Nail Obsession

Hello my loyal readers!  If I have any of you left.  Sorry I have been missing... life has been busy! So it has taken something to really impress me to make me write tonight. 

A little background information.  A couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to start painting my nails for the duration of the summer, so I bought (well, I selected and my mother bought) a selection of nail polishes.  Now here it is 2 years later and I am still painting my nails regularly, and I have been slowly amassing a collection of colors... when I can convince my husband to spoil me LOL.  He thinks I have too much to begin with.  

Even though I love new colors for my nails, I have not strayed from the top coat that was recommended to me when I bought that first batch of polishes 2 years ago- Seche Vite.  It's a great top coat, dries super fast, and was the first thing I found that would allow me to keep my nails from chipping within 24 hours.  Even in days past when I would get french manicures, I'd often get chips very quickly.  I only had one place where the nail polish would stay put for any respectable length of time.  Seche Vite fixed that.  I'm sure the base coat helps, too, but I've used 3 different base coats and not had one yet that really stands out... maybe because it's not as relevant with such a good top coat.

Lately, though, I've been wanting to see if I could find a top coat I like as much that maybe costs a little less. I got a bottle of Essie, No Chips Ahead trying to save a couple dollars, and quickly regretted it after reading reviews and finding out for myself that the stuff just. doesn't. dry.  So before trying anything else I took to the internet and found some good reviews for NYC In a Minute and decided to go and look for either that, or the Seche Restore to get the consistency of my old Seche Vite bottles back to where they should be.  What I found was AWESOME!!!

I've wanted to try out a Matte top coat since I noticed a couple of my nail polish colors are matte.  Why put shiny top coat on and ruin the effect?  But I can't go without top coat or my nails will chip.  Overnight.  In bed.  Within hours.  While looking for the NYC In a Minue top coat I found there is a MATTE version!  So I went ahead and gor both.  Now for less than $2 for the bottle, I figured I could justify trying this one out for myself just to see.  I have not been anything but impressed.  

I painted my nails Saturday before going to a wine tasting.  They had some bubbles from the base coat I used so when I got home I redid one hand and redid the next the next day.  Now it's Wednesday night after a half a week of the usual things AND some less than usual things like peeling tangerines (yum!)

Not a single chip.  This stuff is amazing.   Seriously, I am impressed.  Now, I did have to re-do more nails (even after I fixed the bubbles problme) just because I am not used to top coat that doesn't dry nearly instantly, but that will be a matter of getting used to it.  It is looking more satin as the days go one, but so what?  I can't wait to try the non matte version, but I'm having trouble inamiging this polish chipping any time soon for me to want to take this off and put on a new color.  I don't re-do my nails just to change the color, I do it because the color is chipping (or peeling.)

For anyone who may be wondering how my big project is going, that blanket of granny squares, I am up to 64 squares and we have added 4 new colors so it is 10 colors now!  Sadly, I have lost my camera so it is hard to me to get good pictures but I will try soon!  I am sure I will hate the end, where I have to stitch 210 squares together, but for now it's nice being able to toss a hank of yarn in my bag and work on a square when I am stuck in stand still traffic or waiting for my mouth to go numb at the dentist.  But I will have to get pictures of the squares soon, including the new yarn colors!

~Katy