Fast Drying Top Coats - reward vs risk?

Hey Beauties!

I've recently started getting into nail polish and nail art. I've always loved to get a manicure; gel, acrylic or natural (depending on the condition of my nails!) and from time to time have gotten a little flower painted on, but I never really do it myself. There are two reasons for this; 1. I have no time and 2. I never seem to be able to get it looking nice.

Does this sound familiar? - You just finish your nails and are waiting for them to dry when your kids come running in, climbing all over you and asking you to do something for them which invariably destroys all your careful hard work. Or, you wait until they're in bed and do your nails at night.. but because you're so tired, you fall asleep waiting for it to dry and end up with sheet marks all over your manicure.

That happens to me ALL the time. I tried a few '60 second' nail polishes, namely Rimmel, with little results. They would dry to the touch in about 5 minutes or so, but they wouldn't be completely dry for an hour and didn't go on very smoothly. Then I started doing a bit of research into fast drying top coats.




The highest rated and seemingly most popular among nail bloggers is Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.

This sounds like a bit of a miracle product, as you are supposed to be able to apply directly to wet polish and it will dry multilayers very quickly with a high shine. One thing concerns me however - it contains Toluene, a solvent which can cause side effects when inhaled.

The warning on the bottle: "WARNING! This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm."

I also found this on wikipedia (link above): "Low to moderate levels can cause tiredness, confusion, weakness, drunken-type actions, memory loss, nausea, loss of appetite, and hearing and color vision loss. Inhaling high levels of toluene in a short time may cause light-headedness, nausea, or sleepiness. It can also cause unconsciousness, and even death."

A lot of people know the risks of using this, but don't care. If I didn't have children, I'm not sure I'd be so concerned either. While I'm sure I would never inhale enough to die from it or cause serious harm, I don't really want anything like that (which has been banned from other nail polish formulas) around my kids. Does anyone else find that once you have children, stuff like that becomes much more of a concern? Would you avoid a product because of health warnings, or would you use it because nothing else gives you the same kind of results? Personally, I scratched it off the list.

I then went to my local Sally Beauty and asked them what they recommended in terms of fast drying top coats, The girl pointed me towards Rush Shine DBP Free Top Coat.

It has a tiny brush so it took a little getting used to, but applied smoothly with no bubbles. I used one coat over two coats of ORLY Honeymoon In Style and it gave a nice shine and dried to the touch in a little under 2 minutes, completely drying in about 10 minutes. One problem I had though was my nail polish chipping a little on the side about 2 days later. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture before they chipped! Will do one next time I do a nail post.

 In terms of quick drying time and ease of application, this is a winner, but in terms of longevity, I will continue to look at different top coats :)

In short, I would recommend this if you want a quick mani before a girl's night out/date night.