mizuiro-theory

[mizuiro-theory]

My Current Lineup

My favorite tried and true items, as of March 2024.

Foundation: Fenty Beauty Pro Filt’r Longwear Foundation in shade 210. What I like: silky smooth texture, applies beautifully with a kabuki brush, highly pigmented for coverage and minimal product use, luxurious finish.

Sadly my previous favorite foundation, the moonshot Micro CorrectFit Foundation, is likely being discontinued as I can no longer find it anywhere. I also have their Micro Settingfit Cushion EX. This is essentially that same liquid foundation product but pre-soaked in a cushion sponge inside a case, applied with an included silicone puff.

Why I love moonshot foundations: they provide superfine, buildable coverage, doesn’t cling onto texture on my skin. However I don’t like the cushion form factor as much - I find the puff hard to use as an applicator and would have preferred my own brushes. Also they have a very limited shade range and the shade that matches me is often out of stock.

Powder: CoverGirl Clean Pressed Powder - my very first powder product, tried and true as nothing else really compares. What I like: really fine powder, provides a nice, gentle and natural-looking matte coverage. Its quality feels like a whole class higher than its reality as a drug store brand. The powder also keeps pretty well and doesn’t cake up from being applied with liquid foundations.

Blush: e.l.f. Studio Blush in Candid Coral - one of the first blushes I ever tried and still my favorite after all the years. This particular color is subtle yet elegant, perfect for giving a more mature glow for my everyday work look.

Bronzer: NARS Bronzing Powder in Laguna. Why I like it: luxurious-feeling bronzer with plenty of product for the price, buildable coverage, perfect for summer months to tone down the shade of my foundation. It also doubles as my nose contouring powder.

Eyeshadow: e.l.f. Shadow Lock Eyelid Primer Sheer - before I apply eyeshadow, I always apply this eyelid primer. It eliminates the eyelid crease and also makes the eyeshadow last a lot longer through any given night.

Currently I am using the IM’UNNY Multi Eye Shadow Palette in Simply Glam. I fell in love with IM’UNNY products after trying their mascara, and this eyeshadow palette is no exception. The colors are just so pretty and versatile. I can go from either a simple look to all glammed out for date night with just one palette.

Also of note: I have the limited edition MAC Maleficent Eyeshadow Quad and it shows just how high quality MAC products are. Their eyeshadow powders are fine yet very pigmented, making application easy and quick.

Eyeliner: IM’UNNY Skinny Fit Slim Pencil in Honey Brown - a gel pencil eyeliner that I picked up after starting to use their mascara. Why I love it: very simple, subtle pencil eyeliner that allows quick application in the mornings. The gentle shimmer adds just enough shine to double as both eyeliner and pseudo-eyeshadow in one application. A must have for quick getting ready routines.

For more serious looks: MAC Liquidlast 24-Hour Waterproof Liner. What I like: I searched long and hard to find an eyeliner that was truly waterproof. This is the ONLY product that is absolutely, truly, waterproof. I have gone swimming with it on and it does not budge. It basically doesn’t come off until you want it to come off, but is easy to remove with an oil-based makeup remover, and comes in a number of colors besides the standard black.

Mascara: IM’UNNY Real Fit Skinny Mascara. Why I love it: micro-thin brush! Way more suitable for straight, thin eyelashes than the thick wands from western brands. Buildable, coats each lash gradually instead of dumping mascara on in clumps.

For waterproof: Maybelline Volum’ Express The Falsies Waterproof Mascara - one of the first mascara products I’ve tried and still good after all the years. What I like: truly waterproof and won’t come off until you’re ready to remove it. Actually it requires a good thorough rub with an oil-based makeup remover to come off completely.

Makeup Setting Mist: e.l.f. Matte Magic Mist & Set. What I like: This mist indeed has the best setting power among those I’ve tried, and it also is the cheapest thanks to e.l.f.’s affordable product lineup. Simple and straightforward.

