Nail Polish Stress Test: Dance Legend Albatross

I love stars. Really love them. I may actually take my love of them a bit far. I say that, because when I found out Dance Legend was coming out with their Indistar collection, I got a little….excited. I ordered mine from Llarowe just before they cut back to only selling their own brand. A lot of new polishes tended to sell out on launch day there, so by excited I mean OMG DON’T LET THEM SELL OUT BEFORE I GET HOME FROM WORK!!!!! Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  I was able to snag the ones I really wanted, including today’s test subject, Albatross.

Albatross is a sheer light gray polish with lots of holographic goodies. It’s got holo stars, small glitters, microglitter, and sequins. There’s silver microglitter in there too. I felt like it looked more white than gray when I put it on. I used three easy coats, with one coat of Seche Vite on top. The stars and sequins you see here are what I got without deliberately fishing anything out of the bottle or moving stuff around. Overall, I’m pleased with how that worked out although the three sequins on my index finger look a bit odd.

Even though this is without a doubt a sheer polish, it did a good job of hiding visible nail lines. Normally I don’t like that, but it definitely worked for me in this case. This polish looks magical!

My nails have a good amount of curve to them, so this can lead to stars easily getting knocked off or being scratchy. My one layer of top coat largely took care of that. I’m sure an extra coat would address it for sure. The sequins are fairly thick, but they were pretty secure on my nails without me doing anything special to keep them there. I suspect the hole in the center may have something to do with it.

It should come as no surprise that this polish is not suitable for stamping or water marbling.

So, how did it hold up?

It made it a solid two days before it took noticeable damage. It's not easy to see, but I lost a couple sequins, and when they came off, they took a fair amount of polish with them. There was some lifting near my cuticles too. I have a feeling this may be the type of polish that might pop off too much is used at once.

Verdict: Good

I believe people who don’t work in warehouses will be able to get more wear out of this polish than I did. Good thing too, at $9 a bottle, I want it to stay on my nails! I’m glad it did so well considering how easily I can potentially catch the big stuff on things. Even if you’re not into sheer polishes, this would work well as a top coat. If you love starry things like I do, you should pick up a bottle of Albatross if you get the chance.

Top Coat Stress Test: Dance Legend Sahara Crystal

I’ve made no secret of my love of textured polish. I love the finish, the wear time is frequently excellent, and it’s fun to use in nail art too. Sometimes I wish it came in certain colors that seem to be hard to find, so when I learned Dance Legend made a top coat that would make any polish textured, I had to check it out.

Sahara Crystal doesn’t look like something that’s textured in the bottle. It reminds me of Milani Sardina with smaller flecks. Once you put it on and it dries, there’s no questioning that it’s textured. I had a lot of fun trying it out on different polishes. I found two light coats gave me the best results. I let the first coat completely dry before I added the second. 

One thing I noticed is that this polish is thicker than average. Over the course of using it in a couple full manicures and a bunch of swatches I noticed I’ve already used up a good quarter of the bottle!

This top coat changes how polish looks depending on what type it is. Here are some swatches I did over some polishes I’ve already reviewed. In all cases, the swatch on the left is the polish in its natural state, the one on the right has Sahara Crystal over it. 

First, here's Claire's Money Bags. I really like how this one looks.

Next, we have Color Club's Burnt Out.  This looks okay, but the duochrome properties of this polish really don't show through very well.

Here's Colour Prevails Date Night. I think this one is my favorite.

This is Color Club Beyond. It turns out that holographic polishes don't play nice with this top coat. I tried this on a couple other holos and had the same result. Pity, a textured holo would have been awesome. 

Finally, here's Sparitual Intention. This one looks pretty nice too The glass flecks in Intention add a little extra sparkle over and above what Sahara Crystal does.

I didn’t try water marbling with this. It almost seems like you could stamp with it, but I was afraid to try. I don’t want to risk scratching up my stamping plates.

Now, on to the actual stress test. I used my beloved Ulta Blue Holiday. This is one of my very favorites.  I know this polish is excellent, and what to expect from it, so I put the same two coats of Sahara Crystal over it to see how it’d do. As you can see, this top coat lightens it up a bit and adds sparkle.

So, how’d it do?

Turns out this top coat significantly reduced the wear time on this one. That was a bit disappointing. It was done in after one day.

Verdict: Party Polish

I was hoping this would have the same wear as a full on textured polish, but that definitely isn’t the case here. It goes for $9, so that's something to keep in mind if you decide you want it.

Still, this top coat is fun! I look forward to using it to get textured colors I can’t find.