Last week I popped in Winners to kill some time before a meeting. Seriously, I was an hour early. There's something to be said for being just a head of schedule, but it would have been an inconvenience to the person I was meeting with to show up a whole hour early. Any excuse to shop, right?
You can read about my trip to Winners here. I ended up picking up two Essie base coast for $5.99 each. I wanted to just get one, but I couldn't figure out which one was a better for for me.
I have been trying my Julep base coat with my Essie polishes but I keep on getting chips long before I should. I have a theory that its best to use the same brand of base/polish/top because generally they are formulated to work together.
Essie Protein Base Coat
Protect + helps strengthen
This base coat dries semi-matte similar to the new Julep base coat.
Essie Ridge Filling Base Coat
Smooth + Resurface
I actually thought I had mistakenly picked up Essie Ballet Flats (my favourite French-mani pink) when I saw this translucent baby pink product. This dries with more shine than the Protein base coat.
I painted one hand with each base coat and then applied two coats of my favourite Essie polish, Ladylike. I decided not to use a topcoat because I wanted to see how good these base coats were, and more importantly, which one worked better.
I painted my nails on Monday night. Both hands were perfect until Friday morning when I noticed a small chip on the Ridge Filling base coat hand. By mid-day both hands had some chips, and that evening I removed my polish.
I found I preferred the Protein base coat purely based on how much easier it was to apply, and how much easier it was to apply polish on top. However, both products have similar staying power, and of course with a top coat would last even longer.
I think I will keep my Protein base in my manicure box, and leave the Ridge Filling base at my boyfriends. Both are great products, and for $5.99 you can't go wrong!
Do you have a favourite base coat?
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