Beauty Inside Art

Left: Without top coat & Right: With top coat

The Good: When you apply this to your nails the result is a shiny, very fast drying coat of clear nail varnish. It's quite thick and gives a sort of uv gel look, which I love. I've had people ask me whether I got my nails done professionally when wearing this, because of the shine and thickness. The thickness depends on your application, but I like to apply a thick top coat. One more advantage of using this top coat is that it sort of evens out the application of the varnish used before. Streaky nail lacquer? Don't worry, this will make it perfect.

The Bad: There's one big drawback to this product and that is a health warning. On the bottle it says that "this product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm". That sounds pretty scary to me and I would like to stop using it, but I haven't found anything to replace it with.

The Ugly: There's one thing I absolutely hate about this top coat. The smell! It absolutely stinks! I can't stand it and I have to be outdoors or hold my breath when painting my nails. The smell is the only reminder that this product could be harmful to your health. In addition, I've noticed that it sort of shrinks around the edges and that's noticeable the next day. When it shrinks, it causes the polish to crack around those edges, after a couple of days. Also, if you were to apply a thick layer, you might end up with some tiny bubbles trapped in your varnish. One more thing you might notice after using it is that it leaves a faint yellow tint to the colour underneath.