Makeup Remover: The Body Shop Chamomile Cleansing Balm. Why I love it: oil-based makeup remover with a luscious, buttery feel; super gentle yet strong removing power for any makeup on my face. This is the only makeup remover product I’ll ever need. The balm-in-a-tin form factor travels extremely well.

Also a favorite: Biore Makeup Removing Wipe - an emergency buy while traveling in Japan after forgetting to pack my Chamomile balm! I was amazed at how gentle the wipe felt and how well it removed even the most stubborn of my waterproof makeup, the mascara. Great option for packing light on travel.

Eyebrow Gel: Laka Wild Brow Shaper in Balance. Why I love it: subtle, buildable eyebrow gel, manages to tame my wild “manes” of eyebrows without going over the top in adding color or darkness. Now my eyebrows actually look presentable with minimal effort and no plucking!

Perfume: Giorgio Armani Sì Passione - I fell in love with this perfume after sniffing a tester out of a magazine page. What I like: it is a lovely and dynamic scent, sweet and yet complex with the sandalwood finishing note, maturely romantic and perfect for date nights. My husband enjoys it as well when I put it on. It’s pricey but well worth every penny!

[mizuiro-theory]

Lipstick Gladiator

So, if you've read the prologue, you know what this is about. I spent a long time looking for good lipsticks since my experience with the Dior Addict gloss more or less ended in disaster. Don't get me wrong - it's a beautiful gloss and has wonderful colors, but the HASSLE is just not worth it. The fact that it is not long-wear means that you need to reapply throughout the day, which also means that you need to CARRY IT with you, which also means that, with its poor container tube design, you get gloss leakage all over your purse and belongings... :(((

In this ultimate lipstick battle, I was searching for mainly two things: a long-wear lipstick, gloss if possible (though I knew unlikely), that would require only 1 application at the beginning of the day and stay on through a normal work day with food and drink intake per a normal routine. Without further ado, let me introduce the "contestants" in this battle:

Sephora Cream Lip Stain

Maybelline 24-hour Superstay Lip Color

Senegence Lipsense

Covergirl Outlast All-Day Lip Color

Maybelline 16-hour Superstay Matte Ink

This is listed in the order I bought and tested these products. A whole full two years pass between the time I got #1 and the time I got #5! It's a long search!

Results:

1. Sephora Cream Lip Stain (01 Always Red) - $14

Application: 10/10    Dryness: 7/10    Flakiness: 10/10    Color: 10/10    Long-wear: 6/10    Removal: 10/10

I got this after reading a review by Miki Hayes on Bustle and had really high hopes. It feels wonderful to put on - it glides on smoothly, feels like a silky cream, and smells like delightful vanilla. However, it was not transfer-proof as it says on the bottle or as reviewed. Sure, it is kiss-proof when it's relatively freshly dried on your lips and you’re just giving someone a light peck. But it didn't survive the first make-out session with my boyfriend, and it never survived much of any food I ate. It feels drying but isn't flaky (when it comes off it just smudges off like cream). It is easy to remove with an oil-based remover.

2. Maybelline 24-hour Superstay Lip Color (Infinite Petal 80)

Application: 4/10     Dryness: 8/10    Flakiness: 1/10     Color: 8/10    Long-wear: 2/10    Removal: 8/10

I knew this was supposed to be comparable to Covergirl Outlast which has garnered such positive reviews, but I liked better that it was a 2-in-1 tube, so I tried this one out first. The results were pretty disappointing. The application was kind of "blah!" with its stickiness, although the top coat balm does help smooth it out and keep it moisturized. However, within hours of application I ate something and it had all fallen apart, coming off in patches and chunks of flakes. My lips felt super gross after that so I just took it off with my oil-based remover (it was more gross flakes when I took it off).

