a cut on my cuticle on my pointer finger, which is why I'm only showing 3 fingers in this picture.)

Another thing I really liked about Red Carpet Manicure gel polish that I haven't experienced before, is that this system comes with a LED curing lamp. I have only ever tried a UV lamp before, which takes almost double the time to cure a layer of polish! I loved that the LED lamp was so efficient, and it is also very small, whereas my UV lamp is ginormous and takes up a lot of room.
I am definitely in love with the Red Carpet Manicure system and hope to try more colours in the future! I 100% recommend it to anyone who wants to try out a gel polish system.
If you'd like to see an application tutorial for Red Carpet Manicure gel polish, you can check out their video here.
You can find Red Carpet Manicure polishes online, and at selected David Jones & Shaver Shop stores.
*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review.  For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

1Q32 Instant Gellish {Swatch & Review}

I have a gel polish from a brand called 1Q32 Instant Gellish from their Christmas line to show you today!

1Q32 is a gel polish that cures under either a UV or LED lamp. This means that it will not dry until you put your nail under a UV or LED lamp. {I use a 36W UV lamp.}

They claim that you do not need a base or top coat with this polish. All you need is the colour! I think that's really cool because applying gel polish can be extremely time consuming with all the coats you have to put on {base, colour and top coat}, and the cure time. But with 1Q32, all you need is one polish!

These polishes don't have names, but they do have numbers. The colour I have to show you is called #QB26. It is a gorgeous red, with lots of little silver glitters throughout. The red base gives the glitters more of a red/pink look, though. A perfect sparkly Christmas red. Although Christmas is over, I would wear a colour like this any time. I wore it on Christmas Eve, and I paired it with OPI's My Favourite Ornament on my ring finger.

To apply, start with bare nails. Push back your cuticles and you can give your nails a slight buff too. Wipe them with pure acetone, or rubbing alcohol with a lint free wipe of some sort, to remove all dirt and oils from the nails and make sure they are totally dry and clean.

Apply one very thin coat of the 1Q32 to your nails making sure you don't get any polish on your cuticles or skin because it will harden and cause the polish to peel {make sure to lightly cap the tip of the nail also!}, and cure under the UV lamp for 60-120 seconds {30-60 seconds with a LED lamp}. Once your nails come out of the lamp the polish should be totally rock solid, and 1Q32 has no sticky residue after curing like some brands do. Then apply a second coat of polish and cure again. Once cured, you're ready to go! :) They say that the polish should last 15-20 days depending on how well your application was.

1Q32 says that the removal of their polish is easy, with no damage to the natural nail. And I do believe that there should be no damage to the nails if you apply and remove the polish correctly. To remove, soak a cotton piece in pure acetone, place on the nail and cover the fingertip with aluminium foil. Leave soaking for 10 minutes. Squeeze the foil and slide it off your nail. The polish should be mostly gone. Any little bits left over can be very gently scraped off with an orange stick or cuticle pusher. {This is the same method I use to remove glitter polish sometimes - I have a video tutorial here.} I found that this polish removed MUCH easier than any other gel polish I've worn. That may be because it's only 2 coats, whereas with another gel it would be 4 coats {including top & base coat} but it was still amazing. I wore it for 2 and a half days and I had no signs of wear by then. I'm sure it would have lasted at least a few more days with no signs of wear.

I really like that 1Q32 is all in one step. This would be great for when you need a quick manicure because it would really only take about 15 minutes for the full manicure, and once cured it's instantly dry. {I know I always have the problem of having to wait for my nails to dry when I'm in a hurry!}

The formula on 1Q32 is quite thick and pigmented. I was a little concerned that the polish may dry bumpy because of the glitter pieces in it, but it dried perfectly smooth which was really nice.

1Q32 can be purchased at 1q32.com.
Each polish is $24(AUD) for a 7mL polish, which is honestly a bit steep; but when you think about the fact that you don't need a base or top coat with it, it's not so bad. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a long lasting, shiny manicure that doesn't take ages to do right at home.

Thanks for visiting ♥

Catch Up!

Hey guys! I'm so sorry I've been absent this week. It feels weird to not post every day! I've said it in almost every post recently, but the weather here just sucks right now so on the days when I do wear a manicure or want to swatch polishes (which I do have quite a few I need to swatch right now) I just can't take any photos because of the terrible weather.
I have shown a few manicures on Instagram, however. Follow me there for some behind the scenes funsies and manis that I don't always share here. I thought I'd show you some of them today. :) As well as some that may not have been on Instagram. Usually these are more boring manis or colours that I've already shared before.

This is a Mixcoco gel nail polish that I tried recently! I fell in love with it & the concept of gel polish. Beautiful creamy colour. Perfect palate cleanser! I may do a review on the gel polish soon. Let me know if you're interested.

OPI's Every Month is Oktoberfest is one of my favourite dark polishes. It has an amazing glowy shimmer in it which you can see in the flash photo. I don't often wear darks because I just feel like they look strange on me! But for some reason when my nails are round, I like darks? I kept my nails this rounded shape for like, less than 24 hours, FYI. :P I missed my squares too much. I left my right hand rounded, though.

Lime Crime's Milky Ways is a very similar colour to the Mixcoco gel polish I wore! I just think these colours are a nice palate cleanser and are just easy for a quick mani.

My fave neon - China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy! In real life this is super neon and sooo fun! :D Sadly, it chips insanely quickly.

Another neutral. OPI Don't Burst My Bubble is a sheer white with a hint of pink to it. I love this colour, but not so much on me. In this photo it looks fine, but in person it looked a little weird against my skin tone.

That's about all for today! Let me know if you'd like to see these types of posts every so often! Maybe once a month. (By the way, I also now have a Disqus comment system instead of the regular Blogger comment system. It's better IMO because if I reply to a comment, the other person will get a notification email. :))