Lolita fashion is all about the details. Detailed prints, embroidered lace, fabric quality, accessories, and of course, nails. While it is not necessary to have an extravagant design, it is nice to at least have a matching color. Nail polish, however, lasts for about a week to 10 days. Instead of coordinating your nails to your outfit, you would have to coordinate your outfit to match your nails!
Oh, but you can simply remove the color with nail polish remover, right? Of course it is possible, but that is pretty damaging to your precious nails! Not to mention time-consuming and costly (especially with glitter polishes, which must be soaked first!)
I personally love to do my nails, and my recent obsession is a Glitter French. A shimmer base coat with glitter piled on the tips where the white of a regular French manicure would go. After the first time I did this though, it took a few days and a quarter of a bottle of mild remover to get all of it off, despite soaking and rubbing. My cuticles became very dry from the treatment! So, I found a better way that is cheap, and allows one to change nail color and design daily - no remover required!
Here is the culprit - Anna Sui nail polish 302. Beautiful pale pink with a shimmer
Also (not pictured) Shiseido silver glitter polish. Anna Sui actually had an almost exact same glitter, but didn't come in a mini bottle like Shiseido so I went with that ;)
Polish on (two coats). No photo of the completed French, but even this requires soaking already!
The hero of the hour! Yes, that is plain white school glue. How can this school glue help, you ask?
It is your base coat. Just put some glue in an empty nail polish bottle and apply a layer of it before your regular polish! Allow the layer to dry (it does not have to be very thick) and then polish and decorate your nails as usual
When it comes time to take off your polish....
Just pick at the edges, and then peel it off!
The silver glitter portion was a bit stiffer and harder to find an edge on, but still comes off quickly and easily
Perfectly clean
Now you too, can change up your polish without damaging your nails! And save some money on remover, to boot ;)