The $8 Base Coat That Makes Any Manicure Last a Week
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Of all my many beauty rituals and routines, none is as important to me as my nail care. I will cancel a doctor’s appointment before I cancel my biweekly manicure. So, naturally, I was excited to read a recent edition of “Beauty Aisle” with celebrity nail proGina Eppolito, the “discreet manicurist to the elite,” about the drugstore nail products she loves. Of all the products she recommended, one stood out: the Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat. “It’s been around forever! It has this rubberized texture that really grips the nail. If you apply it, let it dry, and then apply your color — your polish will last.” Somehow, in all my years of testing, I had never tried it, so I decided to see if its long-lasting claims were true.
After my sample arrived, I dutifully brought the bottle with me to my next appointment. My nail technician immediately recognized it. “This is a really good base,” she said. With her seal of approval in mind, I started the clock. Because my nail shop doesn’t stock Orly, I used the base with a Zoya varnish. I made it exactly seven days before I noticed some minor chipping, which is about two to three days longer than usual for Zoya. Now, I should also note that I’m very strict about my nails. And while I’m eagle-eyed for any flaws, the chipping I noticed would not have been clocked by anyone else but me, and 95 percent of the manicure remained intact until day ten, which is an impressive lifespan for regular nail polish.
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Orly Bonder
For my next experiment, I decided to do a home manicure using exclusively Orly products. When I first applied the Bonder, I noticed immediately that it dried down very matte. It reminded me of mybeloved long-wearing Dazzle Drybase coat. The brand describes it as “double-sided sticky tape for polish,” and that’s exactly what it felt like when I gently tapped the nail against my skin. It also had a very short drying time, which I appreciated, since I could move on quickly to the next steps of the manicure. Typically, when I use regular nail polish, I notice lifting around the four- or five-day mark. Usually, once that happens, I can’t help myself and begin to pick and peel. But when using the Bonder, the polish is so adhered to the nail plate it doesn’t lift at all, which really preserves the manicure.
Once again, I made it a full week before I noticed a chip, and I had even taken a trip to a bathhouse, where my hands had soaked in hot tubs and cold plunges for hours. And while my nails weren’t perfect, again, the chipping wasn’t even noticeable until the ten-day mark. While Dazzle Dry’s system still takes the top spot for longest wear time (two weeks, minimum), at eight bucks a bottle, the Bonder is less than half the price and still a worthwhile addition to any at-home nail kit.
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