Hi, everybody! Today, I'll be talking about possibly the most hyped quick dry top coat: the Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. When I had my first nail polish phase back in 6th grade, I knew the Seche Vite top coat even back then as "that one top coat that everybody uses." Now, SV is the top coat that I've been using since September 2019, so for a year at this point. I've used about 3/4 to 4/5 of the bottle. In general, the purpose of a top coat is to protect a manicure and make it last longer. A layer of top coat can also physically smooth out the texture of glitter, flakes, shimmer, streaking, etc. Top coats are also usually glossy, so just saying "top coat" implies glossy. A glossy finish can just look nice from an aesthetic standpoint, but the reflectiveness can also further visually "smooth out" any unevenness. A quick dry top coat, sometimes abbreviated to "QDTC," specifically is supposed to help your nail polish dry much more quickly than it would on its own or with a non-QDTC. I remember YouTuber Kelli Marissa once suggested making sure it actually has something like "quick dry" in the name or else it won't necessarily actually be a quick dry top coat.
These swatches are from back when I had used about half of the Seche Vite QDTC, so the textural issues that I will mention later weren't as apparent yet, though the formula was already somewhat goopy and stringy at that point. For reference, I generally do 1 coat of Cuccio Base Coat, 2-3 coats of nail polish, and then 1 coat of the Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. I wrap my tips when applying the nail polish and the top coat, meaning I "cap off" the free edge of my nail with polish and with top coat. I've heard some people recommend reapplying top coat after several days of wearing your manicure, but that's something I honestly just can't be bothered to do. I usually keep my nail polish on for about a week before taking it off. At the end of that time, I usually have one or two nails with a small chip or two, pretty much always on my dominant hand since that's the hand that has to do things. The rest of my nails just have regular tip wear. I don't necessarily have a wide frame of reference, but I feel like SV does its job in terms of longevity. However, always keep in mind that wear time will be hugely dependent on your lifestyle, what you do with your hands, how much time your hands spend underwater, etc. I would say this is genuinely quick dry; except for one horrifically terrible nail polish I had, I would be able to get back to doing things with my hands within a few minutes of using the top coat. Nonetheless, you should be careful about getting it on your skin; whenever I would accidentally get any top coat on the sidewalls of my nail beds, it would dry down white/cloudy and look crusty. From this photo, it looks like the brush might be dense and be able to spread out, but because in actuality it is so sparse and thin, it doesn't really spread out any more than this. I really don't like the bottle brush. It reminds me of the China Glaze brush (but worse) because it's a super sparse skinny round brush. That means that it's hard to get an even application because I have to use so many brush strokes to cover just 1 nail. It's also messy when trying to wrap the tip, and it's messy when trying to get the sides of my nails (because of having to use so many brush strokes and having to reload the brush); in both of those occasions, I would often get top coat on my skin/my cuticles, which is not a problem I have with just regular polish. In addition, I have to wait longer than I would like to for a "bead" of top coat to flow down the brush. The bottle brush also doesn't reach all the way down to the bottom of the bottle, so when there's about 1/4 of the top coat left, it's impossible to coat the brush with sufficient product. Those textures were not there when I put the nail polish on; the textures are from when the top coat gets goopy because that's how the goopy SV dries down. This photo is from a few weeks ago with about 1/4 of the bottle left. Probably my biggest problem with the Seche Vite was how awful the formula got when the bottle got "low" -- at about the halfway point, which should not be "low!" It felt like an overnight change; one time when I did my nails, it was perfectly fine, and the next time I did my nails, it was goopy, stringy, and just generally hard to work with. That made it even harder to coat the brush with enough product and to control the top coat when applying it. It would still kind of self-level on the nail, but it would create weird textures on some nails once it got to about 1/3 of the bottle, and it wouldn't dry as quickly as before. All of these formula and texture issues have only worsened as I've used up more product. I even tried using a thinner; unfortunately, it didn't do much. The thinner I have is 5-free, which includes no toluene, but toluene is a key ingredient in the Seche Vite top coat (as it is in many quick dry top coats). Ultimately, I won't be repurchasing this top coat. It's fairly inexpensive, widely available in the United States, and works well with protecting my manicure, but my problems with the brush and the formula after the bottle is halfway used are so absolutely frustrating. Seche sells a product called Seche Restore, which is a thinner designed specifically for this top coat. I've heard other people say good things about Seche Restore, but I don't want to have to get a giant bottle of something that I can only use for one specific product. Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat is advertised to have 14 mL/0.5 oz of product, which is a pretty average volume for nail polish. It is also available in a mini size at some retailers. I purchased mine for 9.95 USD at Ulta, but it's also available (in the US) on the Seche website, at Sally Beauty, at HB Beauty Bar, and I think most drugstores and such. It seems to be cheaper at drugstores than at Ulta. Thanks for reading!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
about @glowyminoI have dry skin and very dry and textured lips. I also have a medium-light skintone (somewhere in the realm of NC25-30) with strong warm yellow/olive undertones. I have a tendency to prefer a glowy, lightweight base and color cosmetics in shades of a warm undertone. Read more about me in the about page! Archives
May 2024
CategoriesPost TagsAll 40s Fashion 50s Fashion 60s Fashion 70s Fashion 90s Fashion Academia Fashion Accessories Acure Adept Cosmetics Adventure Style Ana Luisa @ap_archives BAIT Footwear Beauty Industry Becca Cosmetics Blazers Blend Bunny Cosmetics Blouses Blush Bottoms Bronzer Brow Gel Brow Pencil Brows Burt's Bees Button-ups Catkin Cirque Colors "clean Beauty" Clionadh Cocokind Collectif Colourpop Concealer Content Creation Corduroy Pants Cosrx Cottagecore Cruelty Free Beauty Cuticula Dandy Lion Cosmetics @deerestdiary.makeup @definitely_not_kayleeeeee Depop Devinah Cosmetics Different Dimension Dresses Edwardian Fashion Elf Cosmetics @ellessentially_ Em Cosmetics @ethanmwong Ethereal Lacquer Eyeliner Eyeshadow Face Primer Fashion Fashion Sustainability Favorites Femme Fatale Flower Beauty Foundation Fourth Ray Beauty Goodwill Guides Hair Highlighter Hobbitcore Indie Makeup Indie Nail Polish INNBeauty Jumpsuits KBShimmer Kotn KVD Beauty @lil_jo__ Lip Gloss Lip Liner Lipstick Looxi Beauty Low Buy Lumen Nails Mainstream Nail Polish Makeup Makeup And Feminism Makeup Brushes Mascara Mehron Meta @mgetsdressed Milani Mutually Creative Nailcare Nail Polish NBM @noopur_makeup Not Perfect Linen NYX Cosmetics One/Size Organization Orly Outerwear Pahlish Peach & Lily Penelope Luz Personal Style Phytosurgence Polish Pickup Poshmark Powder Princesscore Pur Cosmetics Quixotic Polish Rael Beauty Range Beauty @ratboar Real Techniques Reviews Secondhand Fashion Selsun Blue Shine By SD Cosmetics Shoes Shorts Simply Posh Cosmetics Skincare Skirts Storybook Summer Fridays Swatches Sweaters Sydney Grace @tastefulcringe Terra Moons Cosmetics @tesschung TheBalm The Body Shop The Inkey List The Ordinary Thrifted Fashion Top Coat Tops Tower28 Trousers Unique Vintage Urban Decay Victorian Fashion Vintage Fashion Vivien Of Holloway Vixen By Micheline Pitt @watermelonflesh Youthforia Youth To The People |