behold the amazing power of: clear top coat!

So when magazines say that you should apply a clear top coat over your regular nail polish, I always said, "meh", and disregarded it as superfluous beauty advice that is nice, but utterly useless (like using a facial toner, lipliner, cuticle oil, etc.). Seems like another conspiracy to get women to spend extra money on little tiny beauty steps that (bonus!) also take way too much time. But today I was hanging out at my parents' empty house, bored out of my mind (why are there only 4 decorating shows that replay over and over and over??- This is why i don't have cable), and I borrowed my mom's clear top coat, and decided to try it out of sheer (get it? sheer??) boredom. I was already wearing my mom's Sally Hansen nail color (in "Rose-a-Go-Go"... If you think it looks like that mauvy-pink official bridesmaid color of the 80s, then it's definitely my mom's and not mine), and I just layered this over it. I'd had a couple nicks in my polish, and that fingerprint that always magically appears on at least one nail (hey, I never said I was perfect), and this stuff "glossed over it" (haha) and smoothed it all out! Plus now it looks more modern and not quite so 80s bridesmaid-y.

All I have to say is, why didn't I discover this earlier?? Like i said, I'm not the greatest at applying my own nail polish, and this really makes it look more professional. But hey, I'll let you be the judge. And oh yeah, as I said, if you hate it, blame my mom not me.