I’ve Tried Countless Top Coats to Find the Shiniest, and This $7 Gel Polish Is It

A manicure is only as good as its topcoat — at least, if durability and shine are barometers for satisfaction. I’ve been doing my own gel manicures for years, all the while amassing an obscenely large collection of polishes, including top coats — most of which lose their satisfying sheen after a few days wear. For years, I’d maintain my manicures’ day-one glossiness by piling on a new clear layer every few days. 

I realized I’d been wasting my time when I discovered the Vishine Top Coat. The $7 Amazon find does, in fact, live up to its name by resisting the dreaded dulling I’d experienced with virtually every other topcoat formula. Naturally, I’ve repurchased the polish countless times and wedded myself to the stuff for the rest of my nail-painting life.

The Vishine Top Coat is an untinted, ultra-shiny, brush-on gel nail polish. As with any gel polish, it requires a UV or LED manicure lamp to cure, or harden. Unlike many topcoats, however, it cures sans residual stickiness, and consequently, requires no wiping post-use. Most importantly, the formula is inimitably glossy and remains as such until I decide to remove it, often weeks later. For instance, my current gel manicure — which is over a week old — is as glasslike as the moment I removed my fingers from the curing lamp. 

One layer of the topcoat, plus one minute of curing under a LED lamp yields a slick veneer that gives my DIY gels a salon-fresh sheen. The formula has a notably higher viscosity than most clear gel polishes I’ve tried; somewhere between a gel polish and a hard gel, it imparts a perfectly plump, dimensional shine in a single swipe. 

The formula works splendidly over myriad manicure types; in addition to color gel polishes, I’ve glossed over acrylics, dip nails, and hard gels (aka builder gels) with similarly shining success. Perhaps my favorite experiment, however, was with press-on nails, in which I transformed $10 plastic talons into truly expensive-looking manicures with a quick coat of Vishine’s plumping, glossy lacquer. 

Shoppers are equally enamored with the polish. One reviewer, who calls it their “holy grail topcoat,” says their manicures stay “shiny for weeks.” Another fan who echoes the durability sentiment adds that the polish “shines like no other.” Finally, another reviewer who works extensively and “roughly” with their hands swears the polish keeps their manicure looking “wet [and] shiny” for weeks.

If you’re searching for the shiniest, smoothest, least-sticky gel polish topcoat, look no further than the Vishine Top Coat. As a manicure buff who’s spent years in search of long-lasting shine, I can almost guarantee you’ll repurchase it more than once.