My Favorite Top Coat

I've always enjoyed doing my nails. 

I think it's because up until highschool I wasn't allowed to wear nail polish. 

Now that I'm older and have the extra money, I can afford higher end products. 

Don't get me wrong, my favorite polish will forever be #920 "24/7" from Sinful Colors, but when you're limited by price, you're also limited by brand and quality. 

Thus began my search for a beautiful top coat! 

I wanted something ultra shiny, but also something that would help dry out the color polish, too.

My problem was that I would always paint my nails before bed. 

I'd wakeup with sheet marks and smudges all over them. It would take forever for the polish to dry!

I tried searching blogs, google articles and YouTube videos. 

I was more successful at watching my favorite beauty gurus on YouTube. 

While I was doing my research, I also learned a lot about nail care and other fantastic products to include in your manicures!

These videos were the most helpful! 

Click play to watch them.

And so, I narrowed down my search to Seche Vite and Essie's Good To Go.

I ordered both of them off amazon and they came within a week.

To test them out, I decided to choose one color that I found difficult to work with. 

The meant that it was a thick formula, took a long time to dry, and sometimes left air bubbles.

So I used Seche Vite on one hand and Essie's on the other hand. 

Over the course of one week I started to notice a difference.

Seche Vite was super shiny, and I liked that even though the polish was applied in a gloppy way, it totally even and smoothed it out.

I also noticed that within ten minutes my nails were COMPLETELY dried!

I did notice, however that this top coat was thick.

After using it a few times I had to buy the restore: Add 2-3 drops to liquify it again.

Seche Vite

$9.95 @ Ulta.com

Essie Good To Go also had a shiny finish and smoothed the nail polish.

However, it was not as good as Seche Vite.

It took a little longer for me to notice totally dried nails, too. About 15 minutes.

What was awesome with the Essie formula was how thin and easy to work with it was.

You don't have to work as fast as when you use Seche Vite and you don't have to apply as much!  

Essie 

$8.50 @ Essie.com

All in all, if I had to pick one as my favorite and the other as my backup, 

Seche Vite takes the blue Ribbon.

I love the shininess, how fast it dries, how it smooths out all imperfections and how my nail feel when they are all completely dried. 

Although it does get gluppy and thick and you to purchase the restore solution, it's totally worth it. 

Sometimes you can even find the combo on Amazon for the same price as the Essie Polish.

And don't get me wrong, to the untrained eye, Essie looks exactly the same as Seche Vite.

But to me, someone who loves nail polish to an unhealthy extent, the finish and formula fall just short of first place.

If you find this article helpful, please share and +1 so that others can find their perfect top coats too!

Until next time, 

Ines xoxo