Category: reviews

Melissa, the president of Couture Gel Nail Polish contacted me to see if I wanted to do a review of her at home gel nail polish kit and of course being nail polish obsessed I said yes!  I was definitely intrigued to try it out.

The lamp to cure your nails (I was silly and didn’t take off the blue sticker before I took this photo but you are suppossed to take it off before using it which I did.)

The Base and Top coat that helps seals the nail polish

The five colors I chose:

I’ve done a manicure about 3 times with this kit and I love it every time.  The steps are super simple.  Basically, base coat – cure under lamp for 2 mins. Paint your color and then cure for 2 mins.  Top coat and then cure for 2 mins.  That’s it!  Of course you need to prep your nails before hand like with filing and getting your cuticles nice and clean but I do that with any manicure.  I love how fast the process is AND it’s instantly drying so you never have to worry about smudging.  Oh and one last step after you’re done is to just run a cotton pad with rubbing alcohol on it over the tops of the nails and it removes the stickiness and creates an extra shiny coat for your nails.

Pros:

• Super fast painting to drying time
• No smudges
• Last up to 3 weeks without chips
• 75 colors to choose from 
• Not having to paint and repaint your nails every week if you don’t feel like it.
• Auto timer on the lamp so you don’t have to sit there and watch the clock, just push a button to start and the light will turn off when it’s done.

Cons:

• You have to be really good at cleaning up your polish mistakes before you cure it, otherwise you are stuck with polish on your cuticles and it’s not so pretty and not as easy to make clean lines like with regular polish.
• Peel off – I think this comes with practice too but I think I overpainted my base or top coat onto my fingers so one of the edges started curling up and then got caught on a shirt and then the whole gel polish ripped off my finger nail like a press on nail (don’t worry it didn’t hurt)
• Storage – I already have so much nail polish and little room to store it so to have to store the lamp is not helping but it’s totally worth it for the chip free nails.
• The kit is pricey but if you get enough salon manicures it may be worth the savings.

I painted the majority of my nails with Pretty in Pink (my favorite so far) and an accent nail with Cranberry Cosmo.

I highly recommend it.  I’ve been so busy lately and haven’t been able to pay attention to my nails so this has been a great solution for me to still have nice looking nails without having to take time out for a full on manicure every week.  You can get it here!

I’m not one to match my nails and toenails when painting my nails.  I like mixing it up!  However, have you ever thought of matching your nails to your lips?  I haven’t but when I saw the Butter London Lippy and the matching polish, I loved it!

I tried out Trout Pout which is a vibrant peachy-orange and Yummy Mummy which is a beige-y nude.  I loved the combo so tried a scalloped mani.  It didn’t turn out as well as I’d like but wanted to show you the colors.  They really go well together and Yummy Mummy is a great color on it’s own for the “mannequin nail” trend.

click here for my bow ring!