I've always been too lazy and too stingy to pay to get my nails done properly, so when Madam Glam sent me some one step gel polishes to try out I was pretty excited about the opportunity.

Madam Glam claim that these polishes not only cruelty and three free, but are also high gloss and soak off easily. They include a base coat and top coat within the polish, meaning that you can wear the colour alone.


In order to use these polishes you do need an led lamp to set them with. Madam glam do offer either lamps by themselves or you can purchase a kit that includes polishes and a lamp (do note though that this is a US plug - I unfortunately couldn't use my kit for a while until I went out and bought an adaptor). The polish that I chose to try first was Pastel Lilac - a colour that I had seen featured multiple times on the Madam Glam instagram page.

Application of the actual polishes was pretty straightforward. The consistency of the gel was very thick, meaning you get a good amount of opacity from one coat. I used one coat of the gel polish and found that I had to set that with the lamp for around a minute.




After the third coat I was really happy with the finish of the polish. It was very smooth and opaque with no bubbles.

After a third coat

I am very rough with my hands and have a terrible history of nail polish longevity. On average regular nail polish lasts me around a day before it has chipped unattractively. I do, however, usually have good luck with gel and shellac polishes on the rare occasion when I had have them done professions.

Unfortunately, although these polishes made it past the one day mark (yay) I found that they did chip very easily on me. After about 3 days I needed to remove the polish and start all over again. I'm not sure whether this would be different with the regular gel polishes when you have a base and top coat but I do know that I do have generally oily nails. For future uses with these polishes I may invest in one of those droppers that dries your nails out before you get them done, just to see if that makes a difference.


Removal of this polish is a cinch. I have removed it twice using both "pure" (as pure as you can buy it from bunnings) acetone, and nail polish remover. The acetone alone worked waaaay better and dissolved it within minutes, however the nail polish remover did work, it just took a bit more effort and a longer amount of time.


To remove the polish I simply soaked cotton buds in the acetone and stuck them to my nails using foil to keep them in place or I used the foil pieces provided - both worked equally well. After about 2-3 minutes the polish flaked off with no damage to my nail underneath!



Overall, despite longevity I am really happy with these polishes. They look good on the nails and are easy to apply. If you aren't as rough with your hands and have drier nails I would definitely recommend checking them out. I plan on purchasing some more neutral colours and some darker plum-toned shades for winter which is fast approaching.

The price for these gel polishes is pretty standard at $19.95, however if you use the code EllaD30 and head to the Madam Glam website then you can save 30%.



I was also sent two other colours to try (my hero and hubby's favourite) so if you would like to see swatches of these, or you have any suggestions on how to make the polishes last, OR have any questions then please do not hesitate to comment below.

Thanks for reading,
El xo