Battle of the topcoats!

So today I have a battle of my favorite topcoats for you. I compared the nail girl holy grail Seche Vite, Rica's Glossy Glam,  lesser well known Poshé, and FAT Lacquers Drive Through! 

I started with one coat of FAT Lacquers Appetizer (reviewed in Battle Of the Basecoats), two coats of ELF Thunderstorm, two coats of Femme Fetale Cosmetics Party Grenade and two coats of each topcoat. All tips of nails were wrapped with topcoat. 

Day 1

I chose to add glitter to see how smooth each topcoat would get the pointy ends of the diamond glitter. 

Day 2

Where it looks like tip wear on my pointer finger is actually where I smooshed the polish feeding Grayson shortly after taking the Day 1 picture. Apparently that's the finger that gets smooshed because I did the same thing to the same finger in my base coat battle haha. 

Day 3

Ahh day 3. You've finally shown you're age manicure. You can see that Glossy Glam did a weird pulling away thing at the base of my nail that it did in day 2 also but other than that remained perfect. Poshé did okay, but it has dulled a little bit since day 1 which I find is typical for poshé and was also the only one that bubbled. My Seche finger has a little bit of tip wear and chipped at the base of my nail. My Drive Though finger still looks perfect though! 

I decided to rate each topcoat based on a few categories, with 5 being amazing and 1 being terrible. Dry time is good if its dry enough to not stick to my other fingers by the time I've walked outside to take my picture. Smear test is based on my own experience with each topcoat. To me, the absence of smell is the main thing I look for in a topcoat so a 5 means the smell is negligible. 

FAT Lacquers Drive Through 

Dry time: 4

Smell: 5

Smear test: 5

Gloss: 4

Smoothing factor: 5

Seche

Dry time: 5

Smell: 1 - we all know that smell

Smear test: 3 - smears pretty bad

Gloss: 4

Smoothing factor: 3 - after two coats I could still feel the glitter poking through 

Poshé

Dry time: 4

Smell: 5

Smear test: 4

Gloss: 2 - dulls after a few days of wear

Smoothing factor: 3 - after two THICK coats I could still feel the glitter points poking through

Glossy Glam

Dry time: 4

Smell: 5

Smear test: 3 - smears nail art even after drying

Gloss: 5

Smoothing factor: 5

All in all, I love FAT Lacquers Drive Through. It's free of all the nasties that are in Seche so for me that is a huge plus, and on top of that it doesn't make your house smell like a nail salon when you open the bottle. It dries fairly quickly for me and holds up pretty well! If you're looking for a topcoat that is free of harsh chemicals I strongly suggest you give Drive Through a try.