We're in a New Age of Quick-Dry Nail Polish. But They're Not All Created Equal.
The handy map shows which polish went where in both the professional and nonprofessional manicure sessions. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter A member of our testing panel did a multi-mani in our office. Kit Iyer/NYT Wirecutter The handy map shows which polish went where in both the professional and nonprofessional manicure sessions. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter
We broke the five polishes we tested into two groups.
Three longstanding, well-known drugstore brands — OPI, Essie, and Sally Hansen — have quick-dry formulations that dry in about a minute and only need one or two coats.
And two relative newcomers — Dazzle Dry and Olive & June — require more steps and aren't quite as quick-drying as their competition. My professionally manicured nails on day one. Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter
I tested a red cream polish from each brand, applied by a professional manicurist, and then did a self-manicure with a silvery shimmer polish, ensuring that each polish landed on a different finger over time. I kept the polishes on for over a week and took photos of my nails every day, documenting how well the color applied and stayed saturated, any chipping at the tips or elsewhere, and any dulling of the shine. Nail polish wear-time test applied by a professional manicurist, from left to right: Olive & June Quick Dry (thumb), Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, Essie Expressie, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry; Olive & June Quick Dry (pinkie), Essie Expressie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry. The large chip on the middle finger of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri is due to an unfortunate cheese grater accident on day four and not the polish itself. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter
Our panel testers did their own manicures with the drugstore brands and filled out a survey with their results, which I took into account when crowning my polish queens.
It's a good question, one that is shrouded in mystery (to me, anyway). I reached out to more than 15 cosmetic chemists who work in nail polish development independent of the brands I tested. Most of them either didn't see my messages or ignored them. I got ghosted twice. I left voicemails at private-label manufacturers without a response.
So, I turned to the brands, and I found that most of their answers were a mix of sales jargon and actual information. Sally Hansen was the only brand that did not respond.
But it turns out that regular formulas and quick-dry formulas use the same types of ingredients, just in different ratios. A spokesperson for OPI told me in an email, 'Nail lacquer use[s] solvents, resins, and pigments. Quick dry formulas prioritize using more solvent to enable faster drying. Long wear formulas prioritize more resins to create a durable lasting film.'
That means that most quick-dry polishes are not going to wear as long as traditional polish. 'I always joke that these polishes dry as fast as they chip,' said Simcha Whitehill, an editorial manicurist who goes by Miss Pop and who I've known within the industry for years. She often uses this type of polish at photo shoots because the model can go straight to set once the manicure is finished.
In some cases, quick-dry polish is thinner to enable that faster dry time. You need to ensure the bottles are tightly capped, as the polish evaporates faster than traditional formulations because of the higher concentration of solvents, said a representative of Olive & June.
Essie Expressie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, and OPI RapiDry all promised an extremely fast manicure — one to two coats that dry in about a minute. But what you gain in speed, you sacrifice in coverage and quality.
Essie Expressie was often streaky or uneven in coverage, whether it was applied by pros (the result looked mottled) or by me. The two-coat formula is mostly available in cream shades, as well as an FX Expressie line that are called top coats but can also be used as base shades. One tester who applied Now or Never, a deep black, reported that it chipped the same day and was unwearable by day two.
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri chipped nearly instantaneously for many of our testers, and they struggled with the single-coat application, especially with the darker colors like On the Download, a cobalt-blue, and C-hill Out, a forest green. The line has a nice selection of shades, including dark cream colors, light shimmers, and everything in between, but it is very pink-heavy. While it's the cheapest of the testing pool at about $7 a bottle, you can do better for just a few dollars more. My day six nails of the self-manicure showed recession and loss of sheen, especially with the drugstore brands. Left to right: Olive & June Quick Dry, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, Essie Expressie, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter
During my pro-manicure test, all three drugstore polishes began to recede at the tip within the first day or two. By day three, they'd lost their sheen, and by day five, they were still mostly wearable, but definitely not fully intact. I experienced some slight staining on my nails with all three brands' red polishes, though OPI was the lightest.
OPI RapiDry stood out among the speed demons. The cherry-red color Secs Appeal held up the longest of our three drugstore brands in the professional-manicure test (you can see it the most clearly in the image above, with only minor fading and recession from the nail tip by day six). My self-manicure, a grapefruit-color sparkly shade called Cheers to No Smears, was similarly long-lasting.
Color selection is, of course, subjective, but the majority of testers were into OPI's broad color range; one called the shades 'a bit offbeat, which I like.' But another tester found it underwhelming, saying, 'I go for deep reds and purples in the winter, or a nude, and bright pinks/corals in the summer. There aren't many colors I'd look to buy.'
This low-cost polish stood out for its color selection, even coverage, 60-second dry time, and five to six days of wear time. Number of coats Approximate dry time Longevity based on testing Approximate cost Sally Hansen Insta-Dri one one minute one to two days $7 per bottle Essie Expressie two one minute two to three days $10 per bottle OPI RapiDry one to two one minute five to six days $10 per bottle Olive & June Quick Dry two, plus a top coat one minute between coats seven-plus days $7.50 per bottle, plus top coat Dazzle Dry two, plus prep, base coat, and top coat five minutes seven to 11 days $39 plus tax and shipping for a starter mini kit and one polish
Dazzle Dry and Olive & June require more steps. This would normally annoy me, but based on the middling performance from the other crew, I was willing to give it a shot.
The Olive & June Quick Dry professional manicure (in shade Lollipop, a candy-apple red) and self-manicure (in Elevator, a shimmery iridescent pink) I did during the first two rounds of testing held up incredibly well — over a week, when the brand states only five days. I appreciated the underpromise, overdeliver ethos of the wear time. The polish looked clean and neat for 10 days, similar to Dazzle Dry.
The trouble started when I decided to do a full manicure on my own. Olive & June Quick Dry requires two coats of polish, plus a top coat, with a dry time of one minute between each coat.
The first coat of the gorgeous, shimmery purple called Enchanted went on smoothly. The online instructions in the How to Use section of each polish listing (now corrected by the brand) originally said to wait a full five minutes between coats. The actual instructions are to wait one minute between coats. But in reality, I should have waited even longer, because the polish wasn't fully dry and smudged significantly. Chalking it up to user error, I did a second manicure the next day and the polish still felt tacky when I was finished. If you can't get a good, consistent, quick-drying manicure at home, what is even the point?
The color selection (filter down to Quick Dry if you click the link) includes a range of neutrals that look nice on a variety of skin tones, as well as saturated creams and some exciting shimmers.
With a solid selection of vibrant cream and shimmery shades, Dazzle Dry gives a long-lasting, salon-quality manicure that dries quickly. But it is expensive and only available in salons or online.
So, would Dazzle Dry live up to its name and wow me? Frankly, I found the multi-step process overwhelming at first. I want to just slap on a coat of polish and be done with it! But I timed a full manicure, and it took 22 minutes start to finish, including removal of my existing nail polish. This seemed extremely reasonable to me, because I spent most of my time actively painting, rather than waiting for the polish to dry.
The company makes it fairly foolproof, labeling each bottle in the process one through four, starting with a clear liquid nail prep you swipe on with a lint-free pad. Next comes two thin base coats, then two coats of polish, and finally a top coat. Since each of the steps dry quickly, with the formula turning matte once it has dried, the polish was already dry by the time I returned to that nail for the next step. I did have to wait a final five minutes after applying the top coat, but once that was done, I was able to walk away with a solid, no-smudge manicure that didn't transfer onto other surfaces (like a wall or a piece of paper).
The pigments are smooth, saturated, and easy to apply, with the top coat adding a salon-quality shine. I got the longest-lasting (over 10 days!), best-looking manicure from Dazzle Dry, and we were impressed with its wide range of shimmer and cream shades.
You do have to pay for this greatness: A mini kit costs $39 plus tax and shipping and comes with one mini bottle of polish (additional mini bottles of polish are $12 each and a full size is $22). Full-sized system kits are obviously even more expensive. The Dazzle Dry system includes four numbered bottles that you use in order: Nail Prep, Base Coat, Nail Lacquer, and Top Coat. Dazzle Dry also sells a lightly scented nail polish remover that includes lemongrass and clove oil.
Companies began marketing their solvent-based nail polish as 3-free in the early 2000s, removing formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), toluene (an irritant that can be toxic at certain concentrations), and dibutyl phthalate from their formulations due to potential health concerns around the inhalation or absorption of the ingredients through the skin and nails. Most widely available nail polishes, like those from Essie and OPI, are at least 3-free.
Although this has since ballooned from three to as many as 21-free ingredients, much of this is marketing-speak. It's important to note that none of these claims are regulated. If you're concerned about potential exposures, you can directly research ingredients at databases like PubChem or EWG, an advocacy organization, and speak with your doctor.
Since we completed testing, I've been alternating between doing my own nails with Dazzle Dry and getting a professional mani at a salon that uses Dazzle Dry (which you can find through the Dazzle Dry website). I change out my polish twice a month, with the manicures lasting nearly two weeks. In fact, it's not the polish degradation that causes me to need a redo — it's the fact that my nails get too long and I can feel the feedback on them as I'm typing on a keyboard, which is something I absolutely cannot handle mentally.
What I've discovered is that application technique and lifestyle choices definitely affect the wear of a polish, and your pointer finger usually sustains more wear than, say, your pinkie. Your mileage may vary, depending on how well you apply the polish and how careful you are with your hands.
Editorial manicurist Miss Pop told me to use a cuticle oil daily to help keep my nails looking good longer. 'It makes your nails more resilient, so they're more able to go with the flow and less likely to chip,' she said. I honestly don't know how much it's helping, but the little, low-impact daily ritual gives me two minutes of self-care thrill.
Whether the manicure is pro-given or my own, I repeatedly get compliments on my nails, and I've become more confident in doing them myself.
'It just takes a little bit of practice and muscle memory,' Miss Pop said. 'People get so discouraged that they're not like a top-notch manicurist. But if you do your own nails every week for six months, by the end of it, you will be.'
Soon, I might not need to shell out the cash (or take calming breaths) to sit in a salon chair ever again.
This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Maxine Builder.
Annemarie Conte
Deputy Editor
What I Cover
I write the Ask Wirecutter advice column, review trending products, and dig into product-focused investigations.
Whenever possible, I like to offer free fixes, low-cost solutions, and bigger investments so that readers can decide which option works best for them. I write about what is worth buying, what is overhyped junk, and everything in between.
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