I Tried The Seche Vite Top Coat That Claims To Really Make Your Manicures Last Longer, Here's What Happened

To chip or not to chip?

Put your hand up if you've ever spent ages doing your nails only for your manicure to chip a few days later.

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Same here. As someone who loves nothing more than a fresh manicure, it's seriously annoying when they only last a little while.

I'm obsessed with doing my nails, but my manicure usually chips at the drop of a hat (I can literally sneeze and my nail polish will chip right off) but I like my nails to look pretty, so we must persevere. I'm always on the lookout for anything that will make my efforts worthwhile, so I feel like this top coat which claims to make your manicure dry quicker and last longer will change the game!

Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat has been getting rave reviews on Amazon, so I thought I would try it out for two weeks to see if it really works.

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This top coat claims to help make your manicure dry quickly, stay glossy, and last for ages with minimal chipping and peeling. With bold claims like this (and over a thousand positive reviews on Amazon) I thought I would put it to the test.

Day One.

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This is how my manicure looked on Monday morning (16/09/19) – pretty much a fresh manicure as I did my nails the previous night.

For the actual manicure I used Maybelline Super Stay 7 Days nail polish in Flesh Tone. This formula usually lasts really well on my constantly-chipping nails.

I used Rimmel London 60 Seconds Super Shine nail polish in White Hot Love for the white tips: the wide brush makes for an easy and neat application (I always paint one layer of the sheer nude colour over the white tips to help make the French manicure look more ~natural~). And I finished off with a thick layer of the Seche Vite top coat over everything.

Let’s talk about my right thumb.

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You may notice that there’s a strange white arc peeking out right at the top of the nail. This is what can happen when you put the final layer of Seche Vite over the painted nails, without ‘sealing the edges’.

Basically what the top coat does is it grabs hold of whatever is under it and sort of shrinks it onto your nail: this is what usually makes it so resilient to chipping and makes your manicure look fresh for ages. But it also means that if you don’t run your brush over the edge of your nail to sort of secure the manicure from the top, the top coat can shrink back from the edges and give your manicure a weird, wrinkled edge – i.e. the thumb situation.

Usually I would have re-done this nail, but I thought I would leave it as it was to allow for a fair review, and also so we could see how chip-free this particular nail is without the Seche Vite top coat protection: a genuine side-by-side comparison if you will – you can thank my sleepy and forgetful Sunday night reflexes later.

Day Three.

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This is after I would say the manicure has ‘settled in’ to my nails. Might sound a little bit extra but if I ‘track’ my manicure’s progress, I find that kind of like a fresh trim, or second day hair, my nails actually look way better after a couple of days.

The manicure is less thick than when it’s freshly painted because the top coat has properly bonded itself to the other layers of polish, and the cuticles also look neater somehow.

Day Seven.

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The polish has faded slightly from the tips but there are no visible chips. One small casualty on my middle finger (which involved me chopping a carrot a *little* bit too enthusiastically) meant that my nail (not the polish) chipped off at the corner.

Besides this catastrophe, the only noticeable difference from the first day is the fact that my nails have grown, making the cuticles look a little messy.

Day 14.

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More than two weeks since I painted my nails and you can see no visible chipping at the tips!

The colour has faded a little bit more from the very top, and there is a bit of chipping on the sides, the finish is also less shiny, and when you look really close you can see that my nails have grown quite a bit, but honestly I’m really impressed with how well this has lasted over 14 days.

Now, what happened to ~that~ thumb?

Valeza Bakolli / Via BuzzFeed

Well, in short, it chipped. Not very badly (partly because the nail polishes used alone without the top coat are still very good) but when compared to the thumb fully covered with Seche Vite, you can really see a difference.

Conclusion: this top coat is insane! It helped to make my manicure last absolutely ages without chipping and still looks reasonably fresh after two weeks. If I wasn’t really excited to try out a new dark burgundy polish now that Autumn is truly here, my lazy self would be happy to keep this French manicure for as long as I can get away with it.

Valeza Bakolli / Via BuzzFeed

Top tips for using Seche Vite top coat:

1. It’s important to load up the brush with a lot of polish so you don’t have to double dip – if you try to paint another layer of top coat over the first, it will be more difficult to work with and might go lumpy.

2. You don’t have to wait for each layer to dry before you paint the next – this top coat actually works better when the layers underneath are still slightly wet, so it can kinda bond them together.

3. Don’t forget to seal the edges of the top coat with whatever’s left on your brush. Run the brush over the top edge of your nail to connect the tip with the main body of the nail and make sure that the manicure doesn’t shrink back a-la my right thumb.

4. Finally, this top coat’s name really isn’t lying: it dries fast. If your layers of polish underneath aren’t too thick, wait about five minutes and you can go about your day as normal (no more frantically flapping hands). But also make sure you work quickly, and don’t leave the brush out of the bottle for too long so it doesn’t have a chance to dry out.

Now go forth and enjoy your longer-lasting manicures!

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