Last winter I was complaining to my sister Fish Pedicure about how I had too much to do and didn't have any idea how I was going get it all done.
My well thought out solution, was to sit in the corner and stare at a dead bug.
Vacuuming was one of the things on my to do list by the way.
She scoffed and said, all you need is for someone else to do your website photos for you. That would free up a lot of your time. As long as whoever's taking the pictures has chipped, black nail polish the readers will never know the difference.
Fish pedicure has a great sense of humour. She wasn't using it in this particular moment. She was quite serious. And quite right. Not about someone else taking my photos, that's just stupid, but about my chipped black nailpolish.
You know how taking pictures of her own ass is Kim Kardashian's trademark? Chipped, black nails are kind of mine. Her trademark gets her millions of Twitter followers, mine gets me offers of change and a warm place to sleep from random strangers. Suck on that Kim.
Now that I've addressed my problem, I can address the product.
Sally Hansen's Miracle Gel Nailpolish. A product that claims to last for 2 weeks, just like a manicurist applied gel would.
How could I say no?
So I shelled out $11.99 for a bottle of topcoat and $11.99 for a bottle of polish and started the experiment.
I painted different nails with different combinations of the Sally Hansen Miracle gel polish, regular polish and the Sally Hansen Miracle gel top coat.
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In case you can't be bothered to analyze the nail graph, the middle, index and thumb nail of my left hand were Miracle gel polish and Miracle gel topcoat. Those are the ones to watch.
The actual Miracle Gel Nail polish comes in all kinds of colours, but since Black is what I wear most in the winter black is what I got. Also the bottle of top coat is black, but the top coat itself is clear like regular top coat.
I decided I needed to divide my fingers up into sections. One section would have Miracle gel polish and Miracle gel topcoat. Another section would have regular nail polish with the gel topcoat. And the final sections would have regular nail polish and regular topcoat.
I would wear this nail polish through my regular daily activities (including but not limited to baking, fixing large appliances, digging up potatoes, cleaning up cat vomit, scratching mystery things off the floor and giving bad drivers the finger)
After a few days things were looking iffy. This is the hand with the Miracle gel polish and Miracle gel top coat on the thumb, index and middle finger. You can see here how dull the top coat is. It just isn't nice and shiny. And it wasn't even when it was first put on. Plus … after just 3 days slight chipping at the tips and base is starting.
The chances of this gel polish lasting for 2 weeks as advertised is looking slim. I'm already thinking the "miracle" portion of the label should probably be scratched out.
However. The Miracle gel polish and Miracle gel top coat was holding up much better than my other hand. The right hand has regular polish and Miracle gel top coat on the index, middle finger and thumb. They're already a mess.
I'm quite used to walking around with fingernails that look like a disaster. It's kind of my way and I'm O.K. with it. The reason is that my nails become a mess so quickly. Within days after doing them they look like I joined a chain gang immediately after digging myself out of a grave.
But this. THIS was bad. After leaving black nailpolish on for 2 weeks this is how they looked.
The top hand is the hand with the gel polish and gel topcoat on the index, middle finger and thumb. Clearly it doesn't look as good as new after 2 weeks. The ring finger and pinkie are regular nail polish with regular top coat.
The bottom hand is the hand with the regular polish and gel topcoat on the index, middle finger and thumb. It's even worse.
Want a closer look at the beauty of the Sally Hansen gel polish and top coat that's guaranteed to look good for 2 weeks?
Well here it is after 2 weeks.
And here is the hand with the regular polish and the Sally Hansen gel topcoat. It can only be described as a shitshow.
There are two things the Sally Hansen polish has going for it.
1) It does hold up better than regular polish.
2) For some reason while I was removing it, the nail polish remover didn't make it bleed and smear all over my fingers and nail beds. It removed fairly cleanly.
Other than that? It was horrible. It was a complete disappointment.
I know that I'm harder on my nails than your average cattle rancher but I was still hoping for some kind of good if not great result.
I didn't get it. I got nails that looked like they belonged on a common crack whore as opposed to a higher quality crack whore.
Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Polish rates:
1 cleaver out of 4.
The only miracle here was the fact that in the full 2 weeks nobody asked me if I needed any cardboard to help keep the rain out while I slept in my hovel under the bridge.
Shauna
oh my gosh, I love this stuff! I have't even read your post yet, so I hope you ended up agreeing. Nail polish stays on my nails for exactly 30 seconds before it starts peeling and chipping off. This stuff stayed on for about 3 days before I got the first slightest chip and I was able to keep it on for a week and it still looked decent. Normally, after one full day I look like a 3rd grader and then I'm lazy and don't take it off, so it just gets further chipped as the days go by.
