Drugstore Nail Polish Review
A few weeks back, I ran into a girl who had the coolest paint splattered nail polish on her nails. When I asked her where she got her nail polish, she said she had ordered it online and that is was 15 dollars for the bottle! I almost fell out of my chair. I love nail polish, but I don’t love it for half a gas tank’s worth of money. I thought to myself: “there has got to be a drugstore version of that style of nail polish.” So, off I went to the store! All products were bought with my own money and these reviews are all my own honest opinions!
As I browsed the different brands and selections, I realized that I didn’t really know which brand would be the best bang for my buck! I decided to grab three different brands and tested them out over the last few weeks, so that someone else who might have the same dilemma would be saved the 20 minutes I spent looking at every possible option.
I first tried Hard Candy’s version in Soda Pop (799). It retails for $4.00 at Walmart and I thought the colors would be perfect for cheering on the Patriots for Superbowl Sunday.
Pros: This nail polish went on smoothly. I didn’t use a base coat and only needed three coats to achieve the desired pattern on my nails.
Cons: It chips/peels off super easily. Keep in mind, I didn’t put a top coat on over it, but by the end of day two, half of my nails were chipped.
I then tried Mabelline’s Color Show nail polish in Gleaming Graphite (606) which retails for $4.29 at CVS. This wasn’t exactly the paint splattered look I was going for, but caught my eye and was similar enough for me to want to try. I paired it with Sinful Colors Mauvelous (1408).
Pros: It stayed on longer than the Hard Candy brand.
Cons: This nail polish was super thick and didn’t have a lot of the metallic flakes per swipe. It felt gunky and was thick on my nails and hard to spread out. The metallic flakes dried a little raised up and off my nails so they were easy to pick at/snag on clothes.
I tried Revlon’s Rebel Graffiti (732) last and paired it with Wet n’ Wild Megalast’s Heatwave (212C). This nail polish retails for $3.97 at Walmart.
Pros: It went on smooth and light! I only needed two coats to get the desired splattered effect. It dried smooth and has not chipped at all! I’m on day four and this is the longest lasting nail polish out of the three I’ve tried. Also, this was the cheapest nail polish that I tried!
Cons: None!
So after all that, my absolute favorite polish I tried (in case you couldn’t tell) was the Revlon Rebel Graffiti! Hard Candy comes in second and Maybelline comes in last. I probably won’t by any Maybelline nailpolish in the future and would be hesitant to give Hard Candy another go, but Revlon has me sold.
Have you tried any of these nail polishes? What other brands should I try?
