British Nail Bloggers: Top & Base Coats

So over at the British Nail Bloggers facebook page, we've decided this week to blog about our favourite base coats and top coats.  I'm very stuck in my ways with these and once I've found a decent product, it's very hard to persuade me to switch.  I've taken pictures of my favourite products, as they're the ones I'm currently using, but I'll talk about others I've used too.

Base Coat

OPI Nail Envy is the only base coat for me.  Since using it, I get hardly any breaks and the condition of my nails has improved so much.  It's quite pricey, but I'm lucky enough to be able to buy it at trade price so it's a lot cheaper.  The bottle last for ages and I use it under every manicure as a base coat.  It's quite good on protecting against staining too - I haven't got any discolouration on my nails and I use some pretty strong (and stainey) polishes.

The other base coat I have tried in the past is Sally Hansen's Green Tea & Bamboo.  Although it's a lot cheaper than Nail Envy, I found that while I was using it my nails were still prone to breaking but were less peeley.

Top Coat

My favourite top coat is Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri.  It's so easy to apply and dries so quickly (which is key for me as I'm very impatient and loathe sitting still waiting for my nails to dry).  If I'm using it I get less chippage than anything else I've used.

I buy mine from Boots and it's only £5.99 so a bargain.

Other favourites include:

• Seche Vite. This product dries super quick but is quite pricey and is prone to shrinking which I detest.
• No 7 Stay Perfect Nail Top Coat.  Super shiney and quite good at protecting your manicure but I find that it dries quite slowly, despite being a fast dry top coat.  It also lures me into a false sense of security and makes me believe that it's really dry, until I go to bed and I get those horrid sheet marks on my nails.  I'll usually only pick this up when I have no. 7 vouchers to use.