That's CoverGirl's new tagline for these polishes. (The polishes, dears, so lower those shirts! :0) ), claiming that these babies will shine just as well and last just as long without a topcoat. A bold claim indeed, especially to a topcoat lover like myself. However, I'm a sucker for a dare, so when CVS offered me a buy-one-get-one I decided to give it a try. The color selection is decent, though there's nothing outrageously fantastic about them either. I grabbed Constant Caribbean and Grapevine meaning to pair them up in a half-moon mani. Sadly I seem to always do my nails when I'm in a hurry as of late so I stuck with Constant Caribbean.
Swatch and review after the jump!
Base Coat: Seche Natural
Constant Caribbean is a blue-green teal with a little shimmer. Application was easy enough. Above is three thin coats. As always, I seem to bang a finger into something and wind up needing an extra coat to cover up the boo-boo. I could remove the polish from the offended finger (do fingers get offended?), but I don't -.-; Dry time was decent.
The formula once dried is smooth, but not glossy like it would be with a topcoat. I've had the color on for about five days now and while I only have one small chip on my right forefinger and the paint has disappeared from where I'd wrapped the tips, it's still there. If you don't look too hard at it there's no imperfections, though I've noticed an odd crackling in the pain going across one ring finger. So as far as staying power goes I'm actually happy with it. While it's lost some of it's sheen it's still shiny enough.
Overall Stay Brilliant is a good polish and Constant Caribbean is a pretty color. Yes, I'd recommend it if you find a color in the line you like. And if you want to go without topcoat or don't have time to apply, it's a good one to have. If you're expecting to feel your nails and forget you didn't apply topcoat, or run your nails over a metal scrubber while singing the Macarena and still expect it to go TING! as the sunlight hits it...Well that's just silly. Without topcoat it's still a bare polish and will feel like a (albeit shiny and rather smooth) bare polish.
I'm personally just addicted to the glossy feeling of topcoat is all ^^'
'Til next time!
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Nerdy
I completely agree... I just can't do polish without topcoat. Well, the whole liquid sand type thing I can do cuz that's how it's SUPPOSED to be, but I can't do regular polish without it and I can't believe I used to wear polish without topcoat!!! This is a real pretty color! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI'm very addicted to the feeling of glass smooth polish, to the point I've never done the caviar nail and I'm kind of brow-cocking at the sand. Maybe I'm just a stick in the mud ^.^
ReplyDeleteI think most of us self taught girls had to discover too coat as we went along. If it wasn't for fast dry topcoat I'd never had gotten into polish like I have because I'm simply too clumsy to wait two hours for the stuff to cure o.o