Product Break-Up: MAC metallic nailpolish
Number of hours it took for the mani to chip: 10. (Number of those hours I had spent sleeping: 7.) And it isn’t just a bitty “caught the corner of a Diet Coke can tab the wrong way” little divot either. My index finger looks like it belongs on Courtney Love’s hand — and it’s my LEFT index finger! It has, like, no chippable tasks!
I will say in your defense that this problem is not confined to MAC, and that all metallic polishes seem to fray faster than mattes. But I have tried every combination of layers: a few thin coats and a thin top coat; one fat coat and one fat top coat; fat thin fat; fat fat thin; duck duck goose. Fuck it. “But I swear I just changed the formu–” No no no no, forget it. You obviously don’t want to be here, so, go. We’re done. And stay away from my friends.
Tags: diet Coke the sweet mead of life MAC Product Break-Up
I no longer get manicures because no matter how careful I am, the split second I leave the salon a chip instantly materializes, at random, on one of my nails.
I stick to pedicures, which seem to last forever. (Well, not really. But way longer than my manicures.)
Oooh, have you tried the Zoya nail polishes?
I should note that I administered this one myself…but I usually do, and this is still a comparatively poor showing.
I am currently wearing a layer of China Glaze Wagon Trail and a layer of OPI Warm and Fozzie and it’s holding up pretty well.
I’m also eager to try this super-chrome-y shade, even though I know it will end in tears: http://prettylifeanonymous.blogspot.com/2011/04/five-things-friday_15.html
GEL NAIL POLISH!!! I can chip nail polish in seconds flat, metallic or no, but I got a manicure recently with the gel polish recommended by a friend because it doesn’t chip. Like, at ALL. It’s a booger to remove for obvious reasons, but it lasts a good month, no joke.
What Laura Beth said. My only complaint about gel polish is that it’s addictive! I’d resigned myself to just having un-polished nails for the rest of my life, and now I keep finding excuses to re-up for one more round with the gel.
Yeah, I get gel manicures and they last (for me) about 2.5 weeks, usually without chipping.
But… I do hot yoga, use computers all day and am generally unkind to my hands, so I think mine chip a little faster than most do. Problem is, they’re expensive manicures and you can’t really remove the polish yourself.
I second Laura Beth with the gel polish. The color choices are more limited (although, apparently you can layer them?), but it lasts forever. I got a manicure two weeks before thanksgiving last year then spent thanksgiving week doing heavy catering work – moving equipment around, washing my hands 20 times a days – and it lasted through the whole thing, no problem.
Yep, gel polish is the way, the truth, and the light. Apart from that, OPI plus Seche Vite top coat has always worked for me pretty well.
OPI. I’m not particularly careful with my manis, and with a top coat, OPI lasts a solid week without chips. (Plus their color names are funny.) I’ve also heard great things about Chanel, but I’m too cheap to shell out for it.
Another rave for the gel shellac manicure. I’ve only had a few professional manicures in my life, and every time, I’d chip before I’d even gotten back home. In December, right before I went on vacation, I got a gel manicure. Indestructible! I had a pretty active vacation, with a lot of swimming and hiking, and then came home to my normal life of working on the computer, washing dishes, etc. No damage whatsoever.
It only started looking bad as it grew out, and since I’d gotten a French manicure, I could sort of infill the base with my own clearish polish without being too obvious. It was a good month before I had to say it was done, but, yeah, the downside was that I really could not remove it completely at home. Four months later, I still have a few spots of polish, but as they’re clear, I’m ignoring them.
I will say this about Chanel nail polish – it stayed on and barely chipped while digging for clams in Maine (not a euphemism, I swear). For reals. The caveat – it wasn’t one of their super-dark metallics, lighter shade.
IME, Chanel lives and dies by your top coat. Use a liberal dose of Sally Hansen and you’re good for over a week; don’t, and it’s flaking in hours. Love their “color stories,” though, and the polish itself will last for years on end.
Slight hijack: do you think manicure preference is a geographical thing?
