Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge - Red

Ok I'm running late with this one, it was due on the 1st, but I didn't want to take off my Ozotic Sugar manicure :(
So this is the Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge. I'm really excited to get started on some Christmas nails. It's my favourite time of year and hopefully this challenge will push me a bit. I often wear my polish for a week so changing it every few days for a challenge will be, umm well, challenging I guess :) Most Christmas challenges have a wintery theme for people who live on the other side of the world but it's now officially summer in Australia and our Christmases are hot. So Elissa from Lissa's Polish Addiction came up with a challenge for those of us in Australia with these themes...

Our first theme is RED.  A pretty traditional Christmas colour and I have a heap of red polishes that would work.  So what is red about an Aussie Christmas?   Santa's suit, Rudolph's nose, sunburn, my face as I run around organising things (I'm hosting Christmas again this year), cherries and wine.  Red, red wine :)  Actually my choice of drink for Christmas day is champagne but there's usually some red wine floating around.... and here it is with cherries on top (under)!

It looks pretty bad, I'd have probably been better off just drinking the wine and eating the cherries.

Still it fits the challenge :)  Oh and I added the writing in photoshop.  There's no way I could paint that.
The red polish is actually an LED UV Gel hybrid polish.  It's Hit the Gym from Gelicious (not Gelous).  3 coats of Hit the Gym with one coat of their Ultra Glaze Top Coat.  

Hit the Gym is a bit sheer, with most of the Gelicious colours I only need 2 coats.  I've been wearing Gelicious a lot lately.  It's quick and easy and last weeks.  There's no need for any buffing, primer or base coat.  Just 2 or 3 really thin coats of colour, 1 min each to cure, then 1 thin top coat with 2 mins to cure.  Wipe it clean with an acetone polish remover and it's done.  Set dry, solid and strong so my nails don't break.  I can do it before bed with no risk of sheet nails and I've never had any chipping or lifting.  I usually leave it on for at least 2 weeks.  

Mostly I use clear or a really sheer pink and it serves as my base coat for regular polish.  I can paint over the Gelicious and as long as I use an acetone free remover I can keep changing my polish without effecting the gel.  It stays shiny and smooth.  If I use black Gelicious it's perfect as my base colour for swatching duochromes, over and over.  It even survives the removal of glitter polishes.  I've found my polish lasts longer over the gel too, it doesn't chip or crack and most of the time I don't need a top coat unless it's to smooth glitter.  

The Gelicious is quite thin, even with  3 or 4 coats, which means as it grows out I can keep painting over it without a noticeable step down where the growth line is.  Yep I love it and now I've done red I'll be trying to make my challenge nails work with a red base colour for the next few weeks.