Top up your nails with different effect top coats

The easiest and most affordable way to change a look or an outfit completely, is to wear a different nail polish and speaking for polishaholics all over the world, I'm so grateful that there are so many nail polishes available to feed our insatiable craving. It's not just all the colors of the rainbow that appeals to me, but also the wonderful range of different effects that you can get e.g. matte, opalescent or glitter. The only downside to that is that my nail polish collection just grows and grows with every new color and effect that I get and storing them all will eventually become a problem, but there is a solution. There are quite a few top coats available that will let you create the same effects but on any of your ordinary nail polishes and today I'm showing you four of my favorite top coats for different finishes. To help illustrate the effects I have used two amazing polishes from the modern classic that is the Barry M Gelly Shine (£3.99) collection; Dragon fruit - a lovely warm barbie pink, and Grape - a vibrant electric blue. So let's have a look at the top coats and the looks that you can create.

 

The first top coat is the Avon Nailwear Satin Nail Top Coat (£4.50). During the winter season we saw some very interesting matte nail finishes, and with this top coat you can achieve that matte look on any of the nail polishes you already have. It's a milky looking top coat, that you apply over your chosen color and although it first looks like a slightly pink shimmery during application it dries into a great matte look. For this effect the brush isn't quite wide enough for my liking, so to avoid having to do two coats (which I had to do with the blue shade, and if you look carefully in the photo you can tell that the coverage was uneven), I would recommend that you make sure that you get a generous dollop of the top coat on the brush and then spread it out. At least that way you'll get a nice and solid matte finish, as you can see with the pink shade.

After that we have another product from Avon, the Avon Nailwear Opal Top Coat (£2.50) which I have mentioned previously. One of the nail effects that I have liked the most during the past year is the Moon Candy look, and with this top coat you can get the same effect on any nail polish without having to buy the Revlon duo kits unless you want to. It's a clear top coat with fragments that look like a crushed opal, which create a beautiful luminous prism effect. Again the brush isn't very wide, but with this top coat, it's not necessarily a bad thing since it's easier to place the opal looking fragments where you want them. With one coat, you get a nice and subtle look, that would work for any occasion to add something a little different, but if you want an even more iridescent and lustruous effect, apply a second coat - and wait for the compliments to roll in.

Moving on to a more traditional glitter look, we have Rimmel's Rock Your Colour Glitter Top Coat (£1.99) in Disco Gold. This is a beautiful glittering top coat, with very fine and tiny gold pigments for a luxurious and delicate finish. It's a great option if you want to wear something sparkly, but that's not too dramatic or flamboyant. The brush is quite narrow so even though you get a decent amount of product on the brush, you'll probably need 3-4 strokes to get an even distribution of it across the nail. Because the glitter is so fine, you'll be glad to know that it's very easy to remove from your nails without having to use any nasty acetone. Unfortunately it looks like this pretty top coat no longer is available in Boots or Superdrug, which is a real shame since it's a lovely discrete glitter polish, but luckily there are loads of them on eBay for a very low price.

From left to right:

Barry M Dragon Fruit

Barry M Dragon Fruit + Avon Nailwear Satin Nail Top coat

Barry M Dragon Fruit + Avon Nailwear Opal Top Coat

Barry M Dragon Fruit + Rimmel Rock Your Colour Glitter Top Coat in Disco Gold

Barry M Dragon Fruit + Ciaté Confetti Nail Polish

From left to right:

Barry M Grape

Barry M Grape + Avon Nailwear Satin Nail Top coat

Barry M Grape + Avon Nailwear Opal Top Coat

Barry M Grape + Rimmel Rock Your Colour Glitter Top Coat in Disco Gold

Barry M Grape + Ciaté Confetti Nail Polish

 

The last top coat isn't strictly speaking actually a top coat and it can be worn on its own for an amazing lustruous look. Ciaté's Confetti (£9) is a gorgeous glittering polish, rich with with silver colored holographic sparkles that create a fabulous radiant finish and ecause there is so much glitter in the polish, it's easy to get an even spread of it across the nail. When you use this as a top coat, one layer is more than enough for an eye catching effect but if you want to use it on its own, you definitely need at least two and maybe even three coats for an extravagant party look. Despite being very rich in glitter it's very easy to remove the polish and there's no need to use tin foil or whatever trick you've got up your sleeve to get remove stubborn glitter polishes. 

 

Using different top coats is an affordable, fun and easy way to create a particular effect without having to buy lots of new colors, and if you can't decide which one to go for there are enough top coats to choose from that you can probably get a different effect for each nail.