Red Carpet Manicure Color Dip Starter Kit Review

Happy Manicure Monday! I love doing my nails at home, pretty much weekly, as a way to save money and relax. I love putting on a TV show and taking some time to do my nails. I’ve taught myself with a lot of practice and YouTube videos.

Last year I got a dip powder manicure for the first time and have gotten only one more since. I didn’t like that the salon used the electric file on my nails and didn’t understand why. I had read it wasn’t necessary but the salon insisted it was. I was researching doing dip nails at home when I found this kit at Ultra and I am SOLD. While I have learned a few things after my first try to make the results even better next time, I am so wildly impressed with how easy this kit was.

The Starter Kit comes with products you can buy separately, but the kit is a much better value:

• Color Dip Base Coat $10
• Color Dip Activator $10
• Color Dip Top Coat $10
• Color Dip Brush Softener $10
• Red Carpet Manicure Color Dip Contract Please $10
• Foil Remover Wraps $10
• Nail File
• Wooden cuticle pushers

Contract Please looks very nude in indoor lighting and has a lot more pink in natural light. It’s a very pretty nude color that doesn’t wash out your hands. This is three coats of the color but two would have definitely worked and is what I’ll be testing out next time. It’s hard to buff out three coats as well as they do at the salon and think two will be easier to do at home.

The key to getting this kit to work is following the instructions exactly and using very thin coats. I strayed from the directions twice and am happy I did:

1. I used a large kabuki brush to lightly brush away product in-between. I think this is better than the cloth that they recommended because that would’ve been to hard. The product is still slightly moveable until you apply the final base coat.
2. I buffed out my nails before I applied the base coat. The directions didn’t say to do this but other videos I had watched of people doing their own at home dip powder did. I think the product turned out as even as it did because I included this step.

All of the products seemed to work really well. One week in and I am still looking flawless. I am going to take my nails off early this week though only because I am anxious to try again and make them even better (what can I say, I’m a true perfectionist). I did get another color that will hopefully be very close to OPI Mod About You, my all-time favorite mani color.

I did a poll on Instagram and so many people said they wanted to do a video. That will be coming very soon but I wanted to get a blog post up ASAP so I could spread the amazing news about this at-home kit. Not only does it pay for itself, it’s also a great way to save you money at the salon!

Red Carpet Manicure Color Dip Starter Kit $34.99