Desperately Seeking Persistent Polish is a series where I wear a nail polish for seven days and take before and after pics to document the condition of my paws over the course of the week!
At one point over the seven days I wore Smith & Cult Analog Fog on my paws, the weather took a decidedly dark, chilly turn…
It started to look like fall.
We closed the windows and contemplated turning on the heater.
Also, I started baking stuff in my oven again. I cranked out three lasagnas (one was even gluten-free, what-what!), two banana blueberry oatmeal bakes, a gluten-free pizza from Costco, and two batches of oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. Really, Smith & Cult should have named this polish “When It’s Cold, Bake Your @ss Off” instead.
Taking everything I did into account, and considering how much time I spent blending, chopping and whisking while wearing this polish, my manicure held up well. It was still shiny and relatively chip-free after five days, with just a few dings around the tips of my fingers.
It jumped the shark after I made the third lasagna and washed the dishes without gloves, which was probably, um…not the greatest idea. That’s when I really started to see pieces of polish chipping at the base of a couple of my nails (granted, they weren’t big chips).
Like I did for my last seven-day nail experiment, I wore two coats of the polish atop a base of Smith & Cult Basis of Everything, and with Above It All as a top coat on top. Point being to isolate the polish to try to figure out how it holds up to real life.
Also like last time, I didn’t refresh the top coat at all over the course of the seven days, but I think if I had, like if I’d refreshed it on day three or four, I could’ve made this mani last at least one or two more days.
I think Analog Fog did great, all lasagnas considered! Plus, the color is gorge! It’s one of those mysterious, elusive purples… Ooh-la-la! It’s a cream, so there’s no shift or pearl or anything like that, but sometimes it looks like a pinkish purple. Other times, it looks like a straight-up plum.
I’ll definitely be wearing it again. ?
❤️❤️❤️❤️ 4 out of 5 hearts.
Smith & Cult Analog Fog: Day 1
Smith & Cult Analog Fog: Day 7
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S.
Not too shabby for all that cooking and cleaning! I find that my hands and nails hate all cleaning products so I wear gloves for almost everything now. Otherwise my poor paws dry right out. 🙁
Happy Friday!!
Seven days and looking like this is impressive, even without all the cooking and cleaning.
I can’t wait until it gets a little colder here too so I can get back to baking. Right now I just don’t feel like turning on the oven at all.
Have you tried Color Street? I had a manicure that lasted 2 weeks and except for the grow out, it still looked great when I took it off!
Wow, what a gorgeous color!
I recently started using the Orly rubberized base coat and have been amazed by how much longer and better my polish wears now. It’s been a week since I applied what I have on now, and there’s some edge wear but not much chipping. Two days ago I used a makeup sponge to dab on some glitter polish in a gradient, dense at the nail tip and getting sparser as it goes up, to hide the wear, and I think I could probably get another 3-4 days of wear on this mani. (The gradient cover-up idea is from a recent YouTube video by Kelli Marissa on how to extend the life of a chipping mani.)
And I won’t lecture you about how you should be wearing gloves for chores, I’ll just look at you slightly reproachfully. 😉
I don’t find Smith and Cult polishes to be very good. Zoya is absolutely amazing as is Essie and OPI in the long wear area. If you want to make your polish last – through work, play, cooking, cleaning – use Deborah Lippmann gel lab pro base and top coats with any polish.
That’s such a pretty color.I think I might need that one. Color and wear wise how does it compare to Tom Fords African Violet, which own? I don’t understand the name. Anything with fog in the title makes me think silver or gray. Have you tried it with the Essie Gel topcoat? The one in the twisty bottle? I swear that top coat even helps extend the life of my Chanel polishes by a whole 1 to 3 days.
Uhm, Banana Blueberry Oatmeal bake. Oh yum!!! Could you please share the recipe for that? I’m getting hungry just trying to imagine that one!
Have a good weekend. How’s the air quality up your way?
Hiya! I have African Violet and love it (wore it on my toes when Connor was born!), and Analog Fog is more red. It seems to change more too depending on the lighting, because sometimes it looks fuchsia on me, and others it’s more of a straight up purple. I haven’t tried the Essie Gel Coat yet, but I will add it to my master nail polish plan, LOL! I want to find a long-wearing polish, then run it through different base/top coats to find the best one.
So, banana and blueberry oatmeal bake. Here’s the recipe:
https://www.skinnytaste.com/baked-oatmeal-with-blueberries-and/
Super easy and very tasty. I like to double the nuts (’cause why not!) and vary the fruit. So far I’ve made it with apples and strawberries, and peaches and blueberries (not my favorite). I’m sure you already know this but the riper your bananas, the better.
Thank you so much for the link to the recipe!! I really appreciate it. Because food!!! We went to see Crazy Rich Asians and the food in that movie made me so hungry. I swear I want to go to Singapore just to eat!
I love nail polish. I wish I had stronger nails so I could wear it more often.
I lurve! I am so tempted for this. One of the prettiest new releases from Smith and Cult recently. Smith and Cult does well on the wear time for me, too. May pick up Analog Fog but my Dior Mirage and Tom Ford African Violet keep trying to talk me out of it. hahaha
Hi Lorraine,
I have TF African Violet (it will be forever in my heart because I had it on my toes when babygirl was born), and Analog Fog is more red. It’s closer to a fuchsia, I think. The color is completely different, and depending on what light you’re in, it can look either more red, more fuchsia, or more of a straight up purple. It’s VERY cool! I’m glad you get a good wear time outta Smith & Cult, I think they’re great!
Pretty color and looks great even after a week! How’s the brush on these?
Hi Chelsea,
I like it. It’s a regular brush — nothing fancy — but it’s just a smidge on the wider side so it covers a good amount of area. The caps look awkward, I know, but you can remove the silver part if you want (inside is a small basic round black cap).