Lessons From the Looney Bin- Lesson Three.

Lesson Three: Visible Nail Line No More! 

A lot of us polish people really hate Visible nail line or VNL.  I'm guessing we all hate it for different reasons. My reason is that I have super short nail beds. Like TINY nail beds, because I am a reformed biter. I think most of us just totally avoid polishes that we know will show VNL altogether. This totally sucks because ya'll are missing out on some killer polishes!  I'm not missing out though because I'm a rebel and I just wear sheers anyway and tell the world to eff off.  But recently this plan was thwarted by horrific stains that now keep me from wearing ANYTHING sheer, ever.

That is, my stains kept me from wearing anything sheer until I tried this.  This is the simple trick I use to hide my stains and VNL so that I can wear whatever I want, playa.  For this you're going to need to find yourself a nude polish that matches your nail beds as CLOSE as possible.  This polish also needs to be mostly opaque in ONE COAT.  It's gonna take some trial and a lot of errors but it's worth it.  Since I cannot even follow my own freakin rules I am using Orly Country club khaki with a thin coat of Misa high waist Hue over it.  I'm SUPER fair skinned so it's really hard to find a matching shade. Another good nude for fair skin is China Glaze great barrier beige.

Paint your nails in your opaque nude shade and let it completely dry.  Normally I would not let my polish dry before adding a second coat but this is different.  Once this is dry we are going to treat this just like we would our bare nail.  Yeah, there isn't a whole lot to this trick people.

Now, we apply our sheer polish or any other polish that normally would have shown VNL.  Because we chose a nude shade that matches our nail bed, the color of the polish we apply should not be altered in any way.  This trick also allows for more coverage in less coats, bonus! There are basically 3 types of polishes that give the worst VNL.  Jellies, glitters, and sheers.  Here are some before and after photos of these 3 types of polish with and without our opaque nude base coat.

Here is 4 coats of a sheer polish. Nail glossies 221 on my bare nails. Notice how you can clearly see my nail beds.  

This is only 3 coats of the same polish over our nude shade!  No VNL, no stains.  Awesome!  You can clearly see why we needed a nude polish that is opaque in one coat.  If we have to apply 2 or 3 to get the nude to be opaque then our final result is going to be chunky, way too thick and totally unnatural looking.

GAH!  Here is 3 coats of a glitter on my bare nails.  China Glaze Atlantis.  Would you look at the GROSSNESS.  Stains showing through, and really bad VNL.

Here we have Atlantis with only 2 coats over our nude polish. Much better! This needed a topcoat, but most glitters do.

Now for a Jelly.  EEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!! I cannot believe I'm posting this!  This is 4 whopping coats of Lippmann Rehab.  HOLY STAINS BATMAN.  I am taking one for the team to help you out here people!

Ok, *whew* this is only 3 coats of Rehab over our opaque nude.  Do I even need to comment on how much better this is?  I can't see a visible nail line, can you?

Layers

Let's not sugar coat things ladies.  Well, let me rephrase that.  I'm not going to sugar coat ANYTHING.  But you can sugar coat to your hearts desire.  Deal?  With that out of the way, layering polish totally pisses me off.

I freaking HATE polishes that require layering.  You know the ones. They look freaking SWEET in the bottle but are totally sheer and worthless unless YOU make the extra effort to layer them over another polish.  GAH!  What a slap in the face huh?  "Here is some polish that looks pretty in the bottle but WE aren't going to make it wearable, YOU figure it out, sucker." 

And what's the deal with the streaking?  These things seem like they have a top secret, high tech, government created, pro-streak serum added to them.  Most likely the same serum they put on the back of the impossible to remove, advertisement stickers that manufacturers like to slap on the front of brand new TVs.   Maybe buying that junk is the reason they couldn't afford to properly pigment the polish.  With all the money these polish companies save on pigments by forcing us to layer on our own coin why can't they just be halfway decent and place the word "TOPCOAT" on the freaking bottle?

Now I am NOT talking about polishes that are clearly meant to be layered.  Like Orly prisma gloss, sheer glitters, Holo topcoats etc. I am actually BFFs with this type of polishes. They help change up boring manis, hide smudges and pump up the wow factor on your nails.  I also have no beef with sheer jellies or glitter jellies that are buildable.

Honestly I haven't ever worn one of the above mentioned layering polishes aside from two circumstances.1) To take a photo. 2) This retarded thing I do- If anyone is looking at my polishes I'll run over, overcome with excitement and grab one of them to show the person how it changes when layered over black. I'll even talk about how cool it is, "look how it changes, WOW isn’t it awesome?" even though I absolutely HATE them. For this behavior I have no explanation.

So, for those of you that like layering I have swatched some of the "coolest" ones for you. These are all done over a single coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black.  If you haven't gotten this perfect one coat black yet I highly advise you do so ASAP!

Pink based duochrome.  Flashes from blue to purple to hot pink when layered over black as shown.  This is the least streaky of the polishes I swatched today. 1 coat.

This flashes from an electric blue, almost teal to the white base color.  Since we layed it over black and the base is sheer it basically flashes from blue to black.  2 coats because it's a streak-FEST.

Super awesome purple to green duochrome.  A total waste of an awesome polish unless you layer it.  This is 1 coat.

This one flashes from royal blue to pink when layered over black. 1 coat.

  

Now, here is my favorite polish that is MEANT to be layered. Orly Prisma Gloss in Gold. The reason this polish is so awesome is that the holo micro glitter settles at the bottom. So, when you shake it up you can control how glittery your mani will be. A light shake will give you sparse glitter like the night sky, my personal favorite.  And a lot of shaking will give you super dense glitter almost like a holo topcoat.  I LOVE it!  Now I don't have to mix up clear polish with a drop of glitter polish in a bottle cap to get sparse glitter!

This is my favorite way to wear Prisma Gloss. Two quick shakes for a really sparse glitter application that is subtle and gorgeous.

This is Prisma Gloss totally shaken up. It transforms into basically a holo topcoat. You can't really see the "holo" here but it is SUPER holographic. This has replaced all my other holo topcoats as my favorite. It is incredibly vibrant and dries super fast without the addition of a quick dry topcoat.
 1 coat!