Recent NOTD: Revlon ColorStay Midnight

Today I am back at my computer full time after spending last week once again enjoying the mountains in northern Idaho. Here's one of the snaps I took at Schweitzer Mountain:



If you're a regular reader, you might be thinking "what Sally Hansen strips did she wear this trip?" The answer is "none". I did bring some along, fully intending to put them on as soon as I called an end to the wear test I was doing of one of the new Revlon ColorStay shades, Midnight, a deep teal-leaning blue creme. I usually have no qualms about mixing brands between base, color, and top coat, but in ColorStay's case, I went ahead and bought the base and top coats, since I remember the previous incarnation of the line when the color and top coat were only sold together, as a system.



Still, I was curious to see if the matching base and top coats made a difference, so when I did my manicure a week before I left for my trip, I used the Revlon ones on most of my fingers, but my usual base and top coats on my ring fingers (all over a first layer of the Esmalte strengthener). I used two coats of Midnight.



It dried a touch darker than the bottle color, but definitely still looked blue even in low lights which made me happy. It was plenty shiny with both the Revlon top coat and my usual Sally Hansen Insta Dri.





The displays for this relaunch tout "Up To 11 Days of Shatterproof Color" (the fine print says that's when used with their base and top coats). I'd originally intended to take this off after about a week so I could put on strips for my trip, but when it came to that point, the polish still looked pretty good, so I left it on. Here it is six days in, showing some tip wear but no chips, and it's still fairly shiny.



Six days later, so twelve days total, I did have a chip, and more tipwear, and some weird texture on some of the nails that is more likely the fault of cleaning products I was using at the ski condo than the polish (it happened on both Revlon and Sally Hansen top coated nails). I found the big gap at my base from nail growth more distracting than the wear, actually. This shot also shows the dark face of this color; this shot was taken under the fluorescent light in the ski condo kitchen.



Based on my experience, which is admittedly not a scientifically valid sample, I'd say the new ColorStay is long lasting and doesn't require the matching base and top coat to be that way. I did like the ColorStay top coat; it dried almost as quickly as the Sally Hansen Insta Dri and held up equally well.

Since I subjected you to chips and tipwear, here's a pretty picture to make up for it, sunset fading over the mountains one night of my trip:



Since I didn't spend very much time online in the mountains, it's going to take me a bit to catch up with comments and emails and such. Please bear with me.