I live in Portland, Oregon, admittedly crunchiest of the crunchy locales, and literally know no one who wears nail polish. I *see* people who wear nail polish sometimes and tend to assume they’re high-maintenance sort of people.
On the other hand (bad, bad pun), I’ve been a TN reader for a really long time and tend to assume TN readers are NOT high-maintenance sort of people.
My assumptions are colliding.
So now I’m wondering if nail polish in some regions is NOT indicative of . . . how do I say this? . . . an above-average interest in what my sister and I call “foo-foo girly stuff.”
The mere presence of nail polish is foo-foo girly? That would probably be a Portland/hippies thing. I’m from Jersey, though. You work at a mall long enough, you start to think spending half your paycheck on acrylics with, like, the Godfather trilogy portrayed across three nails of your left hand is normal. I’m somewhere in the middle and I think most TN readers probably are too? I want my nails to look nice, but I don’t want to give it a whole lot of mental energy, either, which is why “chips in one day” isn’t going to cut it. I open a lot of cans — diet Coke, cat food, whup-ass — and I ain’t stopping.
But the nail thing can really vary widely: cultural factors, geography, etc. My mother was horrified to hear that I got a pedi every two weeks — what a waste of money! since when are you this person! — but my home town didn’t have “a Korean.” You wanted your nails done, it was a whole spa experience, and it was pricey. I had to explain to her about the $20-including-tip concept.
I also think it’s evolved in the last couple of decades vis-a-vis “who it’s for.” Like pierced ears. For people my grandmother’s age, pierced ears = tramp, period. For my mother, it was okay, but she had it done by a doctor, which made it more okay? And mine were done at the mall, NBD.
Gel manicures. Totally. Slightly more expensive at the salon, but really worth it in terms of longevity and durability. Also, a gel manicure can be done in any color you choose. As for Clover’s geopgraphical theory; it’s an interesting question for which multiple theories could be posited, but me; I just like pretty hands.
Ok, I’ve never tried a regular metallic polish, but the dull gold flavor of those Sally Gansen nail strip things stays on for ages. It’s a little tricky the first time you apply them, but I’m able to cover 2 nails w each strip, so a $10 box is two long-lasting manicures with literally no drying time.
Ooh, nail stickies. I wanted to get the zebra ones from Fred Flare but they sold out, and then also it looked like maybe it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to get a correct fit. Do you have to cut them?
I would like to second the OPI nomination. Very durable and not as expensive as either MAC or Chanel, I think.
I’m liking the Godfather trilogy nail art concept a lot. I think you could get away with that in Portland, as long as you painted an itty-bitty disclaimer on your pinky nail that you were wearing nail art ironically. Maybe put a bird on it, too.
I know some people in the Portland metro area wear nail polish. There are nail salons, and retailers carry nail polish. Someone’s buying these goods and services.
But I also know the two times I wore nail polish to work (once after a mishap involving India ink and once the day before my wedding, when I’d actually had my nails done by a professional), people commented on it: “Ooooh, fancy! What’s the occasion?” and “It’s so SHINY. Can I touch it?”
At the time, I thought, “Wow, there’s a whole population of women out there who deal with this aspect of grooming all the time. What a concept.”
And I would not have put that population of women (at least as I imagined them) on a Venn diagram with the TN readership.
Of course, I do work for a sportswear company with a notoriously casual and sporty workplace vibe, and it’s pretty unusual to see anyone here wear makeup, obvious hair product, etc. Around here, if your socks match, people ask if you have a hot date or a job interview.
I think we’re on the bleeding edge of fashion cluelessness even for Portland, Oregon. Which is quite the distinction, now that I think about it.
I totally have tried to put a bird on it before! Except that my nails are pretty short, and I suck at drawing, and I should really stop putting birds on things anyway. (Glark once said that I should have a DIY spin-off of “Portlandia” called “Put ANOTHER Bird On It.”) My excuse is that my last name IS a bird, but it’s sort of out of hand now.
I hate to bring the crowd down, but I recently read an article about gel polish that said it was pretty dicey because of the chemicals involved. Unfortunately I can’t find the article now (of course), but I just wanted to mention it, so you all can look into it if it concerns you.
