Basecoat Battle Round One:

Welcome to round one of “Basecoat Battle!” Where I wear a manicure for either a week, or as long as I can before it’s too chipped to wear, keep notes, and look at nail health afterwards. I wore this week’s polish for 6 days and it looked WRETCHED by the end on four nails, rough but acceptable on two nails, and still wearable on the remaining four nails. After removal I had noticeable damage on three nails, with small bits of damage (peeling, chipping, scuffing) to almost all nails. One nail had barely visible damage.

I rested my nails for a day, oiled the heck out them, and checked for nail health 36 hours after removal.

Basecoats used: Dashing Diva’s “Base Seal” Pink Armor’s “Nail Gel” OPI’s “Natural Nail Base Coat” Nail Tek “Foundation III” Rejuvacote “1” ORLY “Rubberized Bonder” Anchor & Heart “Mermaid Tears” Essie “First Base”

Day by day in the comments but final results (considering polish wear and nail health after removal):

Overall Rankings: 1. OPI 2. Pink Armor 3. Nail Tek 4. Anchor & Heart
5. Dashing Diva 6. ORLY
7. Essie 8. Rejuvacote

Notes on rankings: the top four were all fairly close!

(Color used: ORLY’s Canyon Clay. Top coat: Essie gel setter)