GELibility: Turn your regular nail polish into gel polish!

press samples Hello readers! Many of you reached out and asked me to review GELibility, and it’s finally here! For those of you that don’t know, GELibility is a custom formulated clear gel that can be mixed with regular nail polish (RNP) to turn it into gel polish. That’s right, you can turn ANY regular polish into a gel polish. It cures in a UV or LED lamp, is instantly dry and has the long-lasting wear of a gel polish.

My sample of GELibility was waiting for me in the mail when I returned home from Cosmoprof in Vegas, and the timing could not have been more perfect! I attended a couple of amazing parties in Vegas that were hosted by indie polish makers (read Work / Play / Polish’s write-up of the parties here), and brought home some really beautiful indie polishes that I was dying to try. As you know, I normally write about gel polish so I was trying to think of how to incorporate some of the indies into my blog… and then along came GELibility! Perfect!

How It Works

There are two major components to GELibility; “Stick It!” and “Fix It!” Stick It is basically the base coat that you apply first, and Fix It! is the clear gel that you mix with your regular polish, and also doubles as the top coat. Application steps are as follows:

Apply a thin coat of Stick It! to your clean, dry nails and cure it in your UV or LED lamp.
Cleanse the tacky layer from the nails using alcohol and a lint-free wipe.
Put equal amounts of Fix It! and your regular nail polish of choice on a palette or in a small dish. Wipe off the brush from your regular nail polish with a lint-free wipe and alcohol.
Using the regular nail polish brush, mix the GELibility Fix It! and the nail polish well. *
Using the regular nail polish brush, apply a thin coat of your mixture to your nails.
Cure in a UV or LED lamp. (Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you get the desired opacity.)
Apply one final thin coat of GELibility Fix It! and cure.
Remove the tacky layer with alcohol and a lint-free wipe.

Curing times: 60 seconds LED, 120 seconds UV

* It’s recommended that you use the regular nail polish brush instead of the Fix It! brush so that your Fix It! remains clear and doesn’t get tainted with color, shimmer or glitter. I accidentally used my Fix It! brush and now my clear gel has some shimmer mixed into it. Oops!

This little flower-shaped mixing tray is included with the GELibility kit. This is what mine looked like as I was mixing some of the polishes. I put 4 drops of polish and 4 drops of Fix It! in each little section, and that was just enough to do three coats of each color on a swatch wheel. The downside to the tray is that it has lots of corners so it’s not very easy to clean. I would prefer a regular little paint pallet with rounded edges for easy clean-up.

The first indie polish that I wanted to try is called What Happens in Vegas… Ends Up on Instagram by Girly Bits Cosmetics. This is a Limited Edition polish that was specially made for this year’s Cosmoprof show. It will be released for sale in mid-August for $12. Don’t miss out on this one… it will only be available for a limited time! It’s a very dense magenta holographic polish with fine pink and purple glitter.

Below is a picture of what it looks like in it’s regular nail polish form:

Gorgeous, right!? And here’s a side-by-side picture that shows what it looks like before and after it’s been gelified with GELibility:

It’s still gorgeous! I was very pleasantly surprised at how well this worked. Both swatches above show this polish with 3 coats of color. After applying my third coat of gel color I touched a nail to see if it was completely cured… it was, but it was much more tacky than a normal gel polish. After I applied my Fix It! top coat, cured and wiped, they were perfectly smooth and glossy and completely dry to the touch!

Now, adding the clear gel did dilute the color so it’s not quite as dense and it also lost some of the holo effect. I wondered what would happen with other types of finishes, so I began testing on a swatch wheel. Here are the results (3 coats each RNP and gel):

Holographic

I’ve been wishing and praying for a pure holographic gel polish (not just holographic glitter), and soooo hoped that GELibility would deliver. Unfortunately, the gel dilutes the polish too much and the holographic effects are lost. The holo finishes now appear to be shimmers instead. Bummer… still waiting for someone to formulate a holo gel. You can see that the colors are also slightly lighter and less opaque.

The three colors used in this test are all from Girly Bits Cosmetics; What Happens in Vegas… Ends Up on Instagram, Bird is the Word, and D!ck in a Box.

Glitter

GELibility worked really well with glitter polishes. Yes, they are a little diluted as expected, but the glitter still shines and sparkles and I actually prefer the glossy hard finish of the glitters in gel form. RNP glitters can feel a bit textured or rough, but they are perfectly smooth to the touch after being mixed with GELibility. You can just increase the number of coats to get the same density as the RNP form.

The three indie polishes that I used in this test are; Emerald & Ash Cuddle-Butt, KBShimmer Hexy Bikini, and Different Dimension Big Bang.

Duochrome

So what about duochromes? They still have duochorme effects and do show color shifts, though the effects are a bit muted and not quite as impressive. Even my photos didn’t pick up on all of the color-shifting goodness of these two polishes from Llarowe; Show Me Da’ Money and Show Me Again! Show Me Da’ Money was pretty much opaque in one coat in RNP form, and so in gel form it still has great opacity with a couple of coats. Show Me Again is just a real stunner with amazing purple and blue/teal shifts, but doesn’t look quite as good when diluted.

Cream

I expected that GELibility would work well on a cream finish and might just be a little thin, and that proved to be true. With the creams you just just need more coats to achieve the same color. The color used here is Morgan Taylor One Cool Cat (I couldn’t find a pure cream indie).

Overall, I am really impressed with GELibility and can’t wait to try it out on more polishes. It’s a great way to use up old bottles of RNP or to turn some of your favorite RNP shades into gel and make them last longer. I haven’t done a full wear test on this product yet so I can’t say for certain that it lasts as long as it claims, but I did wear it for several days with absolutely no signs of wear, chipping or peeling so it seems very durable.

It is important to realize that you are diluting the RNP with a clear base, so you may need to apply additional coats to achieve the same level of opacity. Also, special effect finishes like holos and duochromes may be diminished. (That’s probably why it’s impossible to find these finishes in gel form in the first place!)

If you’re interested in learning more about GELibility, please visit their website at http://www.gelibility.com. The website has detailed application and removal instructions.

You can also purchase GELibility Fix It! and Stick It! in a set for $37.95. The set is recommended as they are specially formulated to work together.

Andrea @ Chickettes