So, I have this theory, right?
I think that, when people buy shit that is overpriced or overhyped, they have a tendency to be a little dishonest about how they feel about it. Or maybe not dishonest, per se, maybe more like ultra-hyperbolic about the couple things that are good, and just ignore the bad stuff. I think maybe people feel a little bad or guilty or stupid about buying stuff, then they wax poetic about it so they don't feel like they got taken, or at least so other people don't think they go around blowing money on garbage.
Anyway, I hate that shit. If it sucks, say it sucks. If you gambled with your money and it didn't work out, then maybe say something about it so maybe someone else won't do the same thing?? I don't know. All I know is that I have bought my own fair share of stuff that people just go on and on about, and had it suck so bad I wanted to die.
This might be an unpopular post, people, but today I am going to feed Seche Vite and Butter London nail polish to The Pig. I am gonna feed 'em both, cause they aren't expensive enough to be satisfying Pig posts on their own haha.
SECHE VITE
I. Fucking. Hate. Seche. Vite.
If you go online and read stuff about doing manicures, you will undoubtably see everyone and their uncle lining up to suck the Nutella out of Seche Vite's asshole. They just type and type about how great it is until their fingers are bloody stumps. I wouldn't be cheesed if it was actually awesome, but it's not.
It just isn't.
"Oh! You just don't know how to use it!" Shut the hell up. I know how to do my nails. I paint my nails 2-3 times a week. I do my own gel manicures. When I ate my fingers, I would do my own fake nails. Everything a person could do to their fingers, I have been doing for fucking ever.
I was in Baghdad when y'all were in your dad's bag.
When I do my nails, if I can't get at least 3-4 days out of a manicure with standard nail polish, I am not happy. I may change my nails before that, but I like to feel like I don't have to if I don't have time. I want to change them out of capriciousness, not because my shit is looking wack.
Just about every polish and topcoat combo I use, I can finagle 3-4 days of wear out of them, as long as I make sure my cuticles are freshly groomed and I wipe my nails down with isopropyl so the polish doesn't flake off from greasiness.
Every single time I have used Seche Vite, my nails look amazing when I get done. Then, the next day, I wake up and the polish on every single one of my nails has shrank. Not a little bit, like I am looking too hard and just need to get over it. It shrinks from the edge of my nail enough that you can see the free edge all the way across.
Like I said, people will be like "YOU DON'T USE IT RIGHT!! You need to make sure you cap your nail!" I cap my nails. I cap my base coat, my color coat, and my top coat. Every time, whether I use Seche Vite or not.
"You are applying it too thick!" Well, I am applying it as thinly as I can, seeing as it is a gloopy mess.
"You need to put some Seche Restore in it! That will thin it out so it is not gloopy!!" Does anyone else besides me see anything lame and stupid about making your customers buy a second product to fix your horrible formulation?
"You need to just put it on kinda thick when your polish is still wet!" This is the opposite of what that other person was just yelling, so it seems like maybe this crap only works if you do enough magic to it, and say enough prayers.
People are so freaking adamant about it, that I feel like there is something wrong with ME. So I keep trying. I keep trying and following whatever advice I heard most recently, and every time I wake up to a shrunken manicure, and I just rage out. I even tried not using it on regular manicures, and just using it as a topcoat on my Sally Hansen strips, and this shit shrank those, too.
If you need to romance it to get it to work, or you need to buy something to add to it to make it work, it's just not that good of a product. End of story. Use just about anything else. I am particularly fond of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. Cheap, works every time, and I don't have to doctor it up with anything or perform any rituals to make it work. It gets gloopy when you've used it halfway down, but it's cheap as hell and you've done your nails a billion times by time that's happened. If you want it mad shiny like Seche Vite, just do another coat.
FEED IT TO THE PIG... we'll call it $5.35, even though it retails for twice that at the drugstore, in the interest of fairness. It is pretty cheap on Amazon. It doesn't matter how cheap you can get it, though, when it sucks a donkey's ass.
BUTTER LONDON NAIL POLISH
They have such good colors. That's how they keep getting me. I see the display of all the pretty colors, and I get suckered in. I got suckered in by "Dosh." I got super-suckered in by "The Black Knight."
So I get these polishes and they are so pretty in the bottle that I just want to put them on immediately. First, they have that weird consistency that 3-free polishes tend to have. No biggie. I know that I can throw some topcoat on and have it look OK. They start getting mucky and gritty around the neck of the bottle by time you paint the last few of your fingers, like maybe they are suspending too much particulate in the base or something, but again, no biggie. It's pretty! I can make it work!
Here is where I can't make it work... it doesn't just chip. It chips off in one giant piece, the exact size and shape of the nail it chipped off. The whole paint job on a finger will just fly off like some kind of nightmare cornflake, from such rough-and-tumble activities as getting a coffee mug out of the cabinet, or loading the dishwasher while you are wearing kitchen gloves. I have never had that happen with any other polish I have ever used, except this brand.
At first, I thought it might be because it is 3-free... maybe one of those toxic things they so helpfully removed was something that makes polish work?? No dice. Since then, I've used other 3-free polishes, like POPbeauty and Illamasqua, and they are totally fine. They have the weird consistency thing going on, but they go on well, and look nice once you put your topcoat on. Then, they even stay on your fingers!
I was at Ulta the other day, looking at this happy horseshit, and the saleslady came up and was all "Ohhh, isn't that polish so pretty?" and I was all, "Yeah, but I really hate this polish. It is the worst." Then she was all "Ohhhh, I think the thing with the Butter London polish is that you have to use their base coat and topcoat or they just aren't that good." Maybe she was trying to sell me more shit, but if that is the line they are feeding people, they need to hang it up. There is absolutely zero reason you should buy a bottle of polish for $14 and have it not work. $14 polish is a treat that should just make itself a part of your polish collection and be nice to use. It is ludicrous to suggest that you need the $17 base coat and $17 topcoat as well. Suddenly your little $14 treat turns into a $48 treat, and what if it still sucks? What then? Then you're the mark, and you just got took.
You want a treat? There is a host of $10 to $20 polishes that work beautifully, like a fancy and expensive polish should. My personal favorite is Illamasqua, because their colors are awesome, their formula is awesome, and the finish on it is cool and rubbery if you don't put a topcoat on.
FEED THAT ISH TO THE PIG... feed those stupid $17 base coats and $17 topcoats to it, too, while we're at it. That whole thing is dumb as hell. $14 + $17 + $17 = $48 to The Pig.
In the interest of honesty, I will say that the Butter London cuticle remover IS pretty good. I use it to the bottom and rebuy it, it is definitely one of my staple items. That is probably why the nail polish makes me so mad.
