I've had my eyeball on the Fuse Gelnamel Starter Kits for a hot minute, but I never wanted to shell out the $29.99 for one. Thankfully I was lucky enough to pick one up for half off at Rite Aid this week! Yay!
Despite being incredibly girly and cosmetics obsessed, I'm quite low maintenance and despise having to do my nails more than once or maybe twice a week. I've been getting gel manicures for a while now, but it is really taking a toll on my disposable income, so it was finally time for me to bite the bullet and buy my first at-home gel nail kit.
If you've ever been in a graphic design or business class, you know that packaging and marketing has a lot to do with how well a product will do and I gotta say that the adorable packaging and snappy commentary totally won me over! Kudos to the graphic designers on this one!
Wanna find out more? Keep on reading after the jump!
For $30, you get all of these lovely things:
- 1 Fuse Gelnamel Color in "Na-No Way!" (there are other colors in starter kits if bright fuchsia isn't your thing)
- 1 Fuse LED lamp, which does adjust for toes buy flip flopping the top over to the other side
- 1 LED lamp power cable
- 1 14.6 mL bottle of cleanser
- 1 double-sided nail buffer
- 1 orange stick
- 12 lint-free wipes
- 1 instruction manual 
Like the packaging, the instruction manual is also very attractive and incredibly simple to understand - it even has little tips and tricks on it!
Ta-da! Here is what "Na-No Way!" looks like on. I did stray from the instructions a little bit by applying two coats, but hey... I never really believe any "one-coat coverage" claim from anyone.
So here are my first impressions of my first use and application:
- The one-coat claim isn't exactly true. I was still able to see the outline of my quick even after two coats, but this IS a gel polish that we're talking about and not a cream. I don't know if this semi-opacity is an issue with this shade specifically, or if it extends to the rest of the line so I may have to investigate that one further with this gorgeous vampy shade I was lusting after. ;)
- It is REALLY tricky trying to determine the perfect coat thinness because the texture of this stuff is ridiculously goopy. The instructions are really specific about using a thin coat, but it was honestly a crap shoot whether or not I ended up flooding my cuticles or not having enough polish to cover to the tip.
- I'm a big fan of the self-leveling formula, but I found that I needed to pay extra attention to my cuticles when it settled. I also found that waiting about half a minute with my finger pad resting on the table was the best way to ensure that the formula was able to level correctly.
- The LED lamp is REALLY fast (like, 30 seconds fast), but as many people with thin nails may know, the first few seconds of curing can feel like dipping your nails in hot sauce! Ouch! Thankfully that goes away really quickly, but making sure to gently buff your nail surface can help prevent that.
- I also found that the second coat of gel polish did have an issue with bubbling.
- Not having to deal with a base coat, polish, and top coat totally streamlines the whole process.
- With the exception of having to do two coats and the issue with bubbling, I'm pretty pleased with this. My paper-thin nails now have a little more strength to them and this was probably the quickest gel mani I've ever had.
- LOVE how compact and quick this is. This is really travel friendly.
Now let the wear test begin! I'll be back in a week (or maybe even two) with my final verdict on this gel manicure system.
Ta ta for now!
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