Battle of the top coats!

Hello everyone! Hope you're doing well! Here in Europe it got a bit warmer over the last two days, so we are now again dealing with temperatures between 3-10°C, which I absolutely hate... *feelinggrumpy* On the other hand, I guess people in North America are freezing, which is also not so great... Wherever you are, hope you're safe! 

Today I would like to give you a small review on three famous top coats out there: Essie Good to Go (€7,99), Seche Vite (€13,45) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (€7,99) explain why I really don't like two of them. I will immediately say that among those three I actually favor the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat, even though there are so many bloggers swearing by the Seche Vite top coat. The reason is simple, I don't want a glue, I want a top coat! Let me explain: both Essie Good to Go and Seche Vite have a much thicker texture compared to Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and if you are not fast when applying it, you might end up with a gloopy mess on your nails. And because of that thick texture, when applying your top coat on top of a nail polish, you might actually drag the polish underneath and the end result might be streaky. Which for me sounds awful! Once a week I sit down and unwind by enjoying my 2 hour manicure - I shape or cut my nails, tend to my cuticles, polish my nails, apply 2 layers of a base coat, 2 layers of a nail polish and after all that fuss (which, don't get me wrong, I enjoy) I want a top coat that will seal the deal and make my manicure last!!!

Those are the main reasons why I personally don't like Essie Good to Go and Seche Vite. I tried both of them twice and I was desperate to go back to Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. If I need to describe every single polish in one sentence, I would say the following: Essie Good to Go has a very thick texture, dries fast (5-10min), it tends to shrink the nail polish underneath and becomes gloopy very fast. Seche Vite has a relatively thick texture (comparable to Essie, maybe a bit thicker), dries extremely fast (5min) and has a beautiful shine, but it has this horribly thin brush, it can also shrink the nail polish underneath and tends to become gloopy very fast. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri is much thinner in texture, has a decent drying time (a bit slower than Seche Vite and Essie, 10-15min) and has a nice shine, the manicure lasts for the entire week with no chips, doesn't shrink the nail polish underneath and doesn't budge the design underneath (only if the polish underneath is still very wet). 

I think in the end it all depends on priorities, but I am willing to sacrifice and endure a longer drying time for a long lasting, tidy manicure. If you care more about the drying time and shine, than maybe go for Seche Vite. I know there is the Seche Vite Restore thinner that might help this top coat a lot by thinning it and making it last longer, but I haven't tried it and to me it is just too much fuss having to use one additional product to make my top coat work! Still, I have to say, for me Seche Vite was better than Essie Good to Go - at least it didn't drag the nail polish underneath and it didn't shrink the nail polish underneath as much as Essie did, but none the less it still did all those things to a lesser degree. Essie Good to Go I wouldn't recommend at all - whenever I use it I get bubbles on my nails embedded in the nail polish and often Essie's brush gets stained with whatever nail polish I used - it often happened that I used a red polish and sealed my manicure with the Essie Good to Go top coat and the next time I applied the polish I had red brush strokes on my, say, white nail polish. Just awful! :( As for the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, it has a completely different formula, but I like it and it works well for me. One thing to be careful - if you are not careful enough you can destroy your nail art, especially if it is extremely wet. 

In the end, all three become gloopy and gluey after some time - Essie and Seche much sooner (when 1/2 of the polish remain in the bottle) compared to Sally Hansen, which 'dies' when approximately 1/3 of polish is left, which is another good thing with Sally Hansen: you get better value for your money. All three can cause bubbles embedded in the polish, but with Sally Hansen I minimized this problem.

There you have it - my absolute winner is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri! :) The benefit I have with this one compared to the other two is simple, fuss-free and nicely-looking (tidy and shiny) manicure. It just works without investing too much effort and that's what I like!

Do you use any top coats? If yes, I would be happy if you let me know which ones you like and why. Let me know in the comments below. :)

Have a nice week ahead,

~Anelei