I change my nail polish colour at least once a week. I used to take hours to do them, carefully filing and buffing them to perfection. That was when I had the luxury of time. Nowadays, I try to find shortcuts to speed things up a bit.
Enter – China Glaze’s Fast Forward Top Coat.
It promises to dry your manicure in 60 seconds, leaving behind a super glossy finish.
I tried it out, and I was amazed – at first. It did dry my manicure pretty quick. In 60 seconds, I’d say it was safe to start typing an email without being too careful, maybe moisturize your body with some lotion. But definitely not dry enough to do laundry, wash your hair, or go to bed.
In about 15-20 minutes, I was pretty confident that my nails were ready to face the world and anything that came their way. All with a high gloss finish. This was pretty awesome!
The next day, I checked out my nails and it seemed that the nail polish had literally shrunk on my nails! It was more apparent on the tips of my nails, showing white. No, my nails do not grow this quickly overnight. This was an ill-affect of the top coat! I haven’t experienced this with any other topcoat I’ve tried!
I’ve tried this top coat with many different nail polishes; different colours, formulas, brands, etc. and it seemed like the shrinking problem was consistent.
I usually just apply this as soon as I finish applying the last coat of nail colour. In the beginning, the formula was pretty easy to use. It was a good consistency, but it didn’t spread too well, so you have to use a lot per nail. When the bottle was about halfway finished, the formula started to get very thick, goopy and stringy! I would have strings of this stuff everywhere when I used it to do my nails.
I didn’t feel like my manicure lasted any longer than it usually does. My nails are natural, so they do start to chip after 3-4 days. I did notice, however, that if the nail colour started chipping, I was often able to peel off the whole sheet of nail polish on the nail in one piece, like a sticker. haha!
Overall:
Likes – Does help nail polish dry a lot quicker, really glossy finish
Dislikes – Shrinks the nail colour, gets really thick and stringy after a few uses.
Will I buy again – I will probably have this around for times when I need to squeeze in a quick emergency mani/pedi. It really does help the polish set faster, but I hate the shrinkage.
Where To Buy – Amazon or Sally’s Beauty
Price – Ranging from $6-$10 USD
Nail colour shown: Ardene – Electric Green
That happened because you did not polish the edges
Actually I’ve tried wrapping the edges and it didn’t help! What did help was trying new products and using nail polish thinner!