Manicure Fail

I used to get my nails done. Every 2 weeks I would go to the salon and relax for an hour while I had my gel nails filled. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to do it again, but with having 3 kids now, I don't have the money, nor the time. So I am constantly trying to find the perfect supplies to give myself a kickass manicure.

The products I work with at work are nail polish killers. Honestly. They probably work better stripping your nails of color then polish remover does. That being said, I have thin, breakable nails now, and have to paint them about once a week if I want to keep them looking pretty.

When I saw Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel polish system I was skeptical. I mean... $10 for the color and $10 more for the top coat? That's $20 on 2 nail polishes! With any big purchase, I researched first. The reviews I found were awesome. One lady tried every color (who has that kind of money to spend on polishes?!) and gave her review for each one. Like me, her work is hard on her nails, but she claimed that she could go a whole week without even a chip, and 2 weeks before even really needing to do them. Her review sold me. So I sucked it up and bought it.

The color is #400 - Smartease. It went on very thin. Every little bump in my nail showed. I had to take it off and buff my nails out, then reapply. About 3 or 4 coats later, it was looking better. More even and solid, but still not the greatest polish I had seen. I let all the coats dry hard before applying the next. That's one benefit of a night shift job... time. Then I applied one of my regular polishes to a finger to add some change. When reading the reviews I read that its actually more the top coat that does the work, so you can use it over regular polishes. I figured I would give it a try too. When everything was good and dry and hardened, I applied the top coat.

This was tricky because it pulls the color off your nail. So you have to almost glob it on and quickly spread it thick so that you don't get streaks of color missing. You can also rub the brush off between nails to get the color off the brush, but I didn't really see the point since my nails were all the same color with the exception of 2.

When the top coat dried they looked good! I was really excited thinking that I had finally found a system that worked. It did nothing to strengthen my nails like gel nails do. I think the "GEL" labeling is a little miss leading cuz 3 days later my nail broke and chipped. And within 5 days they looked like this.

Total nail fail. These are the results you get from a $2 manicure, not a $20 one. I am totally disappointed with this Miracle Gel system. Sorry guys, but I would not recommend this. Save your $20.

So, I need to know... has anyone found ANYTHING out there that delivers as promised? I would really like to know and try it out!!!