Battle of the Top Coats

Hello lovelies!

Last week, I already shared some of my experiences with several base coats. In that post, I already told you of my chipping problem. And top coats need to prevent chipping and should prolong your mani. So, today it's time for a comparison of a few top coats!

I'm going to compare:
- Essence Quick dry top coat
- Seche Vite
- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
- HK Girl top coat

What should a good top coat do?

For me, a good top coat...

... evens all ridges. A top coat should remove the gritty-ness that for example a glitter polish can have. 

... protects my nail-art designs

... gives a nice shine to my mani.

... and most of all, should prolong my mani.

Essence - Quick dry topcoat

Quick dry? No, not so much. Only when you consider quick as being half an hour, at least. No, there's nothing quick to this top coat. Next to that, it yellows extremely over time. You can see that at best in the picture shown above.
Formula-wise, however, it's nice. It flows easily on the nails and doesn't tend to thicken much over time. 

It does prevent against chipping. Instead, my nail polish comes off as a whole.

Essence Quick dry topcoat is for sale for €1,89 (8ml), 

for example at Kruidvat.

Seche Vite

Uuugh, that smell! You can smell that there are some very volatile compounds in it. Yuk! 

It dries fast, though! Within five to ten minutes I already can do most things. Off course, I still should be careful for a little while, but it is dry and resists most damage within 10 minutes. 

However, those volatile compounds aren't that good for your health; the package says not to use SV when being pregnant. Next to that, the compounds in SV are so volatile, that they evaporate quickly. And what's left is a bottle of goopy stuff, even after a few uses. Seche Vite discourages the use of a regular thinner; it is said to make the top coat cloudy. Instead, you can only use Seche Restore to thin your top coat. That works great, mixing goes very well, but to me, I don't like that I should order another thinner than my regular nail polish thinner.

Most remarkable thing with this top coat, is that when your nail polish chips, the top coat of some other parts might be torn off as well. I don't have a picture of this, but it looks matte or dull next to a chip. 

The good things about this top coat are, as said before, its drying time. Next to that, this top coat provides a very nice shine and levels very nicely.

Seche Vite (and Seche Restore) are for sale for approximately €5-7 (14 ml), for example at PrettyPolish.nl.

Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri

The bottle says that it's an anti-chip top coat. When my nail polish tends to chip, it just comes off as a whole. No exceptions. At the time my nail polish would chip with any other top coat, it's completely gone when using Insta-Dri. Saves me a lot of remover, although I don't think that peeling of my nail polish is a good thing for my nails. Luckily, I haven't seen any damage on my nails yet.

Another thing with this top coat that you should 'shake' it before use. If you don't, you might end up with some matte spots here and there. When you shake to vigourously, you end up with bubbles in your top coat. What works for me: hold the bottle upside-down and gently roll between your hands.

That isn't a real guarantee against bubbles, though.
This top coat is a little thinner than SV, so it can be applied with a bit more ease.

This top coat does give a nice shine, levels nicely and dries fast, but to a lesser extent than Seche Vite. 

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri is for sale for approximately €10 (13.3 ml). I bought my bottles at Kruidvat, but they don't sell Sally Hansen anymore. Another seller is for example Bol.com.

HK Girl (Glisten & Glow)

The bottle says: 'Fast drying & Super shiny clear top coat'. And this one doesn't disappoint! It does give a nice shine, and it levels nicely. It also dries quicky, although Seche Vite remains the fastest of them all. But this one is really close! It also doesn't get as goopy as SV does.
With this top coat, I still sometimes have the trouble of losing my nail polish as a whole, but to a lesser extent than with any other top coat. Most of the time I only get some chips or some tip wear.

The HK Girl top coat sells for approximately €8,50
(15 ml) at for example HypnoticPolish.com

Conclusion

Maybe you already noticed, but I consider the HK Girl top coat as my absolute favourite. Seche Vite and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and in a tie, both being good runner-ups. The 'loser' for me is the Essence top coat. 

As for chipping or 'losing' my nail polish, I think SV, Sally Hansen and HK Girl are very comparable. I didn't notice any real differences between the three.

The properties of SV and Insta-Dri are very comparable. SV is the fastest drying, but gets goopy fast; Insta-Dri is easy to apply but tends to get bubbles in it.
HK Girl also dries very fast, provides a nice shine and smoothes all ridges. Taking everything into account, this one is the perfect top coat for me.

I am well aware that I didn't test all available top coats.I tested all top coats extensively.

I am also well aware that the durability of your mani is also dependent on which nail polish you use and which base coat.
Please note that what's written above is solely my opinion and there's no guarantee that the top coat that works for me, also works for you. I just hope to give you some insight in which top coats could be useful when you have nails like me, very oily and a little flexible.