Dark Gray

Trend it Up Easy & Speedy Nail Polish [400] Review

By Maychiri's Thoughts - February 10, 2024

One nail polish was free, one was not. This one did not come free with a coupon. This is the Trend it Up Easy & Speedy Nail Polish, shade 400.
 
 
I quite fancied the first few Easy & Speedy nail polishes that my mum bought me, so I thought I could go and see if there are any other colours I might like. Indeed, there were a couple that seemed very nice. Now, I didn’t really need new nail polishes, but DM had a promo where you’d get a ton of extra points on their loyalty card if you bought products from certain brands, and that included Trend it Up! Besides, I was already going to pick up a free Trend it Up nail polish anyways, and I had a couple of Depend O2 nail polishes on my mind, so what’s one more nail polish? This is one colour that I don’t yet have in my collection, and it looks sick! So in my cart it goes! Now, let’s see how good it is!
 
 
 
Packaging: my, what a cute tiny bottle! It’s a tiny cube! There’s not much in the way of details, just the standard logos. The text is white, so that it is clearly visible. I like that Trend it Up keeps adapting the colour of the text based on the colour of the polish: when it’s a light colour the text is black and vice versa. Much better than when you have white nail polishes with white text... anyways, the cap. It’s black and much taller than the bottle. It closes super securely (I had to use most of my strength just to open it the first time). Simple packaging, but it’s cute!
 
 
 
 
 
Ingredients: vitamin E for nourishment. Zinc sulfate to help make your nails strong. Also, interestingly enough, Lithothamnion calcareum extract and diatomaceous earth! That is just so curious! 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is quite like any other nail polish, although it does smell sweeter... hmm. The expiration date is 24 months after opening.
 
 
 
 
 
Like with the other Easy & Speedy polishes, this one, too, has a small dopey brush. It’s flat, wide and small, so it looks squat and just amusing. Not my favourite shape/size of brush; I prefer larger flat brushes. This brush is okay, I guess, but definitely worse than what the other Easy & Speedy polishes have. It seems to be easily frayed? Like, at one point a large cluster of hairs just decided to separate, I managed to put them back, but this shouldn’t happen. Also, this is one of those extremely rare times when I don’t actually need to tap off excess polish from the brush – and this isn’t exactly a compliment! I tapped it off automatically and noticed that there is a strangely small amount of polish on the brush. Like, it quickly became goopy and streaky and a mess. 
 
 
So I started applying it without any tapping off, and that seems to be exactly what was needed. It’s strange, like, the formula is not much different compared to the others in this range, so it must be the brush that is noticeably worse. At least it spreads nail polish evenly... but even this has a caveat: it seems to cause air bubbles to form. I really don’t think it was my nails, they were smooth and shiny, so they were definitely properly buffed. And no other Easy & Speedy had issues with air bubbles... no, yeah it must be the brush. It wasn’t even that easy to use, it kept running out of polish and made the application needlessly tricky. Darn...
 
 
 
 
Hmm, well this is one interesting colour! It’s gray, but it’s not pure gray. It’s got just a smidge of brown pigments inside that give it a nice warmness. Yeah, it’s like taupe. It looks a tiny bit more brown on pictures online compared to how it actually looks on my skin, but I don’t mind it. It’s still a very cool colour! Bit unusual, isn’t it? But I like how grungy this colour is, especially on pale skin. It’s a good colour for winter or when you’re feeling punky. Quite a moody taupe. I really like it!
 
 
 
 
 
 
The formula doesn’t seem quite as thick as with the other Easy & Speedy Nail polishes. It still feels odd, though. Like, it definitely feels gelly, but it is also incredibly smooth and almost... creamy, I want to say. It is super easy to use though, as it always spreads perfectly evenly across the nails. I did notice some air bubbles, although I am pretty sure that is due to the brush.
 
 
 
 
 
 
With one coat it is almost opaque. Depending on how thick that first coat is, it can even be fully opaque. But, as it is better to apply thinner coats, it usually looks about 75% opaque. You can just barely see the nail underneath. With two coats it is totally opaque. The colour looks right now and it’s rich and deeply pigmented. It also doesn’t look thick at all with two coats, although I definitely wouldn’t apply more than two as the nail polish already started to feel slightly goopy with two. It would be a nightmarish goopy mess with three coats, I think. The texture is quite glossy; it looks less gelly glossy compared to the rosy brown Easy & Speedy Nail Polish. 
 
 
 
Longevity seemed to be excellent, like all the other Easy & Speedy nail polishes, but it then took a turn for the worse. About 2 days in, I started to notice some light chipping; I thought that was due to me working with wood trying to sort my bed base situation, but it didn’t stay like this over the next two days, and I did not do any physical labour. It slowly chipped more and more on the free edge of the nails, which wasn’t too bad at first, especially with how careless I had been with my nails while hammering nails and trying to fit the damn base into my bedframe, but then it started chipping off in large chunks. Like, I am talking, huge pieces that fell off my nails! And that’s before a hair wash!  
 
 
After a hair wash there was more damage, which made the nail polish look really bad and ugly with how destroyed it was. Two of my nails literally didn’t have any nail polish on half of the nail! No idea why this one has such awful durability, when the others survive almost anything... it’s a real shame, as I quite like the colour. But, if nothing else, at least it doesn’t get scratched up (it does have those pesky air bubbles tho).
 
 
It’s super easy to remove. It comes off without a lot of rubbing, which is good for sensitive nails. Also, it doesn’t stain nails despite being a darker colour.
 
 
All in all, oh no, this one is not like the other Easy & Speedy nail polishes... it’s much worse. The brush is the same old mini wide brush that isn’t too difficult to use; it applies polish evenly and richly, but it’s just too small for me. The formula is again weirdly thick but creamy and not at all heavy. So that stayed the same. The colour is gorgeous, actually! I didn’t know how much I would end up liking it until I saw it on my nails for the first time! It’s a taupe gray with some brownish pigments inside that make it very slightly warm toned; it’s a very grungy, cool colour. Perfect for winter! Or for when you are feeling moody! Not my usual choice of colour but it is really awesome! It is also neutral enough that you could use it for formal occasions, although it really looks best with casual outfits. I’m sure it would look great on many skintones, but on pale skin it really pops! Now, this was the best thing about this polish. Time for the negative, and it’s pretty bad. See, for some reason, I get air bubbles when I am done painting my nails with this nail polish. No idea why because I did everything the same as usual and the other Easy & Speedy polishes don’t suffer from this. Even though the bubbles are tiny, they are very annoying. But that’s minor compared to the other issue, which is how easily this nail polish is to chip! The other Easy & Speedy nail polishes survived almost anything I threw at them, but this one starts to chip soon after applying it. And it’s not tiny chips, either. After it chips on the free edge of the nails it then starts chipping off in larger chunks, like literally a-quarter-of-the-nail size. This means that, by the end of the 5 days that I have been wearing it for, it ended up looking extremely messy and badly chipped. A few of my nails only had half of the polish remaining on them! Such a shame... wicked colour but marred with numerous issues. Sigh. I guess I was bound to find a dud sooner or later, huh? Shame it was this colour though. So, if you are looking to buy an Easy & Speedy Nail Polish, I’m afraid this one won’t be a good choice. It’s just too problematic. No recommendations.
 
 
 
Rating: 5.5/10
 
 
Would buy again? Hmm, NO (sadly)





 

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