Sensationail Polish to Gel Review

So I’m a tad obsessed with nail polish. And when I say obsessed I mean that when I moved into my house they took over a whole room whilst I organised storage for them all. Honestly. I think I have every shade you could ever need for any occasion. So as you can imagine I love painting my nails. But I get so annoyed when they chip all the time! I guess nail polish doesn’t really fit in well with being an early years teacher when I’m forever washing my hands, covered in paint and picking glue out of things. Sometimes, mainly for special occasions, I have gel nails done professionally. I love how shiny and pretty they look and most importantly how long they last and don’t chip! But this isn’t something I can maintain so I needed another option. After some research and talking to friends I discovered Sensationail. They claim that their starter kits give you everything that you need for salon quality nail manicures in the comfort of your own home so I was eager to give them a go! 

So there’s lots of different variations of the starter kit – mostly offering different coloured gel nail polishes such as raspberry wine, scarlett red and pink chiffon. However I discovered that there was a set that allowed you to use your own nail polish that you could then turn into gel. This was perfect for me with my immense collection so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it! I picked it up from Boots and like most of the other kits it was £49.99. It is available here on the Boots website. Other retailers also stock it and Sensationail have a website where you can also buy it.

So as soon as I could I wanted to get started! I decided on the colour polish I wanted to use and emptied the box. This was what was inside: 

So my kit contained: 

• Gel cleanser (14.6 ml)
• Gel primer (3.54 ml)
• Polish to get transformer (7.39 ml)
• Pro LED lamp with USB lead and mains adapter 
• 12 lint free wipes 
• Mixing pot
• Double sided nail buffer manicure stick 

I followed the instructions given inside the box which were pretty straightforward. The basis of this kit is mixing your own polish with the gel transformer, painting your nails, sticking them under the lamp and then sealing them with the gel before getting them under the lamp one last time. The kit also contains bits you’ll need before you get started and once you’re done such as the manicure stick and cleanser. One thing I will say about the kit, it suggests using 6 drops of nail polish and 6 drops of the transformer gel for each hand. However I found that this was too much. It’s just a case of trial and error really, depending on how thick you like the polish and the size of your nails. 

And I was so pleased with the results! Whilst my own nail painting skills leave a lot to be desired, I love how my nails actually looked like gel nails! And they lasted really long too, a similar length to if I had them done at the salon. 

This was the colour I used and here are the results: 

Apologies for the wierd angle but I loved how they matched my pretty floral dress! You can see how shiny they are particularly from my thumb. 

There’s also another option to paint your nails using your polish and just doing a top coat using the gel transformer. Personally I didn’t like it so much as the previous way and it didn’t last as long. It just depends what you find easiest and prefer I guess! 

When it came to getting the gel off my nails it was actually quite tricky which shows they’d done well! I ended up ordering a kit of the internet that allows you to soak them off but there are plenty of different products on the market that help with this. Just make sure you look after your lovely nails 🙂 

So overall I really like this product!  Although it may seem a little pricey at a snip under £50, if you’re willing to have your nails done in a salon normally, it would only take a couple of trips before you’ve spent this much any way! Plus it’s nice to be able to chill at home in your pjs with a glass of wine and pamper yourself with a manicure! It’s really simple and straightforward to use, I mean if I can do it, anyone can! 

So what do you think? Have you tried this kit before or any of the other Sensationail products? Let me know in the comments! 

Until next time…

Jean xoxo