I've been meaning to write a final review of my Shellac manicure for a few days now. Sorry for the delay. So, if you'll remember, I had the Shellac polish put on my nails on a Friday, right before Jenny's wedding. After the weekend's activities, they were still chip-free and shiny.

Eight days after the manicure, I spent the whole day painting furniture. Here's how my nails looked right before I hopped in the shower - keep in mind that they had already been washed while I was rinsing out paint brushes.

Please excuse my horrible cuticles. The picture above is just to show how much brown paint I had on and under my fingernails. Grody.

After some good scrubbing in the shower, they came clean! And were still chip-free!

The polish stayed shiny and chip-free the whole time. The only bad thing was my nails grew out so much and you could tell at the base. I finally decided to take the polish off on day 18. You can see here how the base of the polish had just begun to loosen up (bubble up?).

Now, I will say taking the polish off was a tad harder than I thought it would be. In my head, I thought I could just soak my nails in the acetone polish remover for ten minutes, pull them out and voila! It'd all be gone. That's not exactly how it worked. I did soak them for ten plus minutes and it did become soft, but I had to use a cotton ball and work to get the polish off. Not a terrible amount of trouble, but still more work than I had imagined it being in my head.

I'm pleased to say it did all come off and my nails were totally fine.

Don't worry, I have since cut and shaped my fingernails. Long nails = ew.

So, final verdict? I loved it. Worth the extra money? Totally. Would I do it again? I'm going to next week. :)