Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
Style > Beauty

How to Get the Longest Lasting Manicure at Home

It’s just past Halloween and already Starbucks is serving steaming lattes in their signature red cups, CVS is stocked with Christmas candy and you’re starting to see holiday shopping commercials in between episodes of “Girls”. Here at Her Campus we’re spending a lot of time thinking about how we’re going to do our nails for the bevy of holiday parties sure to spring up on us.

I do love to go and get a shellac mani every now and then but most of the time I’m a DIY mani type of girl. The only problem is that I rarely have the time to do a full mani with  2-3 coats of my favorite shade, and the necessary top coat. If I skip a step, my nails chip and if I complete all the steps I usually don’t wait long enough for them to dry and then they smear. UGH.

When I heard that COVERGIRL released its new line of Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss on November 1, I couldn’t wait to test it out. The polish claims to last and stay glossy for as long as 7 days with zero topcoat required. It also claims that the color applies evenly and that the glossy shine is water resistant. High claims for a nail polish! I decided that it was time to put COVERGIRL Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss to the test.

Jewel tones are always in for the holiday season so I decided to go with “Forever Festive”, a ruby red with a little bit of shimmer. A huge trend right now is painting one nail on each hand a different color. Since I’m newly engaged (and very excited about that fact), I decided to paint my ring fingers in a complementary hue. I selected “Golden Opportunity”, a sheer gold with lots of shimmer.

After applying the first coat, I was very impressed. The polish went on smoothly with very even color distribution. It painted on like an expensive department store nail polish! Check out my nails after coat #1.

The first coat dried surprisingly quickly and when I applied coat #2 I was thrilled with the results! With only two quick coats of polish I was able to get good color, even coverage, no streaking, and great glossy shine. How easy is that?! Check it out! Now the test is to see how long these bad boys last. Stay tuned collegiettes!


The girls at the office were so impressed by my nails that they decided to test out the polish too! Chelsea tested out “Constant Candy,” Brittany put on “Wine Stain,” Annie went with “Grapevine,” and Kelsey painted on “Smokey Taupe.” How cute are their nails?!

As President and Co-Founder of Her Campus Media, Windsor is in charge of all revenue and monetization strategies. Under her watch, Her Campus has done state of the art college marketing programs for clients including Under Armour, Aussie Haircare, Neutrogena, Coke with Coffee, Bed Bath & Beyond, Hallmark, VS Pink, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, H&R Block, The Home Depot, WeWork, Grubhub and more.  Windsor is a 2010 honors graduate of Harvard College. She has also been named to Forbes 30 Under 30, BusinessWeek's 25 Under 25 Best Young Entrepreneurs, Inc. magazine's 30 Under 30 Coolest Young Entrepreneurs, Glamour magazine's 20 Amazing Young Women, and The Boston Globe's 25 Most Stylish Bostonians. She lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband and two daughters. Follow Windsor on Instagram: @windsorwestern