Stash: clear top-coats

I'm pretty sure I posted some other stuff from my stash labeled top-coats (or possibly "top coats" or "topcoats", because I never can decide whether it has spaces or a hyphen on any given day), but this is not glitter top-coats or shimmery ones, but the clear kind like Seche Vite. (I actually have three bottles of Seche Vite - two of which were from a BOGO sale - and two of NYC matte top-coat. And I think there's a bottle of Grand Central Station or something in my backpack that didn't get into the picture.)

This is just what I've got, and I'm not trying to do an official comparison. There are a lot of those around: a quick search found this, this, this, and this. For matte top-coats, there's this and also Karen's long series of them. (Which doesn't mean I won't get around to doing my own wear-test eventually; in fact I think it's a good idea! Just not today.)

At the top:

• Manicure Extender - You can tell if you're a Gelous user that this is the same company - all their products seem to use the same bottle with different-colored caps. I've only used this a couple of times, and I can't say I noticed any miraculous results. I can't find any reviews of this online, although I found a couple of pictures. I think this is actually discontinued - it's not on Sally Beauty's website any more. You may be able to find it online somewhere else, though, if you feel the urge to try it, because it was around only a few months ago.

first full row:

• NYC Matte Me Crazy - it's more a satin-finish than a true matte, but on the other hand it's super-cheap. As I said before, I have two bottles of this stuff. (I like satin-finish.)
• Sally Girl Matte (the mini) - this one is more matte than the NYC, so it's nice to have.
• NYC Extra-Shiny Top Coat (my bottle says "Long Wearing" and the number is 271 instead of 271A as on the MUA picture, so I don't know, maybe it's an older formula?) - I can't say I wear this much, and it's not one of my favorites, but I haven't had a horrible experience with it either, (Read the MUA reviews at the link to see why I say that.)
• Vinylux Weekly Top Coat (CND) - I don't have any Vinylux polishes, although I keep meaning to get around to trying them. I bought this because I'd heard people say it helps extend the life of other brands of nail polish too, only - my usual problem here - I haven't really remembered to try it much. It seems fine as far as I can tell, but I don't recall having any exciting results.
• Miracle Gel Top Coat (Sally Hansen) - I bought this in a two-pack with a bottle of polish, and I've only worn it once. I did get about four days of wear from the that mani, though, and that's awfully good by my standards. (Here's a couple of reviews of the polish itself, too.)
• Revlon Colorstay Sealing Shine (the oldest formula, or at least I think it's the oldest) - When Colorstay first came out, it only came in two-packs with a top-coat. You couldn't buy either the color polish or the top-coat by itself. The colors weren't terribly interesting, which is why I only ever bought a couple of them, but the top-coat was pretty good.

bottom row:

• Gelous - I've actually been using Gelous a lot lately, in an off-again, on-again way. I don't really buy into the massive hype about this one, but as a specialty thing I think it's fun to play around with. Don't expect it to really be like a "gel" any more than any other non-gel top-coat.
• Seche Vite - Even more than Gelous, Seche Vite has a lot of fans; if you read a lot of