I’m a nail polish girl. Pre-kiddos, it was not unusual for me to change my polish nightly. Yes. Not because I had chips, but because I loved changing up the color and it somehow soothed me to change my manicure. I can change my polish is about 10 minutes flat, no clean up of polish required.
But, with nightly polish changing, a girl gets a lot of practice. I know many people that aren’t like me, and for them applying perfect nail polish is very difficult, requires lots of clean up, and can take an hour. (Ok, this is most of my friends. I shock them with my self-mani skillz.)
So, when Nails Inc, one of my favorite polish brands, came out with a spray on nail polish this fall, I couldn’t wait to try it out. Unfortunately, the Nails Inc Paint Can wasn’t available in the US until this spring. And I’ve finally tried it!
Using the Nails Inc Paint Can is pretty simple, though there are a few tricks to getting better results. First, the Paint Can should be used over some sort of polish. The Nails Inc 2 in 1 Base and Top Coat is what Nails Inc recommends, though you could also use it over any polish you already have on, which makes it ideal for a quick polish change. You just need to use the Paint Can over some sort of dry polish.
When you spray the polish it will go all over the place, and while I show it with 1 piece of paper here, learn from my mistakes and use more paper! You’ll find drops of polish up to about 18-24″ away. Lots of paper!
The ideal distance is about 4-5″ from your nails. You want to spray and move the can slowly, I found that if you let the spray spend much time near your cuticles, the polish kind of builds up there and you’ll have a ridge. So, move it slowly over all of your nails, don’t pause anywhere and try to over your entire nail.
Once the Paint Can paint has dried, which only takes a few minutes, you can apply top coat. Again the 2 in 1 is recommended, which is a quick dry so it only takes a few minutes. After the top coat has dried you can wash the excess off of your skin with soapy water, It doesn’t all come off easily, I did need to push on it a bit with my thumbnail to get all of it off. But, it only took a few minutes to get all of the extra polish off of my hands.
This picture is a little bit color skewed, except the pink is as close as I could get it to showing the true color. My results haven’t been perfect with the Paint Can, though with each application it gets better. I haven’t had perfectly smooth results, and there has been some bubbling/cracking later during top coat application. When I used Paint Can with just the 2 in 1, I can get about 24-36 hours of wear, if I use the top coat twice (once gets me about 12 hours). Adding another top coat (I used Seche Vite) over the 2 in 1 can get me about another 12 hours or so.
This entire process took me about 10 minutes, and most of that is drying time for each layer. Since I can complete a regular manicure in about the same time, and regular polish lasts me a few more days without chips, Paint Can isn’t ideal for me. However, if a manicure takes you longer, this could be a great and easy to use option for a quick polish change. Expect that it will take you a few manicures to really get the hang of it, and that the results won’t be as long lasting as a regular manicure. But, it’s perfect for one or two nights!
You can buy the Nails Inc Paint Can at Nails Inc or Sephora, and the 2 in 1 Base and Top Coat is available at Nails Inc and Sephora.
I’m a doctor, a mommy and a bit of a beauty addict. If you let me, I can take 2 hours to get ready in the morning. Really. I'm on a quest for faster beauty that works!