3. Senegence Lipsense (Luv It w/ Pearl gloss)

Application: 2/10     Dryness: 5/10    Flakiness: 1/10     Color: 9/10    Long-wear: 1/10    Removal: 3/10

This one was another one of those products that is hailed all over the internet as the holy grail of long-lasting lip color. More specifically, it is promoted as being long-lasting even as a lip gloss. While the gloss itself would not last forever, it is touted that the lip color itself would stick to your lips like superglue for supposedly a full 24 hours, and you’d only have to reapply the gloss every once in a while. There’s almost an endless array of colors to choose from. Sounds amazing, right? Yeah, it was too good to be true. If you found other reviews online that bashed this product, everything they say about it is true: it burns upon application because of the alcohol in the product; it is drying; it’s a total bitch to remove. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for just how much its staying power was over-hyped: it is wholly, entirely untrue. The reality is the absolute opposite of what they say it’s supposed to do: it comes off at the first bite of ANY food or drink, and it comes off in annoying flakes (just like #2) that leave your lips looking like a broken patchwork for the rest of the day unless you immediately rush to the bathroom to reapply. It’s almost like the staying power claims only hold true when it’s time for you to remove it (it defies logic!). Here’s what it looks like freshly applied at 8am on the left and then after a full day of work with no intervention at 11pm on the right:

Admittedly, the color is lovely; but the ridiculous level of false marketing blew this one off for me. So if you were even thinking of buying this product, I would advise you to stay far, farrrr away from it. The gloss itself isn’t half bad, but as noted, it doesn’t particularly stay on long and therefore has no better merit than any other plain gloss from drugstore or high-end brands. The only nice thing is the various finishes the gloss product line contains (pearl, iridescent, etc).  4. CoverGirl Outlast All-Day Lip Color Application: 8/10     Dryness: 8/10    Flakiness: 6/10     Color: 8/10    Long-wear: 6/10    Removal: 8/10

This one was conceptually the same thing as the Maybelline Superstay, but the product comes in two separate sticks—one being the lip color and the other the top coat balm. The idea is that once you apply the color, you won’t need to apply it again for the rest of the day and you only need to replenish the top coat that seals the color in. The separate sticks is supposedly so that you only carry the top coat balm with you. It was immediately clear to me that this indeed was the superior product to the Maybelline one: it glides on much smoother, and it does stay on somewhat longer. However, it was still far from the satisfactory level of staying power that I was expecting based on the marketing. It would slowly wear off throughout the day as you go about normal food and drink intake routines, though less so than Maybelline. It also came off in flakes, but the flakes tended to be fewer and smaller in size. It is removable with an oil-based makeup remover.

5. Maybelline 16-hour Superstay Matte Ink (118 Dancer & 125 Inspirer)

Application: 7/10     Dryness: 7/10    Flakiness: 10/10     Color: 9/10    Long-wear: 10/10    Removal: 10/10

At some point after trying out #4, a friend recommended this one to me after a casual discussion brought up the topic of my trying to find the perfect long-staying lipstick. After trying this, I finally feel like I’ve found a product that at least lives up to its marketing claims. The application is not the smoothest, because the formula is a bit sticky (seems to be the theme with Maybelline lip color products) and the teardrop-shaped reservoir applicator tip also doesn’t entirely lend itself to easy application. But once it’s been applied and allowed to dry, it really does stay on all day through most of any food and drinks. I haven’t tried making out in them yet (boyfriend is wary of kissing me with brightly pigmented lips at this point), but it does survive the average kiss. The product is VERY pigmented, so be careful with coloring within your lines, but removal is also very easy with an oil-based remover. Even up against particularly greasy food, it only comes off as slightly faded—and most importantly without ANY flaking—so it doesn’t look ugly and you can reapply anytime at your convenience. Here are the photos of the red (118) on the same day after application (8am), at the end of the work day (5pm) at which point I reapplied, and then at night (10pm):

And here are the photos of the pink (125) on the same day after application (8am) and at the end of the day (8pm), showing practically no change (no intervention all day):

The only regrettable downside to this product was that it was a matte lip color product rather than a gloss like I was looking for, but that is the price to pay in order to have it be colorfast because matte products tend to perform better than any gloss products in that regard. In order to get the gloss I wanted, I used this product combined with the Lipsense gloss that I would reapply throughout the day or after eating. As for one last shortcoming, the product lineup is a little limited: there are only a handful of colors to choose from.

