You’ll have to excuse the chips on my mani (it’s on its sixth day, which I think is pretty good) but in order to show that the top coat cracking is actually real, I couldn’t tidy it up.
I actually initially blamed this cracking on Kure Bazaar (I’m sorry, KB!!) but it was flagged up to me on Twitter that several people on the Nails Inc Facebook page have complained that it cracks. And it does.. you can see some dark looking lines going across the nail; I haven’t seen anything like it before.
So, while I gave the Kensington Caviar Gel Effect Plumping Top Coat a BBB Recommends Award, I’m afraid I have to take it back because it’s not acceptable for a £12 top coat to behave this way. Looking around on the internet to see if other polishes behave this way, it seems that it’s an unusual thing – often people talk about cracking but mean that it peels or chips, doesn’t actually crack on the nail.
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I’ve asked several nail experts why it could be that it cracks like this – the universal answer seems to be a blip in the formulation (you need to put a lot of effort into a formula like this, and it appears that it’s maybe not enough this time), but coating it thinner might prevent it from happening.
PS: from comments on Twitter and on here, the gel-ish top coats seem to be a problem in general.. which makes me think that if the original product is private labelled, then it is entirely possible that it is all exactly the same formula from exactly the same supplier (i.e. they are all buying the formula from the same place and re-labelling as their own).
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11 comments
Hello,
I have found out that the Kiko gel look top coat also crack the polish of my nails, and in the second day.
I have a Sally Hansen top coat that does the exact same thing. I was so excited about this top coat after your last post too! Well I guess this saves my bank account!
i’ve found that with one of my sally hansen ones, too. i think it’s something to do with the shine…it seems the specialist topcoats known fir exceptional high gloss shine have the tendency to crack.
Phew, saved me £12 thank you. Shame it cracked th gloss looked brilliant on it.
Yikes, thank you so much for letting us know :O
The Revlon Gel-Like Nails topcoat cracks after a couple of days too. It’s a shame because it’s also a nice topcoat apart from that. Maybe it’s something to do with the formula they need to give the gel-like effect?
Last time I tried to talk about Private Relabelling someone tried to get me into trouble but it’s a big thing and really popular. It can be really frustrating once you source the original (often the cheapest).
xo
Sara
Please can you do a post on private relabelling. For those of us not in the know, it would be so interesting!
Hello, Sarah Bacchus here, It looks like the top coat is fine, the polish under is the problem, was it dry before the top coat was applied. This can happen if the colour is applied a bit too thick.
I’ve had the same problem mine cracks too even if I’ve left the nail polish to dry over night they still crack its deifinatly the gel effect topcoat that cracks not the colour polish x
Gel polish is alcohol based and unlike lacquer polish is porous and can absorb anything. So for instance if you took a hot shower then applied a product such as cream, tan cream, hair product, hand sanitize and the worst is bug spray, your nails will crack. Nails expand when warm and moist then shrinks back and in combination of a alcohol product touching the nail polish you get cracking. That’s why you see so many products listed as a cracker.