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Top Coat is a wonderful thing. When used, it prolongs the life of your manicure and should help prevent chips and tip wear. As far as a glossary goes, chips is a pretty obvious thing – when chunks of your polish flake off, generally round the edges or by your cuticles.
Tip wear is something us keyboard bashers are particularly prone to. Where the edge of your nail tips gradually returns white again but with no chips or flakes.
I thought all of my Christmasses had come at once when OPI released a product called ChipSkip. It promised to prevent nail polish chips. Simple as that. You dab it on the edges of your nails before polishing them, and the formula is meant to “grab” the polish and keep it there. All I found was that it weakened the nails, made them peel a bit, and as such I have given up on it. A gimmick that did more damage than good.
The OPI Quick-Dry Topcoat is pretty good, Ronseal, if you will. However, I have recently been using OPI Designer Series Topcoat. It’s ruddy expensive, at about £14 a bottle and I do use gallons of it, bearing in mind I get bored easily and update my nails at least twice a week.
According to the hype, it’s brush is made of bristles set in a kind of “brick wall” formation, layering them in order to give smoother coverage, rather than your average brush that just has bristles bundled together to make a rounded end. Either which way, it works for me.
To try and prevent chips and wear, I paint the nails, then go back and trace a veeeerry thin line round the edges and onto the undersides. I’m really sorry for the crappy quality of this pic but it should give you the general idea. As soon as I started painting round the edges, I never get chips, and tip wear stays away for at least a week. I don’t do anything that might resemble manual labour, and always always wear disposable gloves when cleaning the house, but I type all day long, with the ends of my nails rather than fingertips so they do get a fair amount of abuse.
As if all of the above isn’t persuasive enough, check what happened when a topcoat-less Boris & Natasha (from the OPI Russian Collection) met my toilet. No amount of bleach, nail varnish remover or elbow grease (all done whilst wearing gloves, naturally) is getting this sucker off.
Consider yourselves warned!
My nail varnish always chips…when it chips my nail seems to go with it…they peel, I’ve tried Nail Envy, plus Avoplex (currently give these another bash) and OPI varnish…I have even had professional manicures with OPI…still the same…so where am i going wrong…any tips would be great
Thanks Munchkin xx
Are you using any kind of topcoat? That’s really important as it prolongs the life of your polish. Also, try painting around the free edge and just under the tip, if that makes sense?
Also, do you do a lot of typing or washing up etc? Anything like that would encourage chipping.
Thin coats help as well rather than a couple of thick ones.
Well…I’ve been using No7 top coat…usually Nail Envy as a base….
As for typing…no not really….but do an active job…so they take a bit of a bashing…
Can you recommend good top coats and also nail varnishes??….smashed my last bottle of OPI so open to suggestions :D…..most of my other varnishes are from No 7
Thanks Munchkin xxx
That might be why then – I barely do anything manual! Ha! Check out my post on How to Care for Your Nails and the one about Seche Vite topcoat – it is the best thing out there.
As for polishes that don’t chip – I never get chips with any polish when I use Nail Envy, OPI Designer Series Topcoat and a coat of Seche Vite on top.
I get the odd bit of gradual tip wear but not til about Day Four.
Ahhh – can I recommend any nail varnishes? You have come to the right place! What colour(s) do you like?
I like loads of diff colours…point me in the direction of a good brand…and I’ll have a nosey on here at all the pretty colours 😀
oohh….could you suggest a good basic colour….pinkish…something natural you could use with a french manicure 😀
OPI’s Bubble Bath all the way.
Or you could look for polishes by Essie – they do really good nudes apparently but I don’t have many myself. Try All Polished Up on Ebay – link on the right.
I’m mainly into OPI (the bulk of my collection), Barry M for a budget option, and recently I’ve started buying China Glaze. All good!
Ohhh been looking on Ebay and have ordered my new top coat :D…thanks x
Me again…whats the difference between Nail Envy Maintenance and the normal one … x
Absolutely no idea I’m afraid! I just use the original one. If you find out please let me know.
Ok….I’ll order one and see :D……my top coat arrived this morning 😀
Yay – let me know how you get on!
Well I painted my nails last night….Nail Envy….cheapo nail varnish…industrial strength top coat :D….just looked and have to chips..shocking :O…..was hoping to get away with using up some of my cheaper nail varnishes…before I buy some more OPI…I smashed the last bottle 🙁 but looks like I can’t…the cheapo ones last on my piggies…so I’ll used them up….looks like I’m off to ebay for some OPI 😀
Oh nooo – what a shame! Try China Glaze as well if you like any of their colours.
Head over to All Polished Up on Ebay and tell her I recommended her!
Make sure you add in a bottle of Seche Vite topcoat as well.
Oh, and it would be worth investing in a good base coat as well as I firmly believe that it gives the polish something to “grip” onto whereas Nail Envy is more of a treatment than to be used as basecoat.
Well….driving to work this morning…I noticed I was totally missing one lot of nail varnish….aarrggghhh one naked nail…so pulled off the rest…came off so easily….so I’m going wrong somewhere…any suggestions for base coat?…..my bottle of Nail Envy maintenance arrived today…I’ve just put it on…seems nicer than the normal…so fingers crossed it’ll do the trick 😀
I have just won a set of mini OPI’s…Fairytale Bride…i think..lovely neutrals…just what i needed….£8 😀
Ok..using my new OPI’s…still chipping….so can you suggest a good base coat…many thanks x
I’ll put up a question for you and see what everyone says…
Grrrr…..all peeled off again….so that would be great 😀
Check the second to last entry I did today 🙂 Base Coat Survey for you.
Ohhhh I feel all important now 😀