[mizuiro-theory]

Lipstick Gladiator: Prologue

Long ago... there was a little girl in Hong Kong in the first year of her secondary school (7th grade). She had a boring face and a bit of a boring life. One day in a club meeting she was boredly flipping through a magazine. And then she saw it - an ad for the Dior Addict Lip Gloss. She had never seen lips so shiny, so plumped, and so kissable like those on the model in the magazine ad. A fire ripped through her heart - it was the first time she had really, really wanted to buy something so badly. Even though she did not have the money, and had no means to visit a Dior store on her own to buy any such product, she never forgot...

And then, two years later, after her family had moved to the US, an opportunity came. She was allowed to go shopping at the mall with her friends, with a small budget her mother had allowed her. This was the chance! When the time was ripe, she took her friends to drop by at the Dior kiosk. There, she finally found the lip gloss she had so coveted since she first laid eyes on that model. She picked a most romantic, brilliantly cute pink color. When she tried it on the first time at home, she was in love. This was the most luxurious lip gloss, the most beautiful, and probably also the fanciest thing she's owned her whole life. It became her default lip product for any special occasion where she needed to dress up.

That was until the lip gloss tube cap had started to come loose, and spread pink, gooey lip gloss everywhere in her purses and makeup bags. She tried to stem the leakage - she cleaned the cap grooves, she wrapped tissue around the cap, even tried to tie it down with rubber bands - but to no avail. The lip gloss came loose time and time again and the bloodbath inside her purse became horrid. She felt betrayed - for the $26 price tag, Dior has done a terrible job designing the container for the wonderful gloss. By the end, she had chucked the still-more-than-half-full lip gloss into the trashcan with a look of mild disdain on her face - a testament to the tragic and bittersweet end of their relationship.

Now without her steady default lip gloss, the girl spent years wandering from product after product, never quite being truly satisfied with any that she had found. She found a couple of new favorites in NARS' pure matte lipstick, but those soon went out of production. And when she kissed her newfound boyfriend with Carthage only to leave his lips comically tinted with hot pink color, he asked, "Can't you get something that doesn't come off?"

She took the comment in stride, a challenge accepted - it had set her off on an over-year-long journey to find the best and most long-lasting lipstick. All these lipstick manufacturers can claim what their product can do; but she will let them battle each other and see who shall win in the end.

[mizuiro-theory]

Nail care routine

I've never really paid much attention to caring for my nails until I really started doing my own manicures. I've always had dry hands since when I was a kid. My cuticles would be dry, flaky and hardened with hangnails all over the place (ouch!). The hangnails largely disappeared with age, but the dryness persists. It doesn't help that I'm an avid swimmer, as frequent exposure to water actually dehydrates skin by swelling it and then contracting as it dries. Since I started doing nail art, however, I noticed what a big difference clean, healthy cuticles and nails contribute to a beautiful looking manicure, so I set out to find a nail care routine that would cure my dry cuticle problems, improve the health of my nails to prevent breaking, chipping and peeling, and allow me to change my manicure a little more often. In the past, my manicures are few and far between. Not having a proper base coat meant that my everyday tasks and swimming quickly chipped my nails, and since I was not a fan of the smell of acetone and nail polish fumes (for good reason), I would wait for a long period before painting my nails again. But now that I am doing nail art, I want to be able to do different designs to my heart's content every week. That meant I needed to get a non-acetone nail polish remover. Through the years, my journey to find a good non-acetone nail polish remover led me down the following path:

The Saem's Allys Ajell Nail Art Remover: a Korean brand product, this one is fairly hard to find outside of Asia. It is infused with rosehip oil and smells great (possibly dangerously), but I have no idea if it contains acetone or not because the ingredients are all written in Korean.

The Body Shop's Sweet Almond Oil Nail Polish Remover: I bought this as replacement after I ran out of the Allys Ajell and had no way to purchase it in the US. I was impressed right away: it smelled lovely, is acetone-free, and most wonderfully it removes glitter polish!

