Battle of the White polishes!

 I decided to see what white base was the best for under a neon. I used all the whites I had in my bin including OPI Tutu which is a sheer jelly and not really a white but more of a control in the experiment. After reading reviews I though China Glaze White on White would perform the best. Its rather popular for white due to price and its a nice white cream that tends to perform rather well. How they did will be shown in pictures and with descriptions below. The funky texture on my hands is because I took the photos inside the screen door. It didn't seem that obvious until I was editing pictures, sorry!

So first up the whites on the nails in all their glory. Sorry for the dry cuticles, these pictures were from when I tried using 100% acetone to clean up cuticles, and its DRYING. Using vasoline on the cuticles will help save your hands, but I didn't realize that at the time.

 On the pointer finger, I have OPI Tutu which is a sheer jelly and I mostly used this as my control in the experiment. This is essentially how it would look if I didn't use white under the polish. I only did one coat because I know its sheer.
Middle finger is OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls which is a slightly gray tinted white cream from the Spiderman Collection. This needed 2 coats to be solid. As you can see its more gray than the last 2 nails. Also, this needed the *longest* dry time of the bunch.
Ring Finger is Orly's Dayglow (won in a giveaway from Apple Laquer! Yay!). Dayglow is labeled as a 'stark white cream' but there is some shimmer type action going on in the bottle and it almost seems more like an opaque jelly on the nail based on how it wants to be applied. This was sort of streaky. I added a couple of drops of thinner, that didn't help much.I found out it just wants to be put down in a thick coat and then let it dry a little longer than you would for thinner coats.
Pinky is China Glaze's White on White. White cream, I have used this before pretty much a 1 coater, but I have had issues with chipping within a day/hours of application. I did add a second coat just to make sure it was a good solid white base.

 Adding the neon was an issue for me. Turned up Turquoise dries matte. And it start looking matte before it was actually dry. So you can see brush marks  from where I added more polish and the other layers weren't dry. So wait several minutes between coats even if it SEEMS dry.

And here they all are with a top coat. See that middle finger? Yeah OPI boyfriend smudged. It really really needed a long dry time for me. Longer than I anticipated that is for sure. The brush strokes actually started with the first layer and got worse after each layer.

My faves as a base for neons? Orly Dayglow and Chine Glaze White on White. They both made the neon POP! I would say for the least amount of layers and thus fastest mani, use China Glaze White on White. If you have a longer amount of time and get the white base solid before adding the neon the Orly performed really well and made the color pop. This was my first time using Orly Polish and I was pretty pleased with it. Again, I would recommend doing thick coats just to even out the white base, but it wore a lot better than the OPI and the China Glaze.

Third option for a neon mani would be OPI Tutu or no white base at all, just a clear base. It took an extra coat or so to get the same depth of color, and it wasn't quite as bright as the white bases, but if you don't really want another polish in your box you can feel free to skip it.

OPI Boyfriend seemed to darken the turquoise and it was not very exciting or neon once darkened. I did use an extra coat on the first two trying to get them to look as good as the last two (part of why I got lovely brush drag marks). PLUS the chipping! After waiting for.ev.er for everything to dry this one still was not dry. And I love OPI polish in general so I was rather bummed. I don't know if it was the base or how the base and the neon worked together.


Opi Boyfriend is best not layered under a neon. Its fine for nail art or with a glitter or something on top, but it made the neon more drab. Its also nice for a white nails that is less white out looking. But again this was experimenting with layering and in this experiment it was a big fat fail for me.

You can buy these brands and polishes at various retailers on the web as well as in stores (though some of these colors/collections might not all be available now). All opinions are my own, and with the exception of winning the Orly in a giveaway, I purchased all the polishes myself. Prices can rage for the polishes, but retail prices are $7-10. China Glaze is the least expensive and you can find online retailers that sell it for $3ish every day.