Am I the only one who thinks quick dry topcoats are a scam?

I tried a $8 drugstore quick dry topcoat against a $15 salon one last week, and the cheap one actually dried faster with no smudging. Has anyone else found a budget topcoat that beats the expensive stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

foster.oscar7d ago

The cheap stuff is usually just straight up toluene and ethyl acetate which flash off quick. Those salon brands load theirs up with plasticizers and UV filters that make the formula gummy and slower to set. It's like how generic ibuprofen works exactly the same as Advil but people swear the name brand hits different. My wife bought a $6 off brand from Family Dollar and it outdried her Seche Vite on a side by side test. The whole beauty industry relies on people believing higher price equals better performance when half the time you're paying for packaging and a marketing team.

robert2487d ago

So did your wife ever try a second coat of the cheap stuff to see if it got cloudy or started shrinking? Cause my experience with that off brand toluene mix is it works great for one coat but the second layer almost always wrinkles or pulls up the first one. The salon brands add those plasticizers and stabilizers specifically to prevent that layer lifting issue. I am not defending the $12 price tags on Seche Vite but there has to be some reason they have been dominating the market for like 20 years instead of the Family Dollar stuff. Unless the cheap stuff actually does hold up on a full manicure and your wife just got lucky with a one coat test.