OPI Top Coat

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you know that I'm a nail girl. I fixate on my nails constantly, I collect nail polish, and I will stop you on the street to ask what color you're wearing. I have no idea why I'm so obsessed with nails, but I do know that it's been pretty bad for mine. After three years of wearing polish every day, non-stop, my nails are currently in nail rehab, which means just a coat of nail strengthener and some top coat for me. :( Finding a really good top coat is very important for overall nail health. Good top coat keeps your polish from chipping, which keeps your nails from chipping and flaking, and means you have to remove and reapply polish less often, keeping your nails stronger and healthier. I've been a Seche Vite girl for awhile now, but I have a new favorite. That's right--I like this better than Seche Vite, AKA the most blogger praised top coat ever. Seche is a great top coat, but it is one, very expensive, two, gets very, very thick very quickly, three, lasts about five days, and four, can peel my polish off in coats occasionally. This is why I've turned to OPI's Top Coat.



It's about the same price as Seche, but everything else is different. OPI Top Coat is much thinner, which you would think means it doesn't protect as well. Wrong. The thinness makes it easier to apply, and I find that OPI's Top Coat makes my polish last a week. That's two more days than Seche Vite. And, my nails didn't start chipping until that last day, AND I didn't reapply during the week at all. That's impressive. Now, this top coat isn't quite as shiny as Seche Vite's, which is uber glossy. If you need patent shine, this isn't for you, but honestly, it's still pretty darn shiny, which is good enough for me. I've read a lot of reviews about this (mostly on Makeupalley) that say that this doesn't dry polish fast enough. From what I've seen, it dries faster than Seche Vite. Like 10 minutes later, my nails are bone dry. I slept on my nails an hour after painting them, and they were perfectly fine, which I could not have pulled off with Seche Vite at all. Also, I love the OPI Pro-Wide brush--it makes it so much easier to apply this top coat than with Seche Vite's tiny little black bursh.

So, in conclusion: this top coat ties with Seche Vite in price and loses for shininess, but wins in terms of how long it lasts, how good the brush is, and how fast it dries.

OPI Top Coat, $8.50 at drugstore.com

Image Sources:
drugstore.com