So can Barry M Daylight Curing top coat be used with any polish and how does it compare? Read on to find out.

A little bit of everything today. This is actually something I did way back at the end of April, partly as I had cut my nails right down and wanted a nice bit of art to cover them and partly because the Daylight Curing range had just been released by Barry M and I wanted to test out just whether the topcoat would work its magic on regular polish. So I killed two birds with one stone by doing this little bit of nail art using OPI “Gargantuan Green Grape”, Barry M “Wakiki” and “Arabian” and some studs I had lying around.

For scientific purposes I decided I needed both topcoats on both hands. The topcoat I compared it to was Rica’s Glossy Glam, which won in my top coat comparison earlier this year so I did my best to make it fair. I only used one coat of top coat on each nail as well, even those with the studs. I then took photos through the next 8 days until chips got too much to ignore any longer. So check out the results below. There are a lot of pictures, or you can just scroll to the bottom to get to my conclusion.

Day 1 Right hand – The starred nails have the daylight topcoat on them, unstarred are Rica. I haven’t added stars in subsequent pictures so just try to remember which is which!

Day 3 Right Hand – still looking pretty good, a tiny amount of tip wear but nothing excessive. The daylight curing topcoat has held all the studs on well.

Day 4 Right Hand – Still looking good!

Day 7 Right Hand – tip wear is a bit more noticeable, studs are still all intact however.

Day 8 Right Hand – Finally took some damage on this one, note a chip on the index finger (Rica’s Glossy Glam) and a crack on the middle finger (Daylight Curing).

Day 1 Left Hand – Starred nails are again the Daylight Curing topcoat. I actually lost a stud on this hand overnight so that’s not a good start for Glossy Glam!

Day 3 Left Hand – We’ve lost another stud! Glossy Glam, you’re not living up to your previous winning potential here. Other than that though all these nails are looking good still with only minimal tip wear.

Day 4 Left Hand – Still pretty much the same as day 3

Day 7 Left Hand – Again still pretty good. No more stud losses and only a little bit more tip wear. There is a small chip creeping in on the middle finger though at the side.

Day 8 Left Hand – this made me decide the experiment was over, look at the chips on my index and middle fingers! Index is Daylight Curing, middle is Glossy Glam.

So I’d have to conclude from all this that yes, you can use the Daylight Curing topcoat over any polish and it will make it last well. It might not have any super properties but I’m pretty impressed with it; I was impressed with Glossy Glam enough previously to make that my go to top coat from now on but I will definitely be just as happy using up my Daylight Curing one for regular wear. On both hands, both top coats performed pretty much exactly the same so if you see Daylight Curing top coat on offer anywhere, definitely go snap it up, you won’t be disappointed.

Have any of you tried a similar experiment? I’d love to hear about your results, please comment below!