Last week I brought you the press release for the new Color AMP'D collection from Orly. Today I'm sharing my experience with this new 2 part color system with you. I figured being gone on vacation was the perfect chance to test the wear time and I was not disappointed. I was sent Surfer Girl and the Flexible Sealcoat for this review.
Surfer Girl is a bright neon pink with flashes of purple micro shimmer. Application was a little tricky compared to your typical nail polish but not so much that it was unusable. It just took a little getting used to. The first coat I applied a thin layer, which seemed to end up a little patchy. The second coat I used a bit more polish and it seemed to even out for the most part. But I still had some spots where you could tell the polish was uneven. A thin 3rd layer evened everything out nicely. I think if I had started with a slightly thicker first coat I would have avoided most of the hassle.
Accent nail in Winstonia Plate W-04 with Milani White on the Spot |
I topped everything off with a layer of the flexible seal coat and waited for it to dry. The sealcoat is not a quick dry top coat so I had to wait a bit longer for my nails to dry. After 3 minutes my nails were dry enough to handle a light touch. That wasn't long enough to wait to stamp over the nail however and I ended up with some wrinkles in my polish. But you'd never know that by looking at my pictures. When Orly said this has smudge proof technology they weren't kidding! I added another layer of the flexible sealcoat over my image and everything evened out. Right then and there I was impressed. But I still needed to test the wear time.
Over the last week I put my hands through some pretty rough conditions. I was in Northern Minnesota where my kids and I went hiking, collected rocks, skipped rocks into Lake Superior, and spent a lot of time outside in the cold. Not to mention I still had regular things to do like washing dishes, cooking, and giving baths. Oh and before we even left 8 inches of snow fell and I had to shovel my way out on top of scraping the ice off my car. It was the ice scraping that caused my first casualty and I tore the nail on my pointer finger causing a small chip in the polish.
Day 4 Photo taken with my cell phone inside without direct light. |
This is day 4 of my wear test and you can see the small chip on my pointer finger. Other than that I still have a glossy finish on my nails and there is no sign of tip wear. My hands however are starting to show the effects of the cold weather.
Day 6. Starting to show some tip wear |
After 6 days my manicure was starting to show definite signs on wear. After having to trim down the nail on my pointer finger the polish really started to chip. (I know if I hand't broken that nail this picture would have looked a lot different.) You can just start to see the signs of tip wear on my middle and ring fingers. But I still have a glossy shine. Oh and did I mention that I didn't wrap my tips during application? 6 days before showing tip wear without wrapped tips! I say the problems I had with application are more than worth it for 6 days on wear time. What do you think?
Orly Color AMP'D polishes are available exclusively at Target in 36 long lasting shades for $9.99 each. Or you can pick up a launch kit containing 1 flexible color and 1 Sealcoat for $14.99. Have you seen these popping up in your local Target yet? Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!