Two Quick Dry Nail Polish Top Coats… Who Wins?

I polish my toes quite frequently, but hate waiting for the polish to dry so that I won’t smudge, ruin, or chip it… or my personal favorite… heading to bed and waking up in the morning with little sheet imprints on your fresh polish. Oi.

So I gave DeMert’s Nail Enamel Dryer a try. This “quick dry” spray is an aerosol that comes out quick and cold. When first sprayed at your nail polish it causes it to fog over, but that quickly fades. Don’t freak out. It did seem to help dry the top layer of polish, but in my testing if you had a basecoat and 2 or more color coats, it only really surface dried the polish. My polish was still prone to indentations. It’s good if you’re in a hurry, but I’d love it more if it thoroughly hardened all the polish layers.

I still use it, but it’s not a solid go-to for every pedicure. I mostly rely on my cheapy find: A bottle of something called “Super Dry” polish top coat that I picked up for $1 at my local grocery store in St. Louis (Dierberg’s grocery if you’re in the area). There’s absolutely nothing else on the bottle but “Super Dry”. But it’s amazing. Throw a coat of that over anything and it’s dry and hard and super-shiny! I did some super-sleuthing on Google and found that a company called “Diamond Cosmetics” makes this product. Funnily enough, they’re located in Florida.

I found bottles of the DeMert Nail Enamel Dryer on Google Products starting at $1.99. Not a bad buy.

The Super Dry polish top coat is $2.50 from Diamond Cosmetics.