If you are around the same age as I am you may remember peel off nail varnish from your childhood. I had two bottles of the Tinkerbell stuff: a pale pink and a lovely deep mauve-y purple. My mom thought they were great because there was no nail polish remover required and, as she doesn’t wear nail polish, no additional purchase was required. I have fond memories of that nail polish so when I read that Topshop had brought out some peel off nail polishes I was eager to try them.
I don’t wear nail varnish on my fingernails very often because although I love how it looks I find that it destroys my nails – they start peeling at the ends and get very weak. I paint my toes when I can be bothered to deal with the smell of the polish, which during the winter is not very often. I figured that because the formulation of the Peel Off nail varnish is different, to allow it to peel off, it might not affect my nails in the same way and had to be worth a try.
The first thing I noticed about this nail polish is the smell, or rather, the lack of it. There is none of that potent nail varnish smell, in fact it doesn’t really smell of much at all. Were the Tinkerbell ones fruit scented, or am I just imagining that? There are currently four shades available and I bought Straight Laced which is a sort of grey-lilac colour, and Back Flip which is navy blue. There’s also a bright blue and a bright pink available.
I had read in a couple of other reviews that the formula is quite thin and I found this to be the case. It took three coats to get the coverage you see below. The first time I tried it I didn’t use a top coat or a base coat as I wanted to try the product as it is. I probably wouldn’t use a base coat with this anyway, due to the issues I have with my nails and using a base coat would defeat the object of using a polish with a different formula.
I wasn’t sure how long it was going to last without chipping but then I usually manage to chip or smudge nail varnish within about 10 minutes of putting it on anyway. I thought that if it chipped it might just peel off. But then at least it would be easy to remove the rest, right?
I put it on Monday night and by Wednesday morning it had chipped a bit, but not so much that I felt I needed to take it off until that evening. Two days without top or base coat isn’t too bad I don’t think. I had no problems peeling it off and of course there was no residue left at the sides of my nails because it mostly came off cleanly in one piece. There was no noticeable damage to my nails: they felt a bit dry but that was probably down to them being covered up for two days. I washed my hands, moisturised and they were fine.
The second trial I did I put a top coat over it. I used Sally Hansen’s Mega Shine because that’s what I had in my box of nail polishes. With the top coat on I got a much glossier finish (but then with a product called Mega Shine I guess that’s what you’d expect); the finish on the Topshop polish is less shiny. I put the polish on Thursday night this time and by Friday it had started coming off. Because of the topcoat the nail polish came off in one piece, like a floppy false nail. I found that I could put another thin layer of the polish on my nail and ‘glue’ the original polish back on. By Saturday evening this had happened with several nails so I gave up on it and took it all off. Each piece of nail polish came off really easily and cleanly in one piece. Surprisingly the Topshop polish lasted better without the top coat.
Whilst the staying power of this is not great, I haven’t had my usual problems with my actual nails so far therefore I am going to keep using it. If you like to change your polish every 2 or 3 days anyway this might be a good product for you as it is really easy to get off and there’s no faffing with remover. However, if you like your polish to last up to a week then you probably want to give these a miss. Topshop Peel Off nail polish is available from Topshop for £6 a bottle.
Note: This is not a sponsored post, I purchased this product with my own money.
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