A Snowy Day with the Glue Method

If you follow the nail polish blogging world at all, you'll already know that a couple of months ago, everyone seemed to be talking about this method of applying glue to your nails as a basecoat before applying glitter polish. With one thing and another, I finally got around to trying this out for myself, and I really put it to the test: I used one of the hardest to remove glitter polishes I own, Custom Nail Art Blue Diamonds.

I wasn't happy just doing a single glitter manicure, so I applied 1 coat of Sally Hansen White Tip and then did a jelly sandwich using Sinful Colors Hottie and of course Blue Diamonds. Here's how it turned out.

First of all, I gotta say this combination of polishes is GORGEOUS. So far, the glue method worked pretty well. I think this would be a really great way to do a manicure if you just want to test things out, try out different combinations of polishes, etc. or if you just want to do a manicure for one night (assuming you're staying dry!)

As you can see, my nails are a little clumpy at this point, but that's only because I have like 10 layers of polish on. I think I'm definitely going to try this method again, since I can only use nail polish remover on my nails once a week.

This definitely isn't something you want to try if you're looking for a permanent manicure, but it is something to try at least once just to play around with. My only complaint is the dry time on the glue! Mine took forever to dry, so I took a blow dryer to it.

It's been about 2 days and this manicure is still on 6 of my nails; 1 I peeled off in the shower just within an hour of painting my nails... I suspect it wasn't dry enough and so it started peeling off on its own. 1 fell off while doing the dishes. The other 2 I peeled off after having my hands wet. So they definitely stick pretty well, overall.

The cool thing about this is, if you peel them off your nail while wet, the glue underneath is sometimes still a little sticky. I attached mine to a piece of paper so I can use that as a reference since I don't own any nail wheels at the moment.

Here you can see where I peeled my manicure off of my one nail. As you can see, the manicure underneath is for the most part in tact. It just had a wee little bit of the glued manicure on the tip. This did lift my Thanksgiving manicure off of my nails a little bit, but for the most part it was OK.

I've read some concerns about the glue possibly damaging your nails with this method. I used plain old regular Elmer's glue which is nontoxic. Also, because I applied it over an old manicure, the glue really didn't touch the surface of my nails at all so my nails are fine. I think I would recommend using at least a base coat if you're going to do this, regardless, just in case :)