Born Pretty Base and Top Coats

2 Reviews

1. 

   insecureCardinal6

   Reply

   Absolutely crap compared to Gelish or Shellac last no more then 2 or 3 days before it chips or peals and very see thru

2. 

   solemnGarlic3

   Reply

   It works alright for me, and would probably work better for people with less fussy nails.

   My nail beds suck. I’m convinced they’re oily because polish doesn’t like to last on me. With regular polish, my best top and base coats give me three or four days of wear before it looks bad enough that I need to take it off. Gel has different struggles. With a lot of gel polishes on me, they either a) shrink away from all edges during curing b) peel after a couple days c) peel after a bath/shower (I’m convinced it’s due to the humidity of the shower and my crappy nail beds) or d) look fine initially, but after about 24 hours, continue shrinking away from the edge for reasons I’ve yet to discover.

   So far, Gelish is the only gel brand that checks off all my requirements, but the price is insanely high for a single bottle, so I continue the hunt for something that works decently but is cheaper.

   My testing product for gel polish is pretty intense, since it costs more than regular polish and I really want to try to give it a fair shot and do anything in my power to get it to work. I test base and top coats a few ways:

   1) Base coat and top coat of the same brand with gel polish of the same brand. i try to test it with both a light and dark colour, as the pigmentation in gel can affect how it cures and wears.

   2) Base coat and top coat of the same brand with a different brand of colour gel, again both a light and dark colour.

   3) Test the base on its own with other brand colour and top coats that I know work. For me, I test all bases with Gelish because it’s what works best for me.

   4) Test the top on its own with a different brand base and colour that I know work.

   5) Test the top and base with normal polish in between (gelly sandwich), since I have a ridiculous collection of non-gel polish and if I can extend it a few days, it saves me time and the expense of buying gel colours when I can just get gel base and top coat to use with polishes I already have.

   As mentioned, Gelish is the only thing I’ve found that works for me all five ways. Since my nails suck, If I can get a full week of wear (Sunday to Sunday, since it’s usually the day I have time to do my nails) with just minimal tip wear, I consider it to be a smashing success.

   Firstly, the price on these is great. This site offers great prices and each bottle on its own is about $3.29 US, or you can buy the top and base together for $5.29, saving you $1.29.

   The application is great. The base is thinner than most gels, so it flows nicely and it’s easy to get a thin, even layer. I apply all gel bases by doing a thin layer, flash curing for a few seconds after each nail to prevent any pooling in the cuticle, then curing the whole hand for the full time after applying to all nails. During curing, I got NO shrinkage. Nothing pulled away from the sides or the tips (which I capped). This is something even my Gelish has a problem with if I’m not super careful, so the fact that it was so easy to get a good result was awesome. If you’re just starting out with gel polish, this would be a good one to practice with.

   Wear varied throughout my different tests. With the Born Pretty brand colours, I got no side shrinkage, and only very minimal tip wear. It lasted about 4 days (Sunday afternoon to Thursday morning) before it started to peel, and the peeling happened the morning after a shower. It performed about the same with the light and dark colours, but I found I had to cure a little longer with the darker colour otherwise some of the pigment would wipe off when I was wiping off the inhibition layer. This isn’t really a fault of the polish, as darker colours mean more pigment, and darker colours in most brands can often do with a little longer curing time.

   With this top and base with my Gelish colours, I got almost an extra full day out of them (Sunday night to Friday night) before they started peeling, so I’m attributing that more to the awesome durability of Gelish than anything else.

   With just the Born Pretty base and Gelish top and colour, I got the same 5 days of wear (Sunday night to Friday night). I’m going to say that 5 days is about the max I’m ever going to get out of this polish. It gets me through the work week, which is better than other polishes, but still nothing close to the 2 weeks some people can get out of a gel mani.

   With just the Born Pretty top coat and Gelish base and colour, I got the full 7 days of wear with just some tip wear on the end. Again, I’m going to attribute the success to the Gelish underneath. But hey, If I can use this top coat instead of a Gelish top coat and save almost $20, that’s cool.

   These top and base coats definitely didn’t hold up well to being used with regular polish, lasting less than 3 days (Sunday night to Wednesday morning), but I’m not really counting that against them because gel really is designed to be used with gel and it’s just an extra bonus if it can be used with non-gel polish as well.

   Overall, it wasn’t terrible. Some gel brands peel on me after just one day, so to get 4 days of wear with just its own brand of polish, combined with the super affordable price and the fantastic application, isn’t bad. Someone with less annoying nail beds might even have more success (darn you people that can get 14 days out of a gel mani!). I’ll probably get more of the top coat to use with my Gelish base because it wasn’t a bad combo (I tried the top coat with Gelish base and regular polish and got almost 5 full days of wear out of it, which is, again, not bad for me) and can help save a bit of money.

   The company itself can suck to order from. I’m in Canada. With the free shipping, it takes me literally 3 months to get my order. I did express shipping once (supposed 5 day delivery) and paid an arm and a leg for it. It took two weeks to ship my order after payment (normally ships within a couple days of payment) and another 2 weeks to get my order.