We have always considered gel nails, as when we have a nail break it impacts the size of our tiny canvases! We decided to take the plunge and try out Bio Sculpture Gel nails with Bio Sculpture Gel Canada - and we were super excited with the result!

Bio Sculpture Gel is the only gel to have a clinical trial and a five-star safety rating, and soak off without acetone! We wore these for two weeks before our impatience kicked it, but we think we could have stretched it one or two more weeks (if we didn't have polish ADD).

Bio Sculpture Gel has three different options for flexibility, and we went with Flexi gel - the medium option! The free edge gel was added to extend the natural nail, and after buffing we were left with gorgeous, completely natural looking nails! We were totally impressed... and if you want to see the 'before' shot, click here.

We then decided to go with a bright blue coloured gel shade from their Carnival trend collection - it's number 175, Havana Nights. After that, we topped the look off with some fun feathered nail art!

Check out the progression of our mani below, and let us know if you've tried out Bio Sculpture Gel!

Disclaimer: Some of the products or services mentioned in this post may have been provided by the company/PR in exchange for our honest review.

Butter London Patent-Gel Top and Tails Polish Set (retails for $40 at butterlondon.com)

We recently took a trip to London, and were super excited to try out two different no-cure gel base and top coat sets to see how they fared over 9 days of travel. Since a UV-cured gel manicure lasts around 14 days, we assumed that the no-cure alternative would make it around 9 with no major problems - We were wrong. While we did achieve a plush, gelly look for our mani, as perfectionists we were disappointed with the overall wear time.

Deborah Lippmann Gel Lab Base and Top Coat
48 hours

Butter London Patent-Gel Top and Tails
48 hours

We have used the Deborah Lippmann gel set before with 3-4 days of no-chip wear time, so we used that as a comparison on the left hand - see the picture to the left for this look after 48 hours compared to the butter London gel set after one day on the right. For colour, we used Misa Foggy Breath at 3AM. While the Deborah Lippmann set had more chips after 48 hours - you can still see a small chip on the pointer finger of the right hand.

After 4 days, both hands were too chipped to continuing wearing (especially if you hate chipped nails). Interestingly, the butter London top coat adds most of the thickness, while in the Deborah Lippman set it is the base coat which adds that thick gel look to your mani. Both polishes remained plush and gel like for the entire wear.

Overall, Butter London was the better set for resisting chips, however once it chipped the rest of the nail seemed to chip faster than with Deborah Lippmann. We recommend the Butter London set to anyone looking to perfect their nail look a day in advance of a major event without worry of chipping. It is also worth noting that we didn't avoid washing dishes or showering in the first day of wear, which can increase wear time!

Have you tried either of these sets in search of the gel look?


Dislcaimer: Some of these products may have been provided to us by the company/PR for our honest consideration and review.

Today we have something interesting on the blog - gel polish. As nail art lovers, we generally shy from anything that will stay on our nails longer than a few days. Who doesn't love to change it up? However, we have tried Shellac and Gelish systems for those times when you just need no-chip colour. We also use Shellac at home on our toes and it stays on for a few weeks problem-free. Gel polish can be a great base for nail art, since you can wipe off any mistakes with nail polish remover and maintain the perfect base!

We received two colours to review, Candy Apple and Raspberry Ice. Unfortunately, Raspberry Ice (which is a gorgeous sheer pink glitter) was a bit clumpy and wouldn't apply smoothly. It may have been exposed to light a bit or gotten a bit hard somehow… anyways we applied Candy Apple to test it out as a nail art base on our fingers.

The polish cures (like a regular gel polish), however you don't need any extra apparatus or items - all you need is the sun - which is free! The instructions say that it may take up to two minutes to cure - but we felt that ours cured in about a minute in high sunlight. The whole painting process took about fifteen minutes and it was totally dry at the end. We topped it off with a coat of the topcoat to ensure it stayed shiny. 

We tried a variety of looks on top of this red - and this is our favourite. We were a bit weary of removing it after but as long as you aren't using pure acetone (or a mostly acetone mix), you should be a-ok. We did feel like a bit of shine was lost when removing, but it still looks great. Overall - these polishes are a great base for nail art, however if you are obsessive about changing it up, these may not be for you. 

Since we do fall a bit on the obsessive polish-changer side, we opted to test the length of wear for these on our toes. Don't worry - there are no toe pictures coming, just some explaining! This polish wore perfectly for about a week and a half, and by two weeks there was definitely some tip wear and a few chips. By three weeks, almost every nail had visible chipping. That is pretty impressive wear for an at-home gel product. We are impressed! 

Let us know if you've tried Bio Seaweed Gel, or another gel product as a nail art base. If you're interested in Bio Seaweed Gel, you can use the code ILOVEBSG to get $10 off on their website http://bioseaweedgel.com. Happy polishing!