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 longest lasting nail color.
There are a million new products out there. Pinterest is full of tutorials for how to polish your nails so they last longer than gels or acrylics (they don’t work for me!). I’m forever that person believing claims about polish lasting for 15 days or setting like gels 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.
Here’s the low down on my experience with a bunch of the long-stay, nail color options out there.
Hard As Dips 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 cardboard sign at checkout it’s just as good as those nail dip thingies I haven’t forked over money for yet. 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 quick trying top coat. We were heading out of town the next day so I had high hopes for this stuff to last for the week.
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 a bit 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.
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 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.
So here’s the deal with these. they are AMAZING if they fit your nails correctly. They look great, they stay on. But I have deep nail beds and no matter what size I tried they did not fully cover some of my fingers. 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.
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
I’ve always loved Essie polish. Their 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 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.
I think the polish stayed on longer, like maybe a day or so longer but they’re definitely not gel-level.
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 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 anything else I’ve tried and my nails get an overall better look than anything else.
Fast forward to after all of my other nail polish trials and I think I’m a Color Street addict. They last forever. I usually removed them because I want something new before they actually look like they need removed.
This whole quarantine has caused me to let everything go a bit but it’s also made me look for things that make me happy. Pretty nails make me happy. It might be 3 pm and I might not have showered yet but my nails look like I have it together.
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.
Updated to add: I love them so much that I finally started selling Color Street. You can join my Color Street Facebook group if you’d like to try a set or are already addicted and want more. It’s completely low key and just a place to stop when you need to fill your nail stash.
Two tips when it comes to Color Street:
- I’ve heard amazing things about using Mineral Fusion to remove them.
- 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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