*Insert "getting shellacked" joke here*

I did it! I finally broke down and returned back to the nail salon, which is exactly what the fine people of CND wanted when the created the miracle Shellac, isn't it?

I'm going to be honest - I am not a nail salon kind of girl. With a passion for polish like mine you'd think that I would love those havens of hand massages and racks of color, but alas, no. Instead of being a treat, I tend to associate those places with strangely shaped nails and gooey polish and I rely on my own at-home manicures which I think are very nice, thankyouverymuch. Also, I like to humor myself and think that I am saving myself money by staying out of the salon, which then means I can buy more polish. It's a viscous cycle.

So anyway, enter the CND Shellac. I couldn't do it myself, so I found myself in a shwanky salon with incredibly comfortable chairs and lovely workers that kept offering me water. You know how it works, so I'll just show you the fairly awful photo that I took a few days after my manicure. Here's my CND Fedora manicure -


I know, bad photo, right? Right after I received my manicure, I left for an artist residency and proceeded to beat the hell out of it for a week and only stopped to take a photo after several days of work, so I apologize for the crapola image. Here are my thoughts on the Shellac in no particular order:

• I got a hell of an awesome manicure, I have to admit. I don't know if it was because the manicurist had to be trained to a certain degree in order to be able to do my mani or what, but it was killer. Nice job, Mandy!
• The color selection was totally limited - I know, old news. Here's the thing, though - CND is all about claiming that you can layer colors to make bold and bright versions, right? Yeah, not so much. When I popped this idea on Mandy, she made me a little sample of the colors I wanted (Fedora with a coat of Tutti Frutti in order to get a shocking blue) and what came out was a color that looked like brown with a coat of pink on it. I ended up just opting for Fedora.
  
• The wear was pretty darn good, because I was not being coy when I said I beat the hell out of it. We're talking hands-in-water-for-hours followed by lots of picking at stickers and occasional power tools. HELL.
  
• shiny, shiny shiny! This polish retained its shiny quality until the moment I took it off.

I enjoyed the Shellac, I really did, but I was a little disappointed in the wear of it. I really expected to have to chip this crap off, but it started coming off on its own after a week, and I have to tell you, I DID NOT have to do that with *gasp* the Sally Hansen Salon Effects stickers that I put through a similar hell a few weeks prior.

Speaking of taking it off, I'll be honest - I peeled it off. And I enjoyed it. My nails may not have enjoyed it, but I did.

In conclusion - good manicure, shiny, expensive, didn't wear as long as I would have liked it to. I'll pass on the Shellac for now and opt for stickers until I desperately need a manicure AND they come out with more colors. The end.

Happy day, all!