Revlon ColorStay Gel Envy

I’ve been seeing ads and commercials for Revlon’s ColorStay Gel Envy collection everywhere for months and finally bought it last weekend. The concept of the collection is that it’s supposed to give you a salon-quality manicure at home. Honestly, my feelings are a mixed bag.

I’ll start with the good news because I like being optimistic.

The Gel Envy polish real does give you a lovely and vibrant color, and there are 38 shades for you to choose from. Not too shabby, right? There are few things that I love more than pink nails, so I went with “Royal Flush.” It’s a rich pinky-red with maybe a bit of fuchsia to giving it a bit of sass. I really loved and maybe have just found my vacation nail color!

I found the application super easy. The Gel Envy process has two-steps, the base + color coat and the Diamond Top Coat. The base + color coat is a thick, opaque formula, so I only needed one coat. And even with the one, my nails had a gorgeous, rich color to them. The Diamond Top Coat was just as effortless, and I’ve honestly never seen a top coat dry so fast! And the system has no UV component, which saves everyone some time and money.

Lastly, my nails did feel harder and stronger while wearing the polish.

And now for the bad news…

This is another one of those gel-like nail polish systems that promises long-wear and a high gloss shine. It did give a nice enough shine, but I wouldn’t call it long-lasting. It didn’t chip per se, but by Day 2 I was already seeing some tip-wear on multiple fingers. It hadn’t even been 48 hours and I felt like I needed a touch-up. I wasn’t impressed. To its credit though, it’s Day 5 and there isn’t any flaking or major chipping going on yet.

The price is a bit of a turn-off too, at least initially. You need to buy both the base + color coat and the Diamond Top Coat, and each bottle is about $7.99 a pop. They do sell “starter kits” that have one bottle of color and one of the top coat, and that seems to be the way to go in order to save a few dollars for us penny pinchers.

Lastly, the thought the Diamond Top Coat had a funny smell, stranger even than other polishes I’ve tried over the years. Thankfully, since this system dries quickly the smell doesn’t linger.

The truth is that this is not a gel manicure. It’s gel-like so the results aren’t going to be the same. So, there are some pros and cons about the system, but I really do love the lush colors. And now that I have the Diamond Top Coat, I might try experimenting with other shades to see if they last a bit longer. The tip-wear did sour me a bit though, not going to lie.

Has anyone else tried ColorStay Gel Envy? What did you think about it?

*This post is not in collaboration with Maybelline, and the opinions are my own.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Review

As much as I would love to spend $8 on a bottle of OPI or Essie, sometimes that price tag is too rich for my student loan-burdened bank account. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m almost exclusively a drugstore cosmetics sort of gal at this point in my life. But just because I want bargain prices doesn’t mean I want nail polishes that chip the next day or need a million coats to look opaque. I've found that Sally Hansen Insta-Dri line is a great alternative to designer polishes.

For $3.99, you get a thick, long-lasting nail polish and a large selection of colors to choose from. Depending on the color, one coat will usually do the trick, and it goes on smoothly and evenly. The “Perfectionist Brush” is wider than the average brush and has contoured edges for easy application. 

Now, I will say that the name is a bit of a misnomer. The nail polishes don’t dry instantly (I wish!), and they don’t dry in 60 seconds either.  The dry time is still faster than most drugstore nail polishes I’ve tried though. I do still use a quick dry coat to speed up the process, but that’s only because someone has a tendency to smudge her nails…

A couple of weekend’s ago I bought two new Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes for my collection.  Show Steel-er is a light gray with a slight blue tint to it (from certain angles it even looks a bit like powder blue).  It seemed like a perfect winter color to me and certainly matched the New York uniform (black, white, and gray). I can’t lie, I’ve been obsessed with this color since I bought it.  

The other shade, Expresso, is a rich mauve. It’s a deep enough shade to work as winter color but I think the berry hue could work for the spring too. I like that it’s on the more subdued side without appearing too neutral.

My Sally Hansen manicures usually last about a week without chipping and with minimal tip-wear, but the darker colors don't seem to last quite as long as the lighter shades (as was the case with Show Steel-er versus Expresso), not sure why.  Still, Sally Hansen provide smooth, vibrant coverage that really can't be beat for the price.