HOLY GRAIL STATUS!
****Mini Novel Ahead*** Sooooo, I've never used rubber base before this, and literally everything I put on my nails lifted within a few days of application. Back then I only used dehydrator and the base coat in whatever kit I tried, but it never worked....so I tried Young Nails Protien Bond and this, hoping they'd the the gorilla glue to my nails, stop them from lifting and was easy to soak off. IT WORKED! Tbh, idk if the protein bond really helps me or not, but I do know this base has literally stopped lifting in its tracks and I won't attempt a set without using this first. I'd recommend everyone who wants to protect their natural nails, especially if you soak them off. This is a very gentle, yet surprisingly sturdy and reliable product! Rubber base doesn't actually have rubber in it. It has ingredients that allow it to bend and not crack, but also sticks reeeeally well to the natural nail. Primer is supposed to be the glue to whatever you put on top of it, but in my case, because rubber base is so good at adhering to a natural nail and also holds on to whatever you put on top of it for adhesion purposes, I don't feel I need primer. I use it anyway to be on the safe side, but other brands of primer I think contributed to lifting for me, so I'll dehydrate with 70% alcohol and use my YN Protein Bond until it runs out, but I've done a set without the YN and this rubber base still performed exactly how I needed it to! I use this for almost everything! Primarily, I use to this to protect my natural nails when I'm wearing anything on top of them like gel polish, half or full cover tips, ect.). It's also strong enough to do overlays and you don't need to do thick layers to get a bendable but strong nail! I also can use it to adhere any kind of nail tip as a glue alternative that's just as strong. It can also be used as a rhinestone glue alternative and topcoat! It'd be considered a wipe off topcoat, but after that, it has a nice reflective shine! You can also use it as a builder gel, but I prefer harder products like polygel for sculpting nails, so this is too sticky and thin for that purpose for me. This stuff is just as hard as acrylic the more you use, but it soaks off like a DREAM! It kinda curdles when soaked in acetone, the same as gel polish, but you can easily scrape, buff or scratch it off. I soak my nails for 1 hour with nail soakers. I do it so long bc I wear 2 layers of this with a full cover nail on top with 2-4 more layers of gel polish and topcoat combined, and in 1 hour, literally everything comes off so easily, I don't have to fight it off or use very little pressure with a cuticle pusher! There's a bit left behind, but it's so soft you can scratch it off with your nail and not hurt your nail bed, but I leave a little, even when I'm adding more to start a fresh set. The bit left behind is soft , even after it's not still wet with acetone, but if you clean your nails with alcohol, or put anything like more base or topcoat, you literally can't even see it under there! Every 2 weeks, I soak my overlay or full cover tips off and redo them, and a very thin layer doesn't come all the way off, as with mostly every product applied to the natural nail. To avoid overfiling, I just gently buff with a buffing block and start over! Here's what I do: 1 - If you start with naked nails, lightly buff your nail to get the shine off, then skip to step 3! If you have hard products like polygel or builder gel that you need to soak off, hand file or efile that down until a thin layer is left. If you have on a press on nail with gel polish on top, or just a gel manicure, at least buff off the topcoat until the nail is matte. If it's regular polish, remove that with remover or 100% acetone 2 - Soak off gel manicure ect. with pure acetone soaked cotton ball and foil method for one hour (That's a long time, but it literally just slides or flakes off on the cotton ball after that amount of time, no picking needed) 3 - Clean nails with 70% alcohol 4 - Primed with 2 coats of Young Nails Protien Bond, let air dry (most ppl is dehydrator first, but my nails don't seem to like it, so alcohol works the same for me, but if you use it, apply your dehydrator before your Primer!) 5 - Apply 2 coats of Kodi Rubber Base. On the first layer, I really scrub this into my nail in an up and down motion to get into any grooves and crevices created by my soak off or the porous surface of my buffed nail. Cure for 60 seconds. My second coat I scrub a bit, but glide over that, making sure it's not too thick. Cure each layer for 60 seconds 6 - Leave the sticky layer if you're using anything else! It's called the inhibition layer but I leave it on so it'll act like glue to my next layer 7 - Here, you can either (A) Clean your nail with 70% alcohol, lightly buff, add another thin coat of rubber Base, leave the sticky layer and apply your coats of gel polish and topcoat (B) Leave the sticky layer and apply coats of gel polish & topcoat, or (C) Clean the sticky layer off and rock clean, shiny, withstand anything and still be pretty natural nails! I usually do B or C, but I personally have never had to apply base gel of any kind before gel polish, nor have I really buffed. Maybe it was the quality of the polish, even if it wasn't expensive, but it never lifted, cracked or anything, even before I started using Protein Bond or this base coat. Now this stuff is THICK!!! Not so much that it gunks up the bottle, but I've had some get around the rim, but it didn't ruin anything. While you can use the brush, and the brush is actually great with flexible bristles and spreads across the nail how I like, I'll be purchasing a gel nails brush just for needle point precision. You can also do something like Simply Peel liquid latex to stop you from painting on your skin and cuticles. JUST BUY IT! IT'S EVERYTHING!!! FYI: Check your shipment details! I didn't know mine was coming from UPS and required a signature so I missed the delivery the first time! Just log in and change your preferences to leave it at the front door! Now go prosper =D Read more
