Do you Shellac?

While I was home in Saskatchewan my sister in law suggested we go get our nails shellacked.  I was a worried, because I am a nail biter and embarrassed by my lack of nails.  But I made an effort not to bite and leave them alone so the manicurist would have something to work with.  I called up my sissy, Jill, and she agreed to come with us and try it out.  It was a fun pre-wedding trial with my 2 sisters, who are also two thirds of my bridal party! 

See shellac is this new nail polish technology; half gel nail/half regular polish.  It's a regular manicure, but the polish is special: they cure the polish and top coat under a UV light like for gel nails.  The big deal about shellac?  It's supposed to last AT LEAST 2 weeks with no chips, peels or other unsightly damage.  This was the big draw to shellac for the three of us.  We had a blast at the salon, and I was pleased to hear that my nails are average length! Hear that Mum-no more giving me a hard time about my short nails!!!!! They're AVERAGE! 
Here are what our nails looked like after the mani!

Sister in law's nails.  Aren't they so cute in this light pink?  And so glossy and shiny.  That is maybe one of my favourite things about shellac;

 the slippery-ness

My Nails!  One thing I didn't really love was how far away from the cuticle the polish started.  You can clearly see that it's not even close...but maybe they do that on purpose?

So, here we are about a week later....and unfortunately this round of Shellac DID NOT live up to the hype.  I was shopping at Costco the other night and looked at my left hand, only to notice a nice big chip on my index finger!  I was devastated!  $50 for a one week manicure. What a bummer.  Not to mention that in the week my nails had clearly grown and the polish is even further away from the cuticle, which I think looks kind goofy on closer inspection.

I immediately texted both Jill and my sister in law and asked them how they're manicures were holding up.  Not great, from the sounds of it.  Jill said that her manicure was wearing off at the tips of her nails, leaving the edges looking a little raggedy.  And as for my sister in law...take a look

Her chip is definitely worse than mine....but I think I also had a better manicurist-so that may have something to do with it.  Right now I don't know if I would get my nails shellacked again, only because it is $50 and it only lasted a week-basically it didn't live up to its promise.  Luckily I picked a nice shimmery nude colour so you can't really notice the chip, but imagine if you had a bright blue or red?  It would look bad.  Also you can't take off Shellac with regular nail polish-you need 100% acetone.  I'm going to grow mine out-encouragement to keep my nails long I guess?

Has anyone else out there tried shellac? I read a lot of great reviews, so I'm disappointed that my experience wasn't that great.  I do think shellac has a lot of potential, but maybe it's just too new and manicurists are still perfecting its application?  I certainly hope so because I think this is a great idea for special events and I would like to get my nails done like this for my wedding.