What is the longest lasting nail color?

I’ve discovered it makes me extra happy to have pretty nails. Now that my kids are getting older I have plenty of time to overanalyze my aging hands and how good or bad my nails are looking. If they’re not polished they start chipping or I start biting them so I’m forever in search of the best long-lasting nail polishes.

There are a million new products out there. Pinterest is full of tutorials for how to use normal nail polish so they last as long as gel nail polishes or acrylic manicures. I’m forever that person believing claims about regular polish lasting for 15 days or setting like gel polishes at a salon. I’ve been lured in by commercials, counter displays and Facebook ads and I’ve tried them all. I think. If I missed some let me know. I’m up for trying something else new in hopes of the best results.

Here’s the low down on my experience with a bunch of the long-stay, nail color options out there.

Hard As Dips traditional nail polish

I found this stuff at the counter at DSW. I was checking it out because of it’s claim to last for 15 days. According to the cardboard sign at checkout it’s just as good as those nail dip thingies that are somewhere further below on this list. I wasn’t going to buy any but then I needed to spend $5 more to use my $10 coupon so…

I put two coats of it on and it seemed pretty thin. Figuring it could be from the light color I added another coat and used Out the Door on top, my favorite top coat to cut dry time. We were heading out of town the next day so I had high hopes for this stuff to last a long time.

Day 1 and 2 polish was great.

Day 3 things started going downhill. I started having some chipping but since it’s a light color it wasn’t noticeable.

Day 5 this stuff needed to come off. It was chipping so much that it was chipping the ends of my nails too and my hands were looking all disheveled. Usually when I wear polish my nails grow quite a bit because I don’t have the urge to mess with them. My nails seemed to chip along with this polish though so they were in rough shape by the time I removed the polish.

Obviously we didn’t make it to Day 15. So much for the fancy claim that sucked me in even after I had spent all my money on shoes. The only plus to this one was that it came of easily with regular nail polish remover.

Impress by KISS nails

I have never tried press on or fake nails in my life. I even lived through the days of Lee Press-Ons without a single urge to try them. BUT… I recently stopped a friend because her nails looked amazing and she said she got them at Target (of course!) and she had had them on since Thanksgiving (over a month before I stopped her).

Nothing about her nails looked fake or like she’d been wearing them for a month. She’s a teacher and a seamstress so I promise she had not spent the prior month with her hands resting in rose water and cucumbers over her eyes.

I thought Impress would be a good option and was so excited to try them that I bought some for my daughter too who is convinced that if she is going to be a famous YouTube slime-maker person she must have fake nails over her own nails. Something her slime-making career has not allowed a budget for yet.

So here’s the deal with these. they are AMAZING if they fit over your natural nails correctly. They look great, they stay on and I can see them being a popular choice for days of wear. But I have a deep nail bed and no matter what size I tried they did not fully cover some of my nails to the edge. The lack of coverage resulted in them getting caught on stuff and driving me crazy.

My daughter has longer, more narrow fingers and they are perfect for her. They fit well and stay on forever. She loves them. When I want to get her something fun I surprise her with a few pairs. They even has a Pride set with proceeds benefitting members of the LGBTQ community. Loved the rainbows!

I’m adding a link to them on Amazon but if you have a Meijer near you definitely look for them. We’ve lucked out and found them for under $5.

Essie Gel nail polish colors

I’ve always loved Essie polish. Their vibrant colors suck me in the moment I pass one of their displays. The thought of them lasting for more than a day or two without looking like I’ve been chipping away at them every spare second sounded amazing.

Well. The results of my at-home manicure speak for themselves. This was after three coats. I wanted the chalk-white look and had a hard time getting it. Plus the polish just didn’t look that “finished” to me. Definitely not like gel nails.

I think the polish stayed on longer than traditional polish, like maybe a day or so longer but I definitely wouldn’t consider them gel nail alternatives. I have heard there is a new Essie gel couture nail polish so as soon as I’ve got some good CVS coupons I might have to try another and hope for the best!

Color Street

Have you tried these? I went to a Color Street party a few years ago even though I was anti-those kind of parties and I ordered a set. It’s basically stick on polish. You peel it off of these strips and apply it to your nails.

At first I was not convinced. It took me a while to get the hang of them, especially when I couldn’t use my dominant hand and I didn’t like wasting the unused nail strips. I don’t like to spend a lot on well, anything, so I didn’t buy them often.

In between trying all this other nail stuff I kept coming back to them though. They stay on longer than any long-lasting polishes I’ve tried and my nails get an overall better look than anything else.

Dip polish at-home kit

You guys I’m going to have a hard time saying anything about this other than the fact that it took me FOREVER. I am not one to spend a ton of time on beauty routines so I don’t know that I can do this more than once. I have heard there is a major learning curve and once you get the hang of it they are the best for a gel-like finish that maintains chip-free nails. I’m just not sure this is the best way for me to achieve the overall look of longer wear nail colors.

You do a base coat then another coat then a color coat of powder then shake off the excess powder then a coat over that then more powder and shake that off and repeat and repeat, especially for lighter colors. They looked decent when complete but VERY heavily coated my nails and felt weird against my cuticles which was absolutely my error as a beginner. I want to say I’ll try again and perfect my technique but realistically I’m still recovering from how long it took the first time.

At-home gel nail kit

This was also took some time but not as long as the dip polish. The last time I used it I was much faster than the time prior to that and had perfected some of my mistakes so it’s a great option to avoid pricey trips to the nail salon. We found a set on Amazon that was very inexpensive for all of the things you recieve. It came with everything you need to do a gel manicure at home including a uv lamp with a uv light, cuticle oil, a variety of gel colors and the base, top and setting polishes. Overall I will definitely be using the at home kit more often and I’ve seen my daughter and her friends do some amazing things with them.

Olive and June

The ads for this one got me. They are everywhere. Or maybe they are just everywhere I am because I’ve bought all of the nail products that cross my line of vision. Overall I love the packaging and everything that comes with the starter kit. I also love that it focuses on nail health and ease of use. When I tried it my nails were recovering from salon acrylics and needed some TLC. The kid comes with everything you need and reassurance we do not need to be nail artists to manage the directions. We got two light and one darker shade of chip-resistant nail polish, nail remover in a jar that you dip your fingers into, a cuticle oil pen (love this!), base and top coat and their applicator holder which makes applying polish with your non- dominant hand so easy.

So my opinion on Olive and June: I really liked it and the emphasis on nail health and maybe the polish lasted a few extra days but I can’t say it lasted much longer than a regular polish with a gel-like formula over top. I really wanted to love it and do think their base kit is 100% worth it for their unique extras but the actual polish didn’t seem much different than others I’ve used. Sorry Olive and June!

After all of my nail color trials, I think Color Street is my pick for the best long-lasting manicure that doesn’t take too much upkeep. They last forever, are chip resistant and if you preserve your sets, the price point isn’t too bad. I usually remove them because I want something new before they actually look like they need removed.

I have a sweet friend who does a great job of selling them and I have to say, having a non-pestering sales-person makes a huge difference. She posts cute ideas of stuff to do with the color strips and lets me know when new colors are out and is just generally fun to buy nail strips from.

Two tips when it comes to Color Street:

1. I’ve heard amazing things about using Mineral Fusion to remove them. I also really like a product I found at Sally’s Beauty. You apply it over your nail color and after two coats you can just push your polish off with a cuticle pusher.
2. You can put the remaining nail strips in the freezer so you can use them later and never waste any!

Happy polishing!! If there’s something else I need to try let me know in the comments.

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