China Glaze Fast Forward Quick Dry Top Coat

How I hate you.

I gave this a shot, generally I find China Glaze to have fun colors, tons of them, and they've not gone on an OPI like pogrom to crush on-line e-tailers so you can still get them cheap if you know where to look. Their polish as a rule is pretty reliable; it wears well and is easy to apply.

Fast Forward to Fast Forward Top Coat and...what the freakin' hell went wrong here? For one thing, it stinks. It is odorific. I have a miserable head cold so I can't really tell you at this moment exactly what it does smell like. Though...maybe I should try because it might burn the lining out of my sinuses and cure this mess for me. I've used it a couple times and it's always rather pungent. The aforementioned Ruby Pumps junkie, who is on an Orly kick right now, incidentally, said it just smells like nail polish to her so take my bitching with a grain of salt, please. Maybe there is simply something about it that me and 2% of other members of the populace find annoying.

Secondly...when I get a fast dry top coat my expectation is that it's going to help dry the layers under it. Emma Wrong? At the VERY least it should dry hard enough that the underlying mass of layers of lacquer are allowed to dry without worry of lines or hair marks or whatever else I might do to it. I'm not unreasonable, I realize I can't put on a quick dry top and then run out and change the brakes on my car without issues. I'm not a total moron. However, I should be able to indulge in my bad eye-rubbing habit and not have a problem, or be able to pick something up. What I find, however, is that this top coat does dry fast! It just does nothing to protect the still possibly gummy polishes under it. It tends to float on top in a dry slick like a piece of glass floating on water. Know what I'm saying? I apologize, I didn't take a pic of this. What I had was the hard top coat wanting to move around in one piece on top of the rather tar-like undried layers beneath. Not. Pretty. And bloody impossible to repair. You will get wrinkles. Period.

To try to give it a fair shake, I tried it over dry polish. It dried fast, still stank up the place, but it had a nice shine and did what it should. OK, so maybe it just isn't designed to do the Seche Vite or Poshe thing. Maybe I can live with this as a refresh the shine sort of arrangement. Except...I work in healthcare. Hand sanitizer is a reality of my world. GRRRR! This makes me SO MAD! Fast Forward will get CLOUDY. I'm not kidding. Probably the alcohol in the sanitizer is doing it, that's my guess, but it clouds up the clear coat. I have swatches.

Crap swatch, but can you see that cloudiness there? Try this one:

Ah. I think this may show it best. Right at the bottom of the nail in this picture. See that? That didn't go away with the obligatory OCD hand washing that happens in a medical facility, either.

So not loving this top coat. Sorry, China Glaze. That's a fail, right there.

(These were over BB Couture Ode to a Ladybug)