A good base coat sets the stage for nail polish to give a performance of a lifetime and to receive a standing ovation.

A bad base coat has you booing, throwing rotten tomatoes at it, and heckling even though you know it can’t hear you.

I’ve put the Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat through a manicure marathon.

For the most part, it held up well under pressure despite having some performance anxiety. And it gave all the right answers to the cute reporter:

“At the end of the day,” Orly Bonder said with sweat dripping down its brows, “if I’ve done my best, I can sleep at night.”

So how did Orly Bonder fare? Am I handing it a medal or heading to the store for juicy tomatoes? You’re about to find out in seconds…

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat Pictures

Just in case you’re wondering, I have a step-by-step Ladybug nail art tutorial if you’re interested.

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat Ingredients

Claims: TRUSTED

√ Rubberized base coat
√ Grips lacquer to the nail surface for lasting adhesion
? Prevents nail lacquer from wearing off up to 2 weeks

Key Notes

• Name: Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat
• Amount: 18 mL (0.6 fl. oz.)
• What I Paid: Approximately $6-something CAD (Sorry, I bought this a long time ago on sale. Can’t remember.)
• Where to Buy: Sally Beauty Supply stores, Sally Beauty Supply website, TransDesign, 8ty8Beauty, Head2Toe, Nailsupplies & select other beauty-supply stores

Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat Review

Application

The formula is thin and very watery, so it glides onto the nail effortlessly. The only thing is that it’s so liquidy that you have to be careful not to flood your cuticles with it because it runs. (That should come as no surprise since I did say in the intro that Orly Bonder was put in a manicure marathon, right? :P)

Also, despite it being orange in the bottle, I didn’t notice it depositing any actual colour on my nails.

Dry Time

I expect every base coat to dry quickly. After all, who wants to wait for their base coat to dry before applying their polish?

The Orly Bonder Rubberized base coat dries very quickly. By the time I finished putting it on the last finger of my second hand, the first finger on my first hand was pretty much dry. Good! Or else! Grrr! (I’m not very intimidating actually…)

Finish

It dries with a tacky feeling. This is the ‘rubberized’ feature that helps grip your nail polish onto your nail. I actually think it feels pretty darn cool.

Performance

Every single time I wore this base coat under any polish (except for Zoya polish), the polish lasted me a long time and didn’t chip.

I didn’t notice anything exceptional about it, though. It worked just like most of the base coats I’ve tried.

Staining

A good base coat not only helps your manicure mileage, but it should also protect your natural nails against ugly staining. I’ve tried this under a bunch of colours from various brands of polish, and it worked like a charm.

However…(and this is pretty important), one time, it failed to prevent staining! *Gasp* I was not a happy camper, but it’s a good thing that I always have my nails painted or this would be embarrassing.

For the record, I wore Orly Bonder under Orly Spark, which is a springy mellow yellow. This surprised me more that Orly Bonder couldn’t even prevent staining from an Orly polish!

But that was just an isolated incident, so I’m willing to still give it a high score since it never let me down before.

Ingredients

The Orly Bonder Rubberized base coat is free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, and DBP, which makes it a Big-3-Free base coat.

Packaging

I really like the bottle design. The glass is frosted, which just feels cool. And the handle is rubberized, so you have a lot of control. Plus cracking open the bottle is always a cinch. No need to wrap an elastic band around the handle for leverage to bust it open. And no need to use it as an excuse to chat up the guy with the bulging biceps. Oh wait…oh no!

The bottle comes in a box. I think that this is unnecessary and very wasteful. Maybe Orly’s trying to make their product look fancier, but to me, it’s just annoying. I don’t need to have to throw away extra garbage. Mother Nature’s already nagging me to clean up my planet.

They could just sell this bottle without the box, and I’d still like it just as much. Plus without that packaging, maybe they could lower the price. Win-win in my book.

Animal-Friendliness

There’s a little rabbit logo on the back of the bottle, so that means it’s cruelty-free. Good news for animal lovers! 🙂

Pros  Cruelty-free Dries quickly Dries with a rubberized finish that helps polish adhere Big-3-Free Prevents staining of most polishes (see Cons for exception)

Cons  Doesn’t prevent staining from all polishes (My nails stained badly when using this under Orly Spark – a mellow yellow) Excessive packaging means more waste

Final Verdict: 9/10

Overall, I’m pleased with Orly Bonder’s performance. Sure, it missed the mark big time once, but hey, nobody’s perfect. I will continue to use this product and will repurchase (well, not for a long time, though, because I have tons of other base coats to finish up first).

If you wear a lot of yellow polishes (you’re awesome!), you probably should avoid using this base coat. If, however, you only wear yellows occasionally, then this is a pretty good base coat.

And after reading this post’s intro, in case you were wondering if I talk with my polishes, I don’t. They talk to me! *Makes a crazy face* 😛

Have you tried any Orly base coats before? What was your experience with them like? Do you have a Holy Grail base coat?