What do you do when you can't pick at your cuticle?

Pick at your nail polish!  Although I actually did a pretty good job at holding off on that today, too.  I can't say that I have been 100% pick-free since my last post, but I've avoided doing anything that might be categorized as self-mutilation, so yay me!  My hands are in pretty good shape right now.  I started off this mission with my fingers in what I would consider "manicurable" shape.  That is to say, I wouldn't be too embarrassed or scared of infection to go to a nail salon right now.  There have been many times I might have wanted to get a manicure just for the fun of it or for some sort of occassion, but I really didn't feel like I had any business doing so.  There have been times when I shouldn't have gone, but did anyway and just put up with the "tsk tsk tsk" (or its Vietnamese equivalent) of the lady with the cuticle clippers.

Right now I don't have to go get a manicure, though, because I just got six new polishes from Zoya!  I'll be showing off some of those in the future, but today I wanted to show the results of an experiment in topcoats that I just performed yesterday.

Why am I showing off a crappy manicure?  To demonstrate a crappy topcoat.  (You might also ask why I'm showing off a crappy picture.  That's just cause I'm too lazy to have gone out in sunlight to take pictures.)  In truth, the topcoat may not be so crappy, but I'm going to be testing that more with other polishes. 

See, I'd read where most of the nail bloggers tend to use a product called Seche Vite.  Every blog I read, "This is two coats of blahblah and one coat of Seche Vite."  Everywhere.  Unfortunately, I also read where the chemicals in Seche Vite do not play well with the chemicals (or lack thereof) in Zoya polishes.  Did you ever wonder about those people who have to touch where it says "Wet Paint" just to see if it's really true?  Yeah, I bought the $8 bottle of Seche Vite topcoat just to see if it really screwed with Zoya polish.  It chipped that much in just less than a day.

See how it's not only chipped, but trying to peel away from the nail bed?  Indeed, after I took this pic, I was able to peel the polish away from my index finger in one piece.  Not good.

Zoya did not do this when I painted it over the weekend and sealed it with Sally Hansen Insta Dri clear.  But what I will say for Seche Vite is that it dried likethat.  I've never seen any polish harden so quickly.  I'm eager to see if it will be useful on non-Zoya polishes.

Color:  Zoya Crystal