Update: China Glaze Fortune Teller

I did this manicure twice this week. The first one has been previously posted. Because of the extra effort I put into that one, it did not last. At all. I used Essie's Matte About You over it and I'm not saying it's a crappy matte-er but it sure did me no favors.

This is the first and second day combined. I have a bad habit of forgetting to take photos before I do touch ups. That inset right in the middle is my left pointer finger. That chip and the thumbnail that the arrow is pointing to on the same hand (zoom in, you'll see where it is) happened on the very first day. The larger picture is the end of the second day. It gets so much worse.

That is at the end of three days. THREE DAYS and it looks that bad. There's no cobbling that back together, that's either live with it til the next mani or do a new one now.  I love this polish though so I was not ready to give up on it. As I looked more closely at all the places where I had problems I realized that 95% of them were on the matte areas. Look again, you'll see what I mean. There are a few in the shine here and there but nowhere near the amount in the matte. I stripped it off (taking a dive into the chinese finger soakers, which I will post about shortly) and redid it all shine. No matte this time.

Pretty much the same you saw before. And then since it was the first sunny day I've had since I started taking pics for this joint:

I grabbed my first direct sun shot! Woohoo! Immediately after I took this picture the sun went back into hiding. lol

That was what I ran around with for the rest of the week. I took no extra care with it, I treated it the same way I do everything else and here's the end result:

Lookit that. The exact opposite. Tip wear, something strange going on with the tip of the right thumbnail, but that's it after three days. That's pretty awesome to me.

It had to be the Essie matte. I don't know what about that makes it chip and peel so much. It had seche vite underneath, I did nothing else different to those parts of the mani. Something about the matte killed it. I'm wondering if it's the Essie one specifically or all matte finishers in general. I don't have another one to try out yet; Orly's is on my list so if I ever pick it up I'll revisit this issue. Until then, as much as I loveheart<3adore the matte look, I will probably not try it again unless I plan on removing it a day or two later.

Now to remove it for the second time, which will be my next post and my (probable) last visit to the chinese finger soakers debate.

Jess