Super Gloss - EpicNail Aqua Addiction Shellac polish

I introduced the EpicNail Summertime Shellac Starter Kit in last week's post and tried it out a couple days ago. So, how did my experiments go? Being a complete n00b to using shellac and curing lamps, I had no idea what to expect! Luckily, it was super easy and everything turned out better than expected... ;)

I have to say, one of the awesome things is the funky space age feeling of sticking your fingers into glowy blue light.... !!

So... when you plug the LED lamp in, it comes on immediately with a beep. The light button on the left side should not be lit up when the lamp is first plugged in but I took this photo while my hand was in there... =p The timer always begins set to 60 seconds but pressing the (+) button on the right increases it to whatever time you'd need.

Here I've pressed the (+) button once to increase the time to 90 seconds which is what I'll need to cure the polish using this LED lamp.

Stick your fingers in once you're ready and a sensor in the middle will detect this and turn the LEDs on automatically. The timer will NOT start though until you hit the light button on the left side, after which it beeps and begins counting down. Once it hits 0, the lamp will beep again and the lights will automatically turn off after 2-3 seconds.

[1 coat: EpicNail Shellac Base Coat]

So, as described in the instructions, I cleaned my nails with acetone and started off with a layer of base coat. Be warned that the base coat has a pretty strong smell, sort of like epoxy, so make sure you work in a well-ventilated area. The other polishes don't have much of a smell though, phew!

I had no problems doing a thin even coat on each nail. The photo above shows the polish after curing for 90 seconds. I'm using diffuse lighting so you can't see it quite well, but it is amazingly shiny after curing!

[1 coat: EpicNail Aqua Addiction Shellac Polish]

I then chose one colour for my 2-week wear test - Aqua Addiction, a lovely minty shade that reminds me of Tiffany blue. This is one thin coat, cured again for 90 seconds (except for two coats on my middle finger because I almost forgot to take a photo before starting the next coat...). The polish was easy to apply evenly and cured to a lovely glossy finish.

[2 coats: EpicNail Aqua Addiction Shellac Polish]

The great thing is after the 90 seconds of curing, you're ready to put on the next coat immediately! So this photo above is after two coats, cured. Nicely opaque for the most part but there are some barely noticeable patches where its a bit thinner. You could do a third coat as well but I decided not to.

[2 coats: EpicNail Aqua Addiction Shellac Polish]

I then popped on the topcoat and cured that for another 90 seconds. As described in the instructions, the topcoat has tacky residue after curing which easily wipes off with an isopropyl alcohol wipe.

I was pretty impressed by this stage as you can apply as much pressure cleaning it, and everything is still perfect and glossy! I even used my nails to score the surface AS HARD AS I COULD, right after curing the final layer and nothing, nada! Perfect glossy gel finish.

[Bottle to Nail: EpicNail Aqua Addiction Shellac Polish (2 coats)]

Here's the finished mani - pretty close to the provided swatch, eh! It's been a couple of days since I've done this mani and it still looks as good as when I first did it, and I work with my hands a lot at work! Can't stop touching my nails - they're so smooth!

I'll be back soon with the results of my wear test as well as photos of the other shades available in this kit so stay tuned!! =)