Shellac Luxe Final Take

A little late with the review, but it's finally been two weeks with my first application of Shellac Luxe. Here is the final results after two weeks of acetone, dishes, deep cleaning, and general life:

My non-dominant hand. Looks pretty good actually!

My left hand's thumb. One chip in the corner.

As you can see, there was only one tiny little chip on my pointer finger and a chip on the thumb nail (the pinky, not pictured, didn't have any chipping at all either). My work hand, on the other hand... well, it looked a little worse for the ware.

The pinky looks fine. The other nails, however, all ended up breaking underneath the soft gel polish and the gel polish ended up peeling away at the free edge from doing dishes and using household cleaners (I cleaned my bathtub and forgot my gloves, oops!).

The gel polish took longer than the advertised one minute to remove. Not considerably longer, perhaps three minutes of soaking. This could be due to the glitter in the polish though, as we're all familiar with how annoying glitter can be to get off! It also required a bit more scrubbing than they made it out to need. When soaking a thin layer of the gel polish wouldn't flake off and became almost gummy in nature. It required a little bit of pushing and some scrubbing with acetone. Still, not too bad of a removal process.

So, here is my overall assessment:

Longevity 8/10

If used properly the gel polish lasted the full two weeks before it began to chip. The base of the polish didn't peel at all, and it only chipped in two areas on the hand that didn't get the rough treatment.

Durability 1/10

This is NOT a strong product. The gel is very soft so the nail underneath it bends quite easily. Additionally, the capped edge gets worn away almost immediately. Luxe is also very, VERY sensitive to acetone and household cleaning agents. I forgot to wear gloves cleaning my bathroom for five minutes and a good portion of the polish on my right hand began to peel up.

Removal 7/10

Maybe my removal process would have been faster with a lighter color that didn't have glitter, who knows. The process WAS pretty quick but not nearly as quick as the directions claimed.

Shine 9/10

The polish stayed nice and shiny aside from a few areas where chemicals were dripped on it. Again, this product is very sensitive to household cleaners and polish removers.

Strength 4/10

I can't say this enough-this product is VERY soft. If you're looking for a gel polish for weak and thin nails this isn't it. It didn't feel like my nails had anything on at all and they were extremely bendy.

Overall Rating 7/10

This product actually surprised me with how well it lasted on my non-dominant hand. Its predecessor, Shellac, peeled off of me within days. There wasn't any peeling with this product. However, it's so soft and bendy and so easily permeated by acetone or cleaners... I can't see this product working for a large number of people-people who don't wear gloves cleaning, people exposed to solvents, people with thin natural nails.

Obviously, its made to be easily penetrated by acetone, so there isn't much to say about that. But I think Shellac went a little too far over into easy removal and made something that won't work for a lot of regular, every day people.

This is a great option for a specific group of people: those who have office jobs, don't do a lot of cleaning around the house, will ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES, or people with sturdy natural nails. For everyone else, I'd recommend a solid pass.

Have a gorgeous day!

Amanda