As for my manicure routine, it follows largely to what most people out there recommend: 1. Remove old polish, then trim and file the nails to a nice, work-appropriate length and shape. 2. Prep the nails by soaking them in warm water for 10 minutes (add a drop or two of essential oil for aromatherapy as well) and then push back my cuticles. 3. After drying the hands with a towel, buff and shine the nails with a nail buffer. 4. Then I moisturize my cuticles with some of this magical stuff:

Nailtiques is famous for its Formula products that aim at improving the health of nails, but I was looking for something that would help my cuticles specifically. Then I came across this which has the added bonus of strengthening nails, so it was really a no-brainer for me to get it. The more popular Formula products can be found in large chain drugstores like CVS and Walgreens in the nail polish section, but this Oil Therapy is a little more obscure. I found it in an ULTA store in my neighborhood on retail for an affordable USD$7. It's a tiny little bottle but a little goes a long way. What I love about it It smells really good, like citrous vitamin with coconut oil mixed in. I have noticed that my nails stopped chipping and retain the shape I trimmed them to, and it really keeps my cuticles from drying out and hardening. It works especially well when I put it on right after pushing back my cuticles; it just makes my cuticles look superb, healthy, and manicure-ready! 5. I like to let the oil seep in and absorb into the skin for a while first. Then I would clean off any excess oil from the nail bed surface using nail polish remover on a Q-tip. 6. Once I have clean, prepped nails, I can start putting on base coats and polish my nails! This seems like a lot of steps, but manicure is the one thing right now that I'm willing to make time for. If I get really busy, I would split the steps up and do #1 and #3 on the night before, have my nails trimmed and cleaned with Nailtiques applied overnight, then do the soaking and pushing back cuticles before the manicure on the next day. Other tips: Once every 2-3 weeks of wearing polish, I dedicate 1 week as "healing" time for my nails. During this week, I do not paint any nail polish on my nails, but instead I would apply Nailtiques Oil Therapy on my nails and around my cuticles every night before going to bed. This is to leave time for my nails to "breathe" and to prevent getting yellow nails from wearing nail polish for too long.

[mizuiro-theory]

My Grand Experiment of Nail Coats: Part 2

Day 1:

Boohoo! My left thumb got a huge sheet imprint overnight. This is, however, expected with the OPI Top Coat. On the other hand, the nails with the INM top coat seems to have experienced a slight bit of shrinkage as well, with a faintly visible wrinkle. All the top coats that are marketed as "Fast Dry" did truly dry fast - I was mostly comparing between INM and Seche Vite. I noticed that Seche Vite had the best shine: it was truly an "HD" shine, meaning that the reflections off the polish were crispy clear. INM dulled quickly, while OPI Top Coat had the second best shine if it had been given enough time to dry completely.

Later in the day, as I go through my typical weekend chores and tasks (involving cooking, laundry, bathroom cleaning, hitting the gym, etc.), a big disappointment comes as both nails with the CND Stickey base coat chipped. I had a bit of high hopes for this one because it was touted as a base coat used by professionals in nail salons, but it definitely didn't live up to that reputation. Normally to make a manicure last a week, you are supposed to touch them up every other day, but I was trying not to do that this time because I wanted to see how well the different products would perform in a week without any intervention. However, because I just can't stand having a chipped polish before the work week even started, I went ahead and touched up these two nails.

Day 2: Not much change - the tips started to show shrinkage/fading, however.

Day 3-4: Tip shrinkage worsens on all of them, otherwise not much change.

Day 5:

Except for the nail with CND Stickey on, most nails on my left hand were unchanged. Because of my unsatisfactory experience with the OPI Top Coat, I was surprised to find that the nails with the OPI base coat on actually lasted the best. The tip shrinkage is there but quite minimal, definitely less than any other base coats. Despite the touch ups, the CND base coat nails once again chipped, and Seche Vite did not seem to help prevent it. And then there's the big chip on the nail with Butter London's Nail Foundation on! Granted, my right index finger is probably the most used finger (righty here), but with a $20 price tag, I expected it to hold up to my daily abuse. And that is the same nail with Sally Hansen's top coat on. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip, not so anti-chip. ORLY Bonder came in as a close second to OPI's base coat, but the tip chipping/shrinkage is just a little more. I'm also noticing how dry and gross my cuticles look. I will be making another post about that later.

