On Stranger Transforming Tides

As mentioned in my last post, I was bought a gel polish starter kit for Christmas. So obviously I had a little spree and bought myself lots of pretty gel polishes.  It did seem a shame that all my (hundreds of) normal polished would now be sitting neglected though.

But then! I was reading a post on Mumsnet about gels and someone mentioned Sensationail Polish-to-Gel Transformer. Obviously I had to order it from Amazon immediately.

As the name suggests, the transformer allows you to convert a normal polish into a gel. There are two ways of doing this - you can either mix the transformer with the polish to create a gel polish, curing each coat, or you can just apply your polish as normal and the use the transformer as a topcoat, so only that coat needs curing.  Naturally I went for the second, far less faffy option.

I decided to try it out with OPI Stranger Tides, which is one of my favourite muted shades.

I applied my usual OPI Natural Nail base coat followed by two coats of my colour. The instructions then say to leave your polish for 30 minutes or so to ensure it’s fully dry, so I resisted the urge to Seche Vite them and waited like I was told (convinced the baby would wake any moment and it would be game over). Then it’s simply a case of applying your Transformer, curing and you’re done!

I don’t think they’re as shiny as full gel nails, although I haven’t used any other Sensationail products to compare with, and perhaps your choice of polish underneath makes a difference.  These nails definitely lasted longer than they would have with just Seche Vite, although I did start getting a bit of tip wear after a few days.  With it being a light colour though it wasn’t really an issue.  And to be fair, I had been messing around with stamping on top and removing with acetone...

When the time came to remove the polish, it was so easy.  I used the usual method for removing gels (although didn’t bother filing the surface), and within 5 minutes in foils the polish was clean off. Hurrah!

I’ll definitely be using this again and would absolutely recommend it.  No, you’re not going to get the same wear out of it as you would a full gel manicure, but application and removal are both MUCH quicker, and you can use all your non-gel pretties! I think next time I’ll try applying the transformer top coat straight after my colour though (not that I’m impatient) and see if it actually makes a difference, unless anyone comments before then to say they’ve tried it and it was a disaster.

I did try a few different stamping looks over the top of this which I’ll be posting in the next few days, or you can go to my Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to have a sneak peek (links in the sidebar).