Shauna
ha, oh well. Considering my nails chip usually within an hour, I was happy to have a decent set for 5 days. 2 weeks, definitely not, but longer than 1 day had me giddy.
Beth W
Thank you, thank you, thanks to you! That saved me $25 which I will gladly put towards wood now that the cold is supposedly on it's way.
Karen
Wood is SOOOO expensive! I have to order a couple of bush cords for the winter and I'm dreading paying for it more than stacking it. ~ karen!
Tricia Rose
Oh dear, I had been tempted, thank you for saving me Karen, I owe you!
Robyn
I have scrub bucket hands that aren't very pretty so I decided to try the shellac manicure at the salon. It was beautiful and shiny and lasted for a good 3 weeks. Then I went back to have it removed. That was a sad occasion because I think half of my nails came off with it. They soaked it off in acetone, then scraped. Now I have paper thin, cracked nails that look like crap. Just an FYI so someone can learn from that mistake!
Angela
I had this experience with gel/shellac also. It looked gorgeous and wore like iron, and then it was removed... I also really hated the margin of unpolished nail they had to leave at the base, which just got bigger as my nails grew out.
Kelli
Thanks for this Karen, i was very tempted to buy this stuff. My nails are thin and brittle and need lots of help. Polish flies off within a day (and I'm not that hard on my nails). My grandmother swore by jello (or drinking gelatin) for hard nails, but I wondered how much of that stuff I'd have to swallow first? Bleah.
Wondering if you might try this stuff too, just for grins: http://www.sallyhansen.com/nails/nail-care/strength-growth/triple-strong
Deana
I got the Sally Hansen UV light kit. Best thing EVER! I am not one who can wait for regular nail polish to dry. I end up messing it up before it's dry. I can do a whole manicure with the light in 15 minutes and it last and lasts. If I do get a chip or slice (I tend to slice my nails with knives whilst inthe kitchen, not good) I give just that nail another coat of polish and top coat and I'm good to go. I did my toes and they looked good for the almost the whole summer. I will never go back to regular nail polish, it's the light for me.
Olga
Ohh I get it now! So I guess you have to buy special top coat for that gel polish. I have to say I bought gel polish to try it out, I kind of red the instructions ( I didn't even look at them) and after I put it on my toe nails and my hands I couldn't believe they sold that product at the stores. My first and the only reaction to it was WTF?! It was just one big mess of never drying nail polish.
Julie Hoover
If you let it cure outside in the sun then it's amazing! I LOVE it. I am very hard on my hands because I am a geologist and we are redoing our house (and I don't have a maid and I like to peel labels off of things) and it looked nice and shiny for two weeks for me. I've done multiple colors and fingers and toes.
I noticed that if I let it dry on a cloudy day it doesn't work as well.
Give it another shot!
http://www.greenmountaincottage.blogspot.com
Julie Hoover
Plus, you have to use the special polish with the special top coat.
"The Miracle Gel™ Color and Top Coat work together as a system to create a durable manicure with high gloss shine.
Formula ingredients are key. The advanced Color and Top Coat formulas both contain an oligomer; the Top Coat also includes a photoinitiator. The photoinitiator activates a bond between the Color and Top Coat, thus curing the formula in natural light without the need of an LED/UV lamp. The formula continues to cure over time, increasing the durability of the manicure."
No natural UV light in the house. You've got to go outside.
Karen
I'm gonna be honest, that actually drops the product down even lower on my rating because a) it says nothing about that on the nail polish bottles and b) this means you can't apply the polish if it's raining, snowing, cloudy or evening. ~ karen!
Terry
Karen you make me laugh. And laugh. No matter how good or how crappy my day is. I want to keep you all to myself, my little secret addiction… ooh, thats bad, isn't it. Okay, I will share you with just a few close friends - but when a community intervention is needed to keep us all straight and narrow, I am NOT to blame.
Bless you, my little ray of sunshine!
