Topshop Matte Nails in Dress Up - NOTD #5

Hello everyone! Today I'm here to talk about this little number, Dress Up by Topshop (Topshop always have such cute nails for their nail polishes!)

Topshop has recently launched a line of Matte Nails for the Autumn, with a range of different colours, mostly dark reds, blues and purples with the exception of a white, a pastel blue and a pastel pink. I had been looking for a blood red nail varnish for a while and I hadn't quite found the perfect colour, so naturally when I saw this I was like yep buying it okay! I was always intrigued with the fact it was matte, as I had never tried a matte nail polish before so I thought I'll give it a go!

Topshop claim that these matte nail polishes are "Fast drying, extra long wear with lasting smooth glossy look finish and perfect coverage." Lets see if this one lives up to this!

The packaging is quite unique and I've never seen one like it. Obviously it's in the standard bottle but it has a matte effect to the bottle, almost like a rubber cover over it and then at the front you can properly see the colour of the polish, as with the cover everything looks hazy, a kinda glazed effect - a very cool effect though! The little bottle handle thing (I can't remember what it's called, having a blonde moment, the black bit) is also matte, so overall I really 
like the packaging for £6! 

Application was.. Kinda annoying to be honest. It wasn't fast drying like Topshop claimed it to be, it actually took longer than most of my nail polishes.. Like 10+ minutes. I don't know if that's long or not but one coat dries usually before 5 minutes and this was double the time, so I was getting impatient in the end. You get full opacity with 2-3 coats so it did take a while for me to get the perfect coverage Topshop claimed.

It dries to be smooth and matte but still glossy.. It's honestly really weird. It's matte in some lights but in others, it looks glossy and like I have a top coat on. Also, due to it being matte it kinda dries into the ridges of my nails if that makes sense, so it didn't really look too appealing to me.. However I stuck with it because I thought that was the look.

Taken with flash.

Taken without flash.. The nail polish looks shiny and I have no idea why, I don't have a top coat on it!

You can see what I mean as with the flash in the picture below it looks glossy even though it's matte.  Once it had dried everything was fine, it looked nice, I love the colour as it's very Autumnal but I still wasn't sure if the matte look was for me.. I mean don't get me wrong, it looks nice but I do love my glossy finish. Obviously I didn't put a top coat on, as that would just ruin the whole "matte" factor plus Topshop did say it had extra long wear so I didn't think I needed it.. I was wrong.

On day 1 one of my thumb nails chipped, not a huge chip but it is noticeable. Note: I haven't repainted the chips because I want to see how long the original coats wear. By day 2 the majority of my nails had chipped slightly at the bottom, which isn't that noticeable but still annoying and on day 3 I got another big chip on my index finger. At this point I just thought "screw it" and put on a top coat, completely ruining the point of the matte finish but I bought this polish more for the colour than anything, and it looks just as great, maybe better glossy rather than matte.

Also, after taking this off my nails I found out that it stained my fingers! I don't know whether it was the colour or the formulation itself, but it took a lot of scrubbing to get off, which was so annoying! The regular Topshop nail polish line has never done this with me so I'm not really sure why this happened but just a heads up just in case you have it or want to buy it.

So overall I'm not the biggest fan of this nail polish, it didn't have the extra long wear, it didn't dry fast and it took a while to get perfect coverage but you do get a good solid colour in the end. I think if I use this polish again I'll just put a glossy top coat over it as I love the colour, just not the actual polish itself. Also, just remember this is my opinion, it might work great for you and you might love it, so if you like the look of it even though I don't, try it out! This is just my personal opinion, you might love it.

That being said, I'm looking forward to the Barry M Matte Nail Collection thats coming out as there is a colour very similar to this one in it and I've heard really good things about that collection, so I will be buying one to try out. I've not given up on the matte nail look just yet!

Alright, I think that's about it for this post.. If you have tried any of the new matte nail polishes from Topshop, what did you think, and do you have any other matte nail polishes you could recommend?

Have a lovely day and don't stop smiling. :)

Hannah, xx