The Verdict:

Base coats

1. OPI Natural Nail Base Coat:

Application: 9/10 Performance: 9/10 Worth per dollar: 9/10

The brush with this base coat is lush and smooth. It easily spreads over your entire nail in one go, making application a breeze. It performed the best in preventing against chipping or peeling with only minimal tip shrinkage/chipping. I will be keeping this as my base coat to use from now on. OPI products can keep for a long time and it won't dry to a goopy, non-usable bottle, hence the worth per dollar rating.

2. ORLY Bonder:

Application: 9/10 Performance: 8/10 Worth per dollar: ??

This base coat was a close second. It helped keep the polish in tact for a good part of the week. But it couldn't fend off the tip shrinkage/chipping by Day 3. I have never owned an ORLY product before so I cannot tell how long the bottle can be kept.

Thumbs down 👎🏼 :

- Butter London Nail Foundation: This base coat had a lovely long tip brush for application, and it is also tinted to a natural nail color so you can wear it alone, but it ultimately did not hold up to the abuse and chipping (Day 5). For the price it demanded, this was not a worthy buy.

- CND Stickey: A huge disappointment. This base coat didn't hold up even for a day to keep my nail polish from chipping. Reviews on other sites also complained of the green tint affecting the color polishes that go on it. Best to skip this when you’re down the shopping aisle.

Top coats

1. There is no winner for top coats, as none of them singly performed all that I sought from them. However, I will be using the combination below as my solution.

2. OPI Top Coat + INM Out the Door:

OPI:

Application: 9/10 Drying Time: 5/10 Anti-Chip: 8/10 Shine: 8/10 Anti-Shrinkage: 10/10 Worth per dollar: 8/10

INM Out the Door:

Application: 7/10 Drying Time: 9/10 Anti-Chip: 8/10 Shine: 7/10 Anti-Shrinkage: 7/10 Worth per dollar: 8/10

Only after trying all these different top coats did I realize that OPI's top coat is actually not that bad. It's true that it dries the slowest, but in return, there is no shrinkage problem whatsoever. No matter how thick or thin you apply it on, there is no worry that it will wrinkle into ugliness like Seche Vite will. There is no learning curve involved, you just apply it on and it will make your nail polish look nice, as long as you give it enough time to dry. As I am big on nail art, I also appreciated how it didn't drag the colors of my polish. As mentioned before, this top coat had the second best shine.

To solve the drying time problem, I will be using INM in combination with OPI. INM's drying time is competitive to Seche Vite (only slightly weaker - I still have to avoid demanding tasks for 30 minutes after application or I can smudge the nail polish), and it has a thinner formula so it is not prone to the type of edge shrinkage that Seche Vite experiences. The thinner formula also means that the bottle will keep longer, versus Seche Vite where people have complained of goopiness halfway down the bottle due to the thick formula and having to then buy Seche Vite Restore. However, INM drags nail art, so I plan on applying a coat of OPI first to lock down my nail art and give it a good shiny protection, then apply a coat of INM for a fast-drying polish. INM does experience some slight shrinkage as well, but that can be prevented by applying in thin coats. The only down side is that INM's shine is not the best, but I will live with that until I find an all-encompassing solution for top coats. Neither OPI nor INM is impervious to chipping, but with a good base coat and touch ups it can be minimized.

3. Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat:

Application: 6/10 Drying Time: 10/10 Anti-Chip: 7/10 Shine: 10/10 Anti-Shrinkage: 3/10 Worth per dollar: 5/10

Seche Vite exhibited all the expected problems of edge shrinkage and did not appear to be particularly strong against chipping (chipped on Day 1 along with CND) or peeling. However, if I try to apply it thinly to prevent the edge shrinkage, then the stiff brush drags the nail art underneath. If you must use Seche Vite, I would recommend not following the instructions to apply it thickly over wet polish; instead, apply it in thin coats after letting color polish/nail art dry a little bit. Also note that the thick formula means that you probably have to buy Seche Vite's thinner sometime down the road. It did have the fastest drying time and best crispy-clear shine.