MegC
I honestly haven't searched the comments to see if anyone has noted this, but if you use the base coat it goes MUCH better! I am not as hard on my nails as you are, what with having no chickens or really any responsibilities at all, but I started using the gel because typing as much as I do with longer nails means that the tips chip like a mofo. It took a few tries to get it quite right, but they did tend to last a bit longer than the usual. Also, I highly recommend the little rubbing alcohol wipes you can get on the first aid aisle to shine the top coat. For the average Jane, I'd say it's 2.5 cleavers ;)
Karen
This particular product, the Sally Hansen Miracle gel doesn't include a base coat and says it isn't necessary. It says the colour is a base and colour coat all in one. So that's how I used it. Also I shouldn't have to use alcohol wipes to get it to shine the way a regular, normal topcoat would. Booooooo from me. To miracle gel. Not you. :) ~ karen!
MegC
You crazy Canadians and your different products! And suuuuuuure you're booing the gel polish. Whatever. I know you're booing me! I'm going to go pout in a corner with my superior gel polish ;)
Tracey
LOVE that you reviewed this Karen - was contemplating this in my lustful "I want ALL the polish" state the other day at Shoppers.
For what it's worth (and no, I'm not being compensated for this) Nail Polish Canada delivers to your home, has reviews on most of their products, and they have a number of shellac/gel kits for home use.
http://www.nailpolishcanada.com/categories/gel-nail-polish/kits.html
I've purchased from them before and it's excellent service.
Keep rockin' the black nails!
Nancy Blue Moon
My nails have always grown long naturally..when I was younger they were always polished and pretty and people were always asking if they were real or fake..I haven't polished in years starting back when I had my son cause Mommys always have there hands in something..I won't bother mentioning some of those somethings..I have thought about polishing again if I could find something that lasts a while and doesn't chip so much..I will look into some of those mentioned here..
Barbie
......now I know I will not be trying this nail polish...thanks for saving me the trouble!
Marion
Wow, that's pretty terrible. I'm rough on my nails too and (if I wear polish) I usually change my polish after 2-3 days because of chipping. I had a professional gel manicure once. I was so excited about it and the fact that "it won't chip until you come back in to have us take it off" ... HA! Within a week they looked terrible. Never again.
Vanessa
Where they get you is when they say it works for "up to" 2 weeks. Obviously they were using coma patients to try it out on. I actually really like it. Regular polish lasts on my nails for a day. ONE day. So I am forever trying to paint my nails just before I walk out the door for some event. The SH Miracle Gel lasts about 4 days on me. That means I only paint my nails twice a week instead of 5. I gotta say, when I bought it I KNEW it wouldn't last 2 weeks, I HOPED, but knew it wouldn't. Also, it was only $8 here, and then I used a coupon. I think I got 3 colors and one top coat for $20.
My big complaint is the black bottle of the top coat. How can you see when you need to buy more?? You try to paint your nails one day and find it gone and then you're screwed.
Leslie
The miracle is getting people to pay $12 for nail polish, and another $12 for top coat. Yikes!
Diane Amick
I gave up on nail polish (don't care what brand) YEARS ago...too much gardening. I'm even at the point now that when my nails get beyond my fingertips I cut them off and file them down - they seem to grow like weeds, and my fingers get too sore wearing Fox garden gloves all the time (my favorite of all time). Don't think nail polish on my fingers has ever lasted more than 24 hours before looking raunchy.
Heather
Hi. I have tried all sorts of things but here is what finally worked for me... Gelous Nail Gel. It is magic. The process is annoying (I do it at night when watching bad TV) but for me worth the results. Bottom coat (I use Sally Hansen hard as nails)... 1 coat of gelous nail gel... 1 coat of any sort of polish you have around (I love the black!)... 1 coat gelous... another coat of polish ... top with a coat of seche vite quick drying top coat (that is 6 annoying coats). I wait a minute or 2 between coats. My nails usually chip and peel like crazy and this is the only thing that has worked for me.
danni
I bought the same stuff when it was buy one/get one free and had the same results. I also am terrible on my hands and have found that the shellac polishs from the nail shops are well worth the bother. $25, 1x every 3 weeks or so, take a beat, get it done, and they wear like iron. They look fabulous no matter what. My go-to is 'You Don't Know Jaque' by OPI and it hides all dirt, all the time. Love it!
Dagmar
Well, it has come full circle Karen. I started reading your blog after seeing you "pinned" about how to fix a broken nail with a tea bag. And I see the variety of colors you wear haven't changed one bit since then. That was a summer blog if I recall,( or at least I was reading it during the summer) and you were wearing white nail polish, and now black for winter. You ARe adventurous Karen, no one can deny that. By the way, the Sally Hansen was on your left hand if I saw correctly, and if you are right handed, then it had twice the chance of staying on. So even that didn't help it. And for anyone having dark stains after taking the nail polish off-I use whitening toothpaste or baking soda.