I get so incredibly jealous when I see all the beautiful glass bead mani’s that are posted here, and mine aren’t holding. I will say SOME of the magnetic polishes I’ve tried worked beautifully, but others haven’t held. (This is a combo of ILNP Poison and Starrily Magma.)
I received the 5D glass bead magnet for Christmas and use Sally Hansen insta-dri (red bottle) and the tips of my mani disperse. I tried the suggestion from the magnet’s instructions and applying one coat unmagnetized then adding a thick coat to magnetize. And I’m spinning the magnet 45 seconds to a minute, should I spin it longer? This might seem like a silly question, but how long are you all waiting for the polishes to dry before applying topcoat?
by NoFaithlessness6506
4 Comments
I wait about 2-3 minutes between last and top coat. Try adding a little thinner to the ILNP and to your topcoat.
It’s a beautiful polish, still looks really nice.
Seconding the advice to add some thinner to the polish. That can make a world of difference. I do magnetize for a little longer than that, but I don’t know that it’s really necessary. I always magnetized the topcoat for at least 90 seconds but again, 60 probably would’ve been fine.
Also, someone else suggested yesterday to add thinner to the topcoat, even if it doesn’t seem like it needs it. For magnetics, it’s so easy to screw up the pattern with the topcoat, even with the Sally Hansen if you drag the brush it all rather than cleanly floating the coat.
Also, I find that for some polishes it doesn’t work great if I don’t magnetize the first coat. Others it works fine. Sometimes I demagnetize the first coat or two and then only magnetized the last coat of the polish and then the top coat.
The only other thing I can think of is that sometimes I mess up my magnetic design even with the Sally Hansen topcoat because I think I dragged the brush a little, even though I’m trying so hard to float the coat cleanly.
Perhaps stating the obvious but… you have to magnetize the top coat. It doesn’t matter how long you wait for your polish to dry, the top coat will re-wet it.
Yes, magnetize the last layer, and then *also* magnetize the topcoat for a minute! Also dont apply a too thick coat, I have noticed that magnetic polishes will look awful if applied too thickly.
We usually do base, then a thin layer (unmagnetized), possibly another one if needed, then we do a final layer and magnetize it for 60s. We go finger by finger and coat by coat (so layer 1 thumb, layer 1 index, layer 1 middle etc) so they get decent time to dry. But most importantly, we magnetize for another 60s after applying a quickdry top coat. Not magnetizing the topcoat will ruin it. Good luck!