Review: LA Girl Magnetic Nail Polish in Magnetic Field

If 2011 was The Year of the Crackle, then 2012 is definitely The Year of the Magnetic. The first drugstore magnetic polish that popped up in my local drugstores was the collection from Pretty Woman back in January (which was the first magnetic polish I ever owned/reviewed here), followed by the Sally Hansen Magnetics, and then the limited edition Wet n Wild Magnetics and finally these magnetic polishes from LA Girl, which have been available online for a while, but only recently started to pop up in various Rite Aid locations in the past few months.

I was at a "foreign" Rite Aid last week (aka: a Rite Aid outside of my town that I rarely frequent) and I finally spotted the LA Girl display for myself. For some reason it just hasn't been available in the Rite Aids near my home, and by the time I found this display, it was completely wiped out except for one lonely bottle, which is the one I purchased. 

NOTE: these polishes retail for $6 on the LA Girl site and at Cherry Culture (they're actually currently on sale for $5), but if you're lucky enough to find them at Rite Aid, they're only $3.99 there.

 LA Girl Magnetic Polish in Magnetic Field

(Retail: $3.99 at Rite Aid and $6 on the LA Girl website, 0.47 oz)

LA Girl Magnetic Polishes are made in the USA and cruelty-free according to their website.

What's cool about the LA Girl Magnetic polishes is that, unlike most other drugstore magnetic polish collections which contain the same magnet pattern across all shades, each shade in the LA Girl collection contains a different magnet pattern (I wish I could remember which one of you first told me about this--if it was you, please leave a comment so that I can thank you!). You can see all of the different magnet patterns here.

Unlike other drugstore magnetic polishes, the magnet that comes with the LA Girl polishes is located at the tip of the cap. You just lift it out (it actually fits quite snugly in the cap, so you don't have to worry about it falling out):

The drawback to this type of magnet is that, unlike the Sally Hansen magnets, there's no lip or edge jutting out from the side of the magnet that you can rest on your finger (to keep the magnet steady and avoid having the magnet touch your wet polish):

 For size comparison:

As you can see, the entire magnet, including the casing, is quite small. It's good if you're someone who likes extreme precision and has a steady hand, but for the average user (myself included) it can be a challenge to hold this magnet steady and also keep it centered so that you have a centered pattern on your nail. 

These swatches were done after one coat of polish and one layer of top coat (more on that in a bit):

Clearly, the best nail of all is my index finger (far right in the above pics). I think this nail shows the most definition and a very crisp, clean pattern. It's too bad that, even after multiple attempts, I couldn't recapture that perfection with my other fingers. I literally went through half a box of cotton pads attempting to get the pattern just right on my other three fingers, but I finally gave up out of frustration.

After many, many botched attempts, I've come to the conclusion that the magnet is where it all fails for me. I've tried using one thick coat of polish, two thick coats of polish, one thin coat followed by one thick coat and vice versa. I've tried applying the magnetic for 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 1 full minute, and no matter what, the crispness of the magnetic pattern still wildly varies. Therefore, I have to conclude that because of the small magnet and the inability to hold the magnet steady (due to the absence of a "lip" or "ledge"), just the tiniest movement will end up causing the design to look blurry or fuzzy. And before you ask, yes, I've used my hand as a stabilizer to keep the magnet in place, but that's still not good enough because the magnet also has to be held perfectly STRAIGHT and PARALLEL above the nail, which is very challenging since you're holding it in a free-floating position. No matter what, there's always going to be a slight angle there (unless you're a robot and can hold a flat surface perfectly parallel to your nail without any variance, in which case you'd really freak me out and I wouldn't want to know you. Joking of course, but not really.). 

Regarding top coat, I mentioned in my Sally Hansen review that applying clear top coat to magnetic polishes can disrupt the magnetic pattern. This can be the case even if you want until your polish is fully dry before applying top coat, so I wanted to show you what it looked like when I waited until my nails were completely dry, and applied NYC clear top coat. If you look at the above pics, you can see vertical lines running up and down my nails, which weren't there before I applied the top coat. So just be aware that this can happen.

FINAL VERDICT: I LOVE the starburst pattern of LA Girl Magnetic Field, but I don't like the magnet itself and how challenging it is to get a crisp, defined pattern on each nail. The color of Magnetic Field is a beautiful, almost icy teal, which just makes me wish even more that the magnet was easier to work with, because the starburst pattern looks awesome with this color. If you have zero experience with magnetic polishes from the drugstore, I would recommend buying one from Sally Hansen or Pretty Woman first (I haven't tried the LE Wet n Wild polishes yet but I hear they're good too). I think those polishes are more user-friendly, and once you have several applications under your belt, you might be ready for the free-floating magnet of the LA Girl polishes. I certainly wouldn't START my magnetic polish journey with these, but if I had, it probably would have made me hesitant to try other brands. So just know that not all magnetic polishes are this challenging.

 You can purchase LA Girl Magnetic Nail Polish at select Rite Aid stores and online here. 

Do you own any LA Girl Magnetic Polishes? I'd love to hear your thoughts!