Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Battle of the White Polish

I use a lot of white nail polish for nail art. I love a nice, crisp background but whites can be finicky. Some can be goopy and thick, or thin and never become opaque, some formulas are harder to work with than others. I was using Sally Hansen White On from the Xtreme Wear collection and actually used up an entire bottle (eep!) but I'd heard such good things about other brands. I went to the store one day and randomly grabbed every white polish there to compare them - for ya'll as well as myself.

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

All polishes are brand new and all were swatched at the same time under the same conditions. Everything was equal for all of them! Each polish was used for a total of three coats, no base or top coat.

In alphabetical order:
Essie Blanc
Maybelline Porcelain Party
Milani White On The Spot
NYC French White Tip
OPI Alpine Snow
Sally Hansen Hard To Get
Sally Hansen White On
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Wet N Wild French White Creme

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

Which do you think would do best? Do you swear by any of these whites? Before trying them, I think Sally Hansen White On (of course, I used it forever), OPI Alpine Snow, and Essie Blanc will be the winners, just because I am most familiar with those brands. Sinful Colors Snow Me White is supposed to be great, which I think is what spurred this post.

Here are the first four. I included each step plus the final clean up picture. Chart at the end of the post to summarize!

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

Next four...

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

Best 3 so far plus the straggler!

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

The final pictures for comparing!

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme

white polish comparison, white nail polish, white nail polish swatch, Essie Blanc Maybelline Porcelain Party Milani White On The Spot NYC French White Tip OPI Alpine Snow Sally Hansen Hard To Get Sally Hansen White On Sinful Colors Snow Me White Wet N Wild French White Creme


Name Price/oz* Formula Rating
Essie Blanc
$17.39/oz
Thick
8/10
Maybelline Porcelain Party
$17.34/oz
Thin, Runny
5/10
Milani White On The Spot
$9.97/oz
Medium, Runny
7/10
NYC
$2.20/oz
Thin, Runny
5/10
OPI Alpine Snow
$18.00/oz
Moderate, Easy to manage
10/10
Sally Hansen Hard To Get
$6.64/oz
Thin, Runny
5/10
Sally Hansen White On
$7.48/oz
Moderate
8/10
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
$3.98/oz
Moderate, easy to manage
9/10
Wet N Wild French White Creme
$2.30/oz
Moderate
6/10
* = USD per ounce, Prices May Vary

Of note, the only cruelty free white is Wet N Wild French White Creme (please let me know if I've got my information wrong!).

My top picks? OPI Alpine Snow, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then Essie Blanc. I think you could get a crisp opaque white with two careful coats of OPI or Sinful Colors. After those 2, they're all 3+ coaters. Looking at the pictures, I think the lighting evened them out a bit. Also, I think base and top coat would help. I really feel a good top coat can even out any streakiness, but I wanted to compare each color on their own.

Now that I have waaaay more white than I'll ever need, it's nice to know which to use for nail art and base colors and which to use to lighten other colors!

Hope this was helpful. I'm definitely going to refer back to this post when I need to buy white polish, which should be in about 1,000 years. 

17 comments:

  1. Thanks for this! I have only tried a couple whites(Alpine Snow and French White Cream). Personally I found Alpine snow to be a nightmare. After a couple uses got stringy and would never thing out properly when thinner was used. White on is next on my white polish list :)

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    1. Same here, it was nice to branch out and try some new ones. Sinful Colors def suprised me! White On will always hold a dear place in my heart. I'll have to see how Alpine Snow wears after a few uses. I've only used it this one time, it'd be a shame for the polish to go to crap after a few uses.

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  2. Good comparisons! I may have to pick up a bottle of the Sinful Colors. It's so cheap, you can't really lose.

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    1. Thanks! I'm glad you found it helpful. I think Sinful Colors will be my go to polish now.

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  3. This is an really good post! Thanks for buying all that white polish! I've tried a few cheap whites and Sally Hansen White On has never failed me. I guess you don't know the difference until you try something amazing, then what you thought was good turns into OK. I really don't mind either way as only wear white as a base for other colours and I couldn't justify spending AU$20 on an OPI polish I'm not gonna see.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah SH White On is a very nice white polish and I loved it.

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  4. I've always found Alpine Snow to be an excellent white to use. Great post :-)

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  5. I love it when a $2 polish stands its own against the $8 polishes.

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    Replies
    1. Me too! It's so hard to compare them on different nails at different times by different people which is why I wanted to put them to the test. I'm so glad a drugstore polish really held its own!

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  6. Awesome, great post. May have to pick up with SC now. Thanks for sharing :-)

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  7. Super informative post! I think I would go for the Sinful Colors one just because its so inexpensive. :D Also I just love Sinful colors!

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  8. Awesome post! I use white on and one from skin food that I love but it takes 2-3coats too :)

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  9. This was a great post! Thanks a lot this helped me a lot.

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  10. Thanks for this. Will get the Sinful Colors one.

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Glad you stopped by. Have a great day!

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