Review: Vinylux Nail Polish

Hello Princesses!

Today I'm going to be talking about CND's Vinylux Weekly Polish!

CND have bought out a section of nail polishes that they claim last for a whole week without chipping, and are strengthened by sunlight. Similar to a gel polish with it's long lasting, no smudging or chipping qualities, but without the price of going into a salon or buying the specialist equipment, sounds like every woman's dream right?

"VINYLUX™ is a breakthrough polish system that endures a week of fashion perfection…without a base coat! Exposure to natural light secures the patent-pending Pro-Light technology, creating an enduring, long-lasting polish. While ordinary polishes become brittle and deteriorate over time, VINYLUX dries naturally to a flawless finish and strengthens its resistance to chips over time. VINYLUX is available in 62 fashion-forward polish colors and 47 colors that match popular CND Shellac™ shades." (Cnd.com)

I bought my Vinylux WAY back when I went to the Beauty expo in July and have been putting off reviewing them ever since. Why? I tend to get bored with my manicures pretty fast, and since I wanted to thoroughly test these polishes I had to spare around about a month of "free nail time". I needed to cut my nails short for my Honours recital, and when you're practicing quite a lot everyday, eventually you run out of time for intricate manicures. This seemed like the perfect time for my tests! 

One of the qualities I love about Vinylux is that it sets very fast. I'm notorious for touching the polish before it's dried, or denting it trying to pick things up, and I've gotta say, it just doesn't happen with these polishes! They have a curious texture, instead of feeling shiny and smooth like normal polishes they feel almost like Rubber or Vinyl. It's hard to explain, but it's not and unpleasant feeling (for me at least!)

The Vinylux colours that belong to me are: Romantique (left) and the Clear Top Coat (right). I also borrowed my younger sisters white polish Cream Puff for further testing purposes. All of the polishes in the Vinylux range have a opacity indication (although it's not marked on the bottles), Romantique is semi sheer  while Cream Puff is Opaque. You can check out the colour and opacity chart (HERE) I chose Romantique for it's gorgeous colour, and even though you are only supposed to use 2 coats, I use 4 to get it to the opacity I want. This means I use a LOT more polish than usual (which explains why the bottle is so empty!) I have done 5 full manicures with Romantique so far. 

I bought my polishes for $10 each at the Beauty Expo (WISH I had bought more!) but they are available at department stores for $20, or online at Blush Baby for $19.95. The polish is easily removed with Acetone based Nail Polish Remover. The non acetone removers will work, but very slowly and will probably need soaking or foiling.

To test the claims of this polish, I took photo's of my hands everyday for 3 weeks and arranged them in a neat little chart so that you can see how it wears! Feel free to click the photo's to enlarge them.

First up for observation is a french manicure using Cream Puff and the Clear Top Coat.

I found that this manicure lasted really well, the clear coat started pulling away and peeling along my cuticle lines, but since it was only one coat, I consider that fine. There was some slight tip wear, but nothing too substantial. There is a small chip in my index finger, and my thumb nails were incredibly munted and glued together using tea bags - just ignore them.

But what if I want to have stickers on my nails too?

Yep, tried that. I used my Etude House Sweet Sweet Nail Stickers used in this Manicure Monday to see if that would make the polish react unfavorably. I painted my french manicure as normal, coated with the clear top coat, stuck the stickers on, and then top coated again. 

That bow was a giant pain in the butt. I managed to stick it on three times in the same place, (there was a sticker outline, wasn't as hard as it might look) but the stickers did not seem to affect the polish, but instead the double top coat seems to have made the peeling around my cuticles worsen.

Next up was Romantique and the Clear Top Coat.

Romantique performs incredibly well, with only slight peeling by the cuticles and minor tip wear. The blue pinkie is for luck for my chamber exam, (it totally works)

The next test looks at the possible side effects of having a special effect polish on top of your Vinylux polish.

I used YSL's Mauve Reflection, (a pink/purple opalescence) over top of Romantique, finishing of with the Clear Top Coat. The results are the same as above, with a little chipping/peeling at the cuticles and tip wear.

This is all well and good, but do I really need to buy the colour AND the top coat? Will it work without the top coat, or will the top coat make my other polishes last all week too? I wouldn't be a very good blogger and reviewer if I didn't test this too!

I tried Romantique with my OPI Top Coat. Nothing special, just the standard one.

The results are very similar, but you can clearly see that the wear time has sped up, with the tip wear and cuticle wear beginning to show on Day 3.

For the last test I used OPI's Pedal Faster Suzi with the Vinylux Clear Top Coat.

These results are slightly flawed because I had broken the corner off my index finger in between polish changes. If you ignore my index finger (which gets steadily worse and has to be cut to nubbins) the other fingers seem to do quite well, with tip wear and cuticle wear starting at around day 4-5

*Phew*

 What I Love

• Lasts the week for me
• Gorgeous colour range
• About mid range for my polish budget
• Top Coat can be used to prolong the wear of other polishes
• Neat texture
• Can be used with non Vinylux polishes to the same effect
• Don't need a base coat
• Easy to remove
• Fast and Easy to apply

What I don't Love

•  Not available everywhere/locally for me
• I'm not convinced sunlight prolongs the wear
• Does not last the same on everyone

Final Thoughts

I'm pretty sold on this polish for myself, but I know that it does not always work for everyone. It doesn't work for my younger sister, but then again liquid sand won't stay on her fingers longer than an hour either! Vinylux seems like a great idea for people who only want to do their manicures once a week, have a very busy schedule - possibly with children - because the polish sets very fast which means you can go and pick things up without denting your nails or even wash your hands without ruining the whole manicure. (Also great for when you forget to go to the bathroom BEFORE you start your manicure.) Vinylux seems to play well with every other polish I have, so you can do nail art, or even jazz your mani up with flakie, holo or opal top coats, without affecting the strength of the Vinylux polish. The clear top coat prolongs the life of your ordinary nail polish and helps it set faster and harder, which is something I would totally buy the top coat separately for too! 

I will most definitely be buying more of these polishes, I'm currently eying up Tropix for a cute summer pedi colour, and Cream Puff because my current white has just run out! ><