Gel Fail

Now I do like gel polish sometimes.  Usually I don't bother because I like changing my color way too often.  However, sometimes I get a crabby nail - usually my thumbs - and I gel them to give them a break for the daily polish removal.

Well, my thumbs went crabby again, so I figured I'd break out my favorite base/top - the CND gel - and a new to me color, IBD's Plum Raven.

First and most importantly - it's WAY too prone to massive cuticle flooding.  Which is a PITA to start with, but in a gel - it's a recipe for disaster.  Major, major disaster.  If gel polish is cured on your cuticles, it pops off.  This will come in shortly.

Second - the color.  It's not what I'd call a plum or a darkened plum.  It's full on magenta with purple leanings on me.

Third - It's a jelly.  I like jellies.  I don't like them so much in gels, but this one is a particularly bad jelly, which leads to the next issue.

Fourth - 5 freaking coats of gel color and I still have major VNL, streaking and uneven color.  *ARGH*  I've NEVER had any polish behave this badly, gel or otherwise.  VNL I'll put up with, because my nails are prone to it, but the streaking and the uneven color?  No freaking way.

So there it is.  It's not a bad color, but it's not what I like.  But having cranky thumbnails, I'll give them a rest, I've got multiple toppers I can swatch with this.  Applied this at 6:30 am.

Now, since the majority of my dislike is just me being my picky, picky self - I wasn't going to bother blogging this.  Until the fun tonight.

As of 7:30 pm - that first issue of cuticle flooding has come back to bite, hard.

Yup, the color coat is popping off 13 hours later.  Hard to tell here, but the CND base coat is still on my nail, but the color is just peeling straight off.  I'm not sure if the CND didn't bond well with the color, but the top coat (also CND) is well stuck to the color.  My best guess is the flooding is the problem, I cleaned up insanely well with each application, but with that much flooding, I am willing to bet that I didn't get it perfect.  I've NEVER had any other gel colors flood at all, so meh.  I'll take blame there, but ugh, it's a crappy gel polish.

So off to go remove this craptastical, evil gel polish and do something else.  But I'm not sure what yet.  I do have another IBD gel I might test, but it'd be a while.  Long while.

*disclaimer - I bought this polish.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*