@clover — I am not particularly girly, but I’ve gotten into manicures in the past six months or so. I’m a terrible nail-biter, so due to a pair of weddings about a month apart, I got an acrylic manicure and subsequent fill-in to have them looking nice. I found a cheapo place in my neighborhood, which was new to me after years of more spa-ish experiences. It takes less than an hour and $20 to replace my least favorite body part with a 3000% better version.
I’m from Baltimore; not sure where that lands on the geographic scale in terms of flashy fashion.
Also, as I understand it, nail art is having something of a cultural moment these days. Nail polish sales are off the charts, nail blogs are blowing up, Pinterest nail boards, etc. Allegedly, it is one of those “lipstick index” things (ie, in hard economic times, more people are inclined to spend money on small treats). Alternately, the explosion of DIY blogs and YouTube tutorials has made something that was extremely difficult to do (or expensive to buy) more accessible.
Ok, I’ve heard only the Sally Hansen ones wear well, so that is all I tried. I sort of tore the strip off after placing on first nail, then immediately applied the other half to the same nail on the other hand (the strips dry out; they are actual polish, not stickers!). Hard to explain. First try it took a couple nails to figure out, but then it was easy. And no smudges!!
I did the gel manicures and found I did not like how thick they felt on my nails. I may have had a poor application, since both times I got them the polish started lifting off of my nails. It also destroyed my nails (because they have to scratch up the surface of the nail for the gel to stick, apparently). I have been loving the OPI RapiDry Top Coat. Every manicure I have given myself has smudged/chipped/indented but One coat of this top coat and ten minutes of touching NOTHING and I get at least four days of chip-free polish.
The stickies are awesome. Sally Hansen ones are pretty easy to put on. I’ve got the OPI ones to try next, the designs are better. It’s kind of like nail art for idiots. I love.
I’ve had really good luck with Butter London’s metallic polishes. I chip my nail polish like crazy, but with BL it takes way longer to get to the re-painting stage.
Another Testify! for the Sally Hansen nail patches. I also get the Sephora versions, which include zebra and leopard glittery versions that are just way, way too cool. Strangely, though, everyone’s first reaction to the leopard patch is “Ooooh, tiger!”
There was a slight learning curve about putting them on, but it takes me 20 minutes to do all of the work now, including drying. And the biggest problem with them for me is not chipping, but the fact that my nails grow out. I’ve had them on for two weeks without a single chip and I’m always banging my nails into things…especially the right index “Look!” finger.
Just remember that they are actually made of nail polish so you have to plastic bag any leftovers if you want to use them later. I have tiny little hands and nails so I get 2.5 manis out of a package. If I do fingers and toes, one package covers it with a couple of leftovers.
So, basically, base coat, sticker, top coat and good for two weeks.
Sephora carries a British brand called Nails Inc. I shelled out for it because they had just introduced these magnetic polishes (you put on a thin coat, wait 2 mins, apply a second thin coat, then hold the magnet built into the lid over your nail for 10 seconds and it creates an awesome patter and the metallic flecks float around). This stuff lasted several days without chipping which for me is a major miracle. I usually chip after 10 minutes.
I have good luck with Orly IF I use their rubberized basecoat (used to be called Bonder, but I haven’t bought a bottle in ages) and a light color AND a topcoat, and then I can get almost a week out of it before it starts to look really gross. When I first hit on this formula, it didn’t seem to affect my nails much, but lately I feel like when I take it off, my nails are even more cracked and brittle and flaky than usual. That I have crappy-looking nails is why I even bother in the first place, really, but I’m starting to worry that I’m making it worse. I’ll sometimes get an actual pedi, but I don’t usually bother with a mani unless I’m in someone’s wedding, because all I do is type and knit and open cans of cat food.
I always keep my toes painted with OPI, 2-3 coats, and I always get bored and want a new color before it chips. And I wear open-toe a LOT down here in Florida. I don’t do my nails, though, becuase I’m absolutely terrible at tking care of and painting my own nails and I’m too lazy to have them done. I’m about to break down, I think.
I’m in Chicago, and consider myself of an average maintenance level (not high, but certainly not low). I’m a lawyer for a pretty laid-back company, and I have started to feel kind of slovenly when my nails aren’t manicured. This doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be painted, but they usually are. And, I would not wear open-toed shoes without a pedicure (whether self-made or professional).
Oddly, I’ve found that the best nail polishes depend on the color. Pale colors, Essie is best, but darker or brighter colors, OPI. Dior makes a decent metallic, and my favorite of all time (if you want to spendthe $$ is Deborah Lippmann. Awesome colors, goes on smoothly, never clumps, and lasts a pretty long while.
The gels and shellacs are awesome, but you have to go back to the salon to take them off. Trying to do it yourself is what damages your nails.
Another trick for a long-lasting mani (if you can handle it)…glitter! My favorite subtle glitter polish (is that a thing?) Is OPI Teenage Dream. So cute and it lasts FOREVER.
I kind of have more opinions on nail polish than i’d previously thought…
…and I don’t mean to imply that people shouldn’t wear open-toed shoes with unpainted toenails or that you must have a manicure at all times. I think it’s just one of those things that, once you start doing it, it becomes part of your normal regimen like tweezing your brows or something. So, you notice it on yourself if it’s not done.
Have any of you tried this? I was tutoring one of my students this afternoon and actually stopped dead mid-sentence when I saw her nails. It looked amazing. Too bad I gnaw my nails down to the quick on a daily basis…
http://www.olivecocomag.com/beauty-how-to-newspaper-print-nails/
Wrap the tips with polish-it increases wear time. Before you paint the nail, wipe most of the polish off the brush and swipe the tip (free edge) of your nail. It’s the part that you would tap on the table if drumming you fingers.
Newsprint nails! I haven’t tried it but it’s on my agenda – there are a lot of how-tos floating around the web and it doesn’t look too hard.
Wait, you mean other people DON’T have the luxury of a quickie-nail salon where you can get a manicure and pedicure for under $40? Oh, you poor things! You don’t know what you’re missing.
I gave myself a manicure tonight because I was bored. I’ve been meaning to get a pedicure for weeks but then I had to go and sprain my ankle last week so the manicure was more of a “eff you, ankle” more than anything else.
I have heard good things about Revlon’s Colorstay nailpolish. It’s supposed to last as well as a gel manicure. I haven’t tried it myself, but I know a few people who were impressed by how long it lasted.
I tear up my hands – between gardening, the dogs, work at a keyboard all day, washing dishes, no manicure except a gel manicure has lasted more than a day. Gel is good for about 2 weeks. Even though I get clear/sparkly, after two weeks the new growth at the bottom has gotten to a point that bugs. Yeah, you can paint over it with real polish, but then back to the original problem of chipping.
I’ve had better luck with the gel polish by removing it myself. At the salon they get all scrapy, because really, they need you to be done so they can keep working. At home, I can take my time, and I’ve never had to scrape, so my nails are doing really well. Also, I take a week off between gel polish manicures and oil my nails and cuticles a couple of times a day – the manicure lady suggested it, and I have to say that my nails are stronger and don’t peel any more.
I know I’m totally late to the party, but I wanted to chime in about my favorite drug store nail polish: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear. First off, you have to love the smurfy combination of pun and xtreme spelling in their name. I mean, Sally Hansen is totally mom’s nail polish and look, they’re trying to be all hip! Isn’t that cute? Anyhow, I play guitar and am totally clumsy, so if I use the polish from the nail salon, my beautiful manicure will turn into a chiptastic nightmare in about a day. However, whenever I bring in my own two dollar tub ‘o polish, I get almost a week before it starts chipping. I’m particularly partial to the metallic blue.
Manicures rarely last on me so I either don’t get them, get a gel manicure (love those but they’re pricier), or I use Essie polish (about $8 a bottle if you buy your own; Target sells them). I’ve found that while other brands (such as OPI, my usual brand) is great on my toes, if I use Essie on my hands, my manicure lasts longer than other brands.