Beauty

[bella-luna]

Knit - Thanks for the compliments! Girl, I'm right there with ya having a big ol' sweet tooth! I'm not really a very good cook, so I'm pretty easily intimidated when it comes to being in the kitchen! You know, off the top of my head, I love Zoya's Ginessa, China Glaze White Cap (which is probably more of a topper...) and Wet n Wild Break the Ice.

[Knit-Chick]

thanks for the suggestions, bella! I'll check those out

[Safre]

Snow Owl-Thank you so much for all of the great info and recs. I really appreciate you taking the time to help a "nail polish novice" like myself. I am definetly going to check out the Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy...and you mentioned polish strips...I will definetly give that a try too!!

Juperier-I use Lippman Hard Rock as a base and Need for Speed (something like that!) as a top coat so I am hoping it will work well with drugstore polishes. And for a $2 bottle of polish, I can afford to experiment without breaking the bank!

Knit Chick-I've got some Wet-n-Wild colors on my list so I'm glad you like the brand

Bella-Luna-I didn't know Revlon had Chanel dupes!! Thanks for the heads up!! And thanks for the recs for a frosty white polish...

Seriously...this is the nicest thread...You are all so kind and helpful! And friendly!!

[bella-luna]

Knit - I just realized you asked for frosty whites, not shimmery whites! Sorry about that!! I don't think I own any frosty white polishes at the moment, but I used to have an OPI called Kyoto Pearl which might be along the lines of what you're looking for.

Safre - I'm so glad we've been able to help you! We have a great group and (I'm sure I can speak for everyone when I say) we are so glad that you found us!

Today I'm wearing a gorgeous orange from Colour Prevails; this is 3 coats of Crank Call.

[customerqvc2]

I love the Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy polish in Wild Card. After about half the bottle is used, the polish gets thick. I have tried using Nailtiques thinner to thin it and it does. The problem is that after the thinning, the polish chips after two days on my nails. Usually, it stays on about a week without chips. Does anybody have any better ideas of what to use to thin the polish? I will toss this bottle and use a fresh one, but I would like to be able to use up most (if not all) of future bottles.

[Safre]

I've used Beauty Secrets nail polish thinner from Sally Beauty Supply. Works pretty well for me.

[juperier]

customer - I would use regular polish thinner. There are many out there, including Beauty Secrets as Safre mentioned. The Nailtiques thinner is specifically formulated for Nailtiques treatments. It's possible that the protein and keratin it contains are related to the chipping. I see that it also contains toluene, which shouldn't hurt, but isn't needed for most of the polishes out there today. The one thing never to use is acetone.

Personally, I use OPI thinner for my polishes, Seche Restore for my Seche Vite (and any other topcoats/polishes that contain toluene), and Nailtiques Formula Fix for my Nailtiques treatments.

[customerqvc2]

Thank you so much for the help with my polish thinner issues! I am off to get the thinners that you mentioned for my various polish needs. I knew somebody had an answer for this issue and I am so glad that you both took the time to answer my question.

[bella-luna]

customer - I've only ever used the Beauty Secrets thinner from Sally's and as Safre said, it always seems to get the job done! That said, what jup said makes perfect sense! I hope you find what you need!

After getting two whole days of wear from the Colour Prevails polish, I decided to go with another one from that line: Glossy Posse. It was patchy on the first coat, as most whites are, but smoothed out nicely on the second coat.

[juperier]

bella - I read about why you need to use the Seche Restore on a blog that was explaining why some were unsuccessful at thinning SV with regular polish thinner. I purchased a kit that contained Nailtiques 2 and Formula Fix. When I checked the ingredients before commenting on this thread, I discovered that the FF ingredients included hydrolized protein and hydrolized keratin. The idea is to replace the solvents that have evaporated. I wouldn't think that protein and keratin would evaporate, so I don't understand why they would need to be in the thinner, but oh, well.

I haven't kept track of what polishes I've worn recently, but several of them were neons. My two newest collections were the Boardwalk collection from Virago Varnish (amazing formulas for neons, as usual) and the neons from the KB Shimmer Summer 2015 collection. I also picked up six of the other KB Shimmer Summer 2015 polishes as a lot on Ebay. Since most of them were colors I wanted, I couldn't resist. Those six are What Are You Wading For? (which I'm currently wearing), Home Surf, Pink-A-Colada, Vitamin Sea, Shell Shock and Dust in the Bottle.

Just for the heck of it, I lined up all the swatch sticks for the polishes in the above two neon collections and the Electric Nights collection from China Glaze. The three collections compliment each other really well and I wouldn't say there are any exact dupes (tho a couple are close enough that one doesn't need both unless they're an insane collector like I am).