Revel Up2You – Create Your Own Gel Polish!

Revel Nail just launched a new product called Up2You that turns any regular nail lacquer into a long-lasting gel polish! This product allows you to create a whole bottle of gel polish that can be stored and used many times. Do you have a favorite nail lacquer color that’s not available as a gel? Well this may be the perfect solution to make your own bottle of that color.

To create a gel polish you simply pour your nail lacquer right into the Up2You bottle. I believe this is a 50/50 mixture since the Up2You bottle contains 7.5ml of liquid, and you add another 7.5ml of lacquer to the bottle. You fill it up just to the bottom of the neck of the bottle. Below is a picture that demonstrates this. I actually have rather bad depth perception and it was hard for me to look into the bottle and gauge whether I should keep pouring.

After pouring the lacquer into the bottle it needs to be mixed.  The instructions say to close the bottle and hold it upside down for 20 seconds, then lay the bottle on its side and then slowly rotate the bottle to each side for 1 minute.  Then hold the bottle upside down and shake in a Y motion for 1 minute or until you hear the mixing balls cling together.  My arm got tired of shaking and on 2 of the 3 bottles that I mixed I never heard the mixing balls.  I ended up putting my bottles on my Robart paint shaker for a while to make sure they were good and mixed.

Once your color creation is mixed, you apply the gel polish like normal except a base coat is not needed.  You prep, cleanse, apply 2 coats of color (curing after each), and then apply your top coat (and cure again).  I haven’t conducted a wear test on Up2You, but it should last up to two weeks like a regular gel mani.  My wear test of the regular Revel gel polish was very positive.

The Up2You gel color can appear slightly diluted and not as opaque as the original lacquer color.  I made three different colors with Up2You.  The first idea actually came from one of my Instagram followers that said she wished Morgan Taylor Best Ball Gown Ever was available as a gel.  I immediately thought… it’s not, but it could be!  This is a unique color from the Morgan Taylor Cinderella collection that just came out.  Of the three colors that I mixed, this one appears much more diluted than the others.  Best Ball Gown Ever is a blurple (blue-ish purple) iridescent shimmer frost.  Here’s what it looks like as a gel polish using Up2You.

The other two colors that I mixed were LLarowe Julia Roberts 1967 and Different Dimension Big Bang.  Julia Roberts is light green with a subtle holo shimmer.  Big Bang is a spectacular holographic glitter polish.  Both of these colors look almost exactly like the original colors after being mixed into Up2You.  Big Bang really exceeded my expectations!

This is a side-by-side shot of the swatches of each of the three colors in their lacquer form and gel form.  In order from left to right, they are Morgan Taylor Best Ball Gown Ever, Different Dimension Big Bang and Llarowe Julia Roberts.  Best Ball Gown Ever was already a sheer color originally, so mixing it with Up2You made it even more sheer.

You could even get creative with Up2You and blend multiple colors together to create custom colors.  I love that you can save your new gel colors for future use.  Since my Morgan Taylor bottle contained 15ml of lacquer, I still have half a bottle left.  The other two lacquers that I used have smaller bottles, so there’s not much left in them to work with.  Below is a picture of the bottles after pouring out 7.5ml.  I think I would prefer to mix smaller bottles instead of a full 15ml bottle – maybe half that size.

I know many of you will wonder how this product compares with Gelibility since the concept is similar.  Gelibility also turns lacquer into gel, but you do it outside of the bottle in a paint pallet and it’s meant for immediate use and cannot be stored once mixed.  You can create multiple colors with one bottle of Gelibility since you only mix a small amount at a time.  With Revel Up2You you are only mixing one color in a bottle, but you can store it and use it many times.  I played with it a little and created some custom 50/50 blends in a paint pallet outside of the bottle and that seemed to work too.  You could use it that way, but that’s not really the intended purpose.

Revel Up2You also has a great price point at $6.49 a bottle!  You can also purchase a set of 3 bottles with a Revel top coat for $22.90, and there are a couple other bulk purchasing options.  The Revel Nail brand is putting out great quality products at prices that are extremely affordable.  Shop Up2You here!