Friday 23 September 2016

THE HUNT FOR A PEEL-OFF BASE COAT

feat. Maybelline Color Show Latte - one of my fave "barely there" shades

Once you've experienced the convenience and satisfaction of peeling off your nail varnish you'll never want to go back to a bottle of remover and a pile of cotton wool. I have been using the nailgirls 3-in-1 Base/Top Coat for a good year and although it is not marketed as a peel-off base coat, it does exactly that. It dries down quickly, lasts for a good few days, and then simply peels off when you want to get rid. Although it wasn't without flaw - it can a little gloopy, it sometimes flakes rather than peels, and it probably isn't the best for weak nails, I was content. I first received a bottle in a beauty box, then I trolled ebay for a second but have now not been able to get my hands on another. So, the search for a replacement has begun...

After a few half-hearted attempts to look up potential peel-off base coats on google, I finally gave in and just decided to pick up something from my local drugstore to try. With no particular plan in mind for what I wanted to purchase, an offering from Maybelline caught my eye.


I thought that at £2.99, this was worth a try. I've tried it a couple of times now and first off, this stuff is thick. It also requires a bit of drying time. The first time I used it, I tried to go straight on with a coat of colour and it did not go well. The thick and quite gloopy formula mixed in with my first coat of colour and became a bit of a stringy mess. I would recommend wiping off about 90% of the product which comes out on the brush and attempt the thinnest layer you can on each nail and then stick on a bit of Netflix while you wait for it to dry.


If you manage a thin enough layer you can probably go in with your next coat after a couple of minutes. I have to say I'm a three coat kind of girl so I layer up my polish and then top it off, of course, with some Seche Vite.

The second time I tried this, things actually seemed to turn out pretty well on the surface. I was off to sleep (I always paint my nails before bed) and they still looked good in the morning. Unfortunately, halfway through my day I looked down at my nails and one was completely bare with no polish to be seen. It does what it says on the bottle - it peels off... a bit too easily. It peeled off when I wasn't even looking - hence the bare thumb nail in the picture above.

I think I'd suggest you give this one a miss. I might give it one more try but if my polish can't even last 24 hours then the peel off perk might not be worth it in this case!

Please leave any base coat recommendations in the comments... it looks like the search will continue.