Walgreens: $1.99
http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nyc-in-a-ny-minute-quick-dry-nail-polish/ID=prod6155150-product
Grand Central Station (clear top coat) over OPI Bogata Blackberry
New York Color describes this clear nail polish as being a ” slick, glossy polish that goes from wet to set in less than 60 seconds”. It also claims a special “flow control brush”. Grand Central Station is completely clear, and oddly enough is not labeled as a top coat at all, rather is lumped in with the normal nail polish range.
Let me start off by saying that this is the best topcoat I have ever tried, and I honestly cannot say I see a topcoat in my future that can beat this one. Just to show how serious I’ll say it again. In bold. This topcoat is awesome. Now here’s why.
Just as NYC claims, this provides a beautiful glossy finish that actually also works to help camouflage any mistakes made when doing the previous coats. For someone like me who sucks at nails and is also impatient, this really helps.
It does dry fairly fast, which is fabulous (because of the aforementioned lack of patience), but I’m not exactly sure about under 60 seconds. It doesn’t much matter though, at this point.
I’m not sure about the “flow control brush”, it looks pretty bog standard to me, but it doesn’t pose any difficulties in application. This polish does apply great, but I think this is more due to the formula rather than the brush. The formula is quite thick, and disperses across the nail so it is really even. However, this thickness obviously doesn’t affect dry time.
But the thing that really set this topcoat apart from the masses is the wear time. For me, nail polish normally wears about 3-5 days before it starts to chip. Tip wear for me typically occurs about 1-2 days after. This would be for brands like OPI and Essie. Better polishes, like Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, wear longer, and crappier polishes like Catrice chip sooner. This topcoat can as much as double wear time for me, I’m on the 4th day of wear of the color pictured, and I barely have tip wear. Some nails are still completely perfect. They are all as glossy as the day they were painted. I tried this with another old, really crappy polish and it lasted 5 days without chipping. For me, that is unheard of. What I find really interesting, though, is that the description says nothing about longevity. I haven’t tried any of their other polishes, but NYC might just be selling themselves a bit short!
Overall, if you don’t own this polish already you need to go out and try it. It is all of $2, and it might just change your life. For all those people that can’t get NYC where they live, I am truly, truly sorry.
Rating: A+
Beauty and the Freak 