While I love a good dip mani, sometimes I prefer the ease of polish, especially when my nails are shorter – and I’ve discovered the keys to making a polished set look gel-level professional!
First step is to some good prep work on your clean nails, and using a good basecoat. I use 2-3 coats of a good strengthener as my base, but there are different basecoats depending on what you’re looking for. For example, are you looking to fill ridges primarily? Do you something with extra strength? (note: I love this one and use it constantly but it does contain acrylates, if you’re allergic to that just fyi) Maybe something to conceal a little bit of discoloration? Asking these questions will help you decide what you’re in the market for. Next, use a high-quality polish with good coverage (none of that streaky stuff!), finish with a quick-drying shiny topcoat (this is the one I use, but this one is also super highly recommended by some of the best) and you’re good to go!
For this particular mani, after prepping my clean nails, I used the following colors:
- Ella Mila “Holiday Fling”
- Essie “You Know the Espadrille”
- Essie “Fishnet Stockings”
…and of course the I ON Nails hardener with garlic as the base + Dipology’s top coat. I also bought these gold foils from Amazon. They were super easy to apply! They’re very delicate, so I picked them up with some plyers and then pressed them in gently directly onto the polish (after giving it a minute or two), and before the topcoat. If you want your mani to last a good week with the gold foils intact, I’d suggest maybe two coats of topcoat for the foiled nails. Below is my finished mani!
What do you think? And what colors are you looking forward to this Fall? I love allll the cozy vibes so this mani is giving me life right now, hehe!