Thumbs down 👎🏼:

- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat: This top coat didn't prevent chipping and seemed to thin out quickly as the week progressed. It had minor but definite and visible edge shrinkage. It also seemed to create mysterious bubbles on my nail polish, so I will not be using this again.

[mizuiro-theory]

My Grand Experiment of Nail Coats: Intro

This was borne out of my rather disappointed first impressions of the Seche Vite fast dry top coat. Because I'm a busy girl and almost always have something to do with my hands within an hour of doing my nails, the OPI Top Coat I've been using was not drying fast enough; I would always smudge it or get sheet imprints if I was going to sleep. Seche Vite has been hailed all over the internet as the perfect solution to such problems: it dries super fast and makes your nail art lasts long. So I thought, "okay, maybe I'll give it a try.”

Yes, it dries super fast, smudge- and dent-proof in about 15 minutes, but within the same day of application, I noticed some ugly wrinkles on some of the nails (edge shrinkage) and tip shrinkage on all of them. I thought, "What the heck??? I thought this top coat was supposed to be perfect?" I did some research, and turns out that there's a learning curve to Seche Vite. I didn't wrap the top coat over the tip of my nails, for example, which would have prevented the tip shrinkage. So I attributed that to user error. It also did not prevent my nail polish from chipping within 3 days of application, but I attributed that to not having a proper base coat (using OPI Nail Strengthener as base coat instead - doesn't work). I have sworn by OPI nail polishes for as long as I have been polishing my own nails, so I wasn't entirely ready to give up on the OPI products I've already bought either.

SO, I finally threw my arms up and decided that it would be best to give a bunch of different nail base and top coats a fair chance at trial. I consulted some nail guru blogs and noted the consistently mentioned brands and decided upon 4 base and top coats. I bought them from either the local CVS or an ULTA retail store in my neighborhood. Here is a line-up of the products tested:

Upper row (base coats), left to right: Butter London Nail Foundation, CND Stickey, ORLY Bonder, OPI Natural Nail Base Coat

Lower row (top coats), left to right: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat, INM Out The Door, OPI Top Coat, Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat

The idea is that I would apply different combinations of base and top coat to each of my nails and observe their performance for the following week. The color polish in between will act as the "control group" - it must be identical on all nails. I decided to do a “French Manicure with a twist” using Wet 'n Wild Love Me Some Muscles! (a bright coral color), and CoverGirl Lasting Love (a classic ruby red), for a Spring season, color-popped version of the classic manicure. These are both solid opaque colors, so it will really help to reveal any wrinkles or shrinkage, and the nail art design will help reveal which top coat has the best brush application so that it doesn't smudge or drag nail art.

One thing I did not expect was for the Butter London to cost USD$20. It'd better be a really good base coat for that price...

Legend chart of base/top coat combos:

Day 0: Application

I did one coat of base coat, two coats of Wet n Wild and then swiped off the tip with CoverGirl. Then finally I topped with a coat of top coat, making sure to wrap the tip of my nails.

I know my application isn't perfect - I like to cover my whole nail if I can, and I don't mind the excess polish on the skin because it'll just come off as I wash my hands and shower throughout the day. Of course, a simple way to avoid that would just be to cover up your cuticles in advance with some saran wrap. I'm just too lazy this time.

Right away Seche Vite was showing the same problem - shrinkage. The wrinkles showed up quickly. But one interesting note is that they showed up on the nails where I applied Seche Vite thickly - per the manufacturer's instruction.

On my right thumb, however, I applied it in thin coats and the shrinkage did no appear:

On the right are the two nails with Sally Hansen's top coat. There are some bubbles forming on the surface - I wasn't sure if it was my fault when applying it, but then none of the other nails had that issue. They also had minor but definite edge shrinkage. Wrapping top coats over the tip seemed to solve the tip shrinkage problem - at least for now. After I was done with application, I did some light cooking and chores but all nails held up fine that night.

To be continued in [Part 2]