Testing out the "Sticky Sandwich"

Okay, so that sounds reeeeally pervy.  LOL.  However, in truth, the "sticky sandwich" is a NP techinique to lengthen the wear of your manicure.  As I change my NP more often than my 4 year old girl child changes her clothes, I never really concern myself with wear time.  It does kinda bother me when my NP chips after a nano-second, but on the whole, wear just isn't a big issue.  NP just doesn't seem to wear all that long on my natural nails, anyway, so if I worried about it, I'd drive myself bonkers.

However, in 11 days we are heading to the airport, staying a night there, and then flying to Orlando for a week at Walt Disney World!  I am beyond excited, though we tend to go to WDW every 2 years (and were there in March to see the resorts... no parks). 

Yet, as excited as I am... I've been driving myself mad thinking about how I'm going to handle my nails while I'm down there.  I hate taking NP with me on vacation.  Something always has a tendency to leak everything and then I'm left with a huge mess (just ask my OPI Extravagance bottle that looks more than a little worse for wear). 

I've thought about getting Shellac'd, as there's a salon down the road from me that offers the service, but 1. given my past experiences with nail techs, I'm pretty much a devoted DIYer, 2. now that I'm a natural-nails girl, I hate feeling something thick on my nails, and 3. it's almost $40 for a CND Shellac manicure.  I even bought stuff to do my own gel nails, but I still haven't perfected it, so I don't think that's going to happen.  I still plan on working on it, so maybe look for that in an upcoming post. 

But, for the time being, my options are either nekkid nails or dealing with changing my polish every 1-2 days, with neither option sounding like a good option.  Then I remembered reading about the "sticky sandwich".  I've never tried it, so I figured I'd give it a shot to see if I could get a whole week's worth of wear (or at least 3-4 days).  Tonight, I tried it for the first time.  I used (in order):

1 coat of nail dehydrant (ASP Prep n Clean)
1 coat of sticky base coat (a cheapy, Amore, from TD, but if it works, I'll be more than happy to shell out the dough for CND Stickey)
2 coats of NP (I went with Jessica Scarlet, but if I had to do it again, I would probably go with a 1-coater.  This was 2)... Love, love, love Scarlet, BTW.
1 coat of sticky base coat
1 coat of quick dry TC (I used Rush)

It looks great and took about 30 minutes to fully set.  No pics yet as my camera battery is dead (off to charge now), but I will take some soon.  I did have a few bubbles, but I think that's because my bottle of Rush TC is half-empty and a little on the thick side. 

I plan on keeping this on for 3-4 days, so you probably won't see any new polish posts from me this week, but I will try to update you on the stickey sandwich progress.

Anyone else tried the "sticky sandwich" (gah, I hate typing that.  LOL) ?  If not, what products do you use to get long wear?  If this doesn't work and if I have the time, I'll be more than happy to give them a shot.  I just don't want to be worrying about my nails while riding Splash Mountain.  :P