I'm usually a china glaze chick, but the gel envy colours caught my eye in the chemist, and the idea of gel type longer lasting polish made me curious but quite low on my list of wants in a polish as I recolor my nails frequently. I ended up buying the shade showtime along with the top coat. The advertising gives the impression that you need the top coat to go with the nail polish as a 2 step system, but the reality is that while it gives it strength and shine you can wear the nail polish without it. I really don't think its particularly long lasting although it does last longer than standard polish. My actual love about the polish is how vivid and shiny the colours are.. I own 3 colours in this range. The showtime is purple with tiny blue glitter in it, All In which is a lighter peacock metallic colour and Blackjack which is black.
I'll continue to buy them when I see them on special, but I don't think that they are worth the RRP of $20 each. The 3 colours plus the top coat I own were purchased from unichem on a buy one, get one free special. In saying that, they have some truly gorgeous colours and I'd probably repurchase Showtime at full price as its my fav colour.
In all honesty I only brought these after I tried the other gel nail enamel on the NZ market, seeing that the Revlon version has more colour variety to its range I wanted to like them as much if not more than the other I had tried.
Picking up the compulsory top coat that you need to seal the base colours, along with Winning Streak (Lilac/purple) and High Stakes (Emerald green) I tidied up and prepped my nails apply 2 coats, letting each coat dry fully then topped this off with the top coat. Winning Streak being a pale colour needed 3 coats to be honest and on the second time I re did my nails I made sure I did at least 3 and then a nice solid pastel purple was achieved, High Stakes was solid on just 2 coats.
Application was easy; the brush is a good size to allow the 3 strikes rule without smudging all over your fingers or missing the edges of the nail. The formula is a little thicker than normal enamels and it is very easy to blob so you need to breathe and go slow, no overloading of the brush to get an even coat as it will just create a lumpy finish. Dry time is very fast between coats which is an added bonus with the top coat taking only about 1 minutes to be fully set.
Durability, well..........they did last longer than their competitor however still not the full 11 days as promoted. I did however manage to keep them all nails unmarked, or scuffed for a full 6 days which is a new record for me so would recommend them. With the colour choice available to the NZ market being quite a range I think I will be investing in some more of these as although they don’t live up to the 11 days they do give me longer than normal life of enamels, a super high glossy shine that doesn’t fade until you take them off and also I love the texture of a gel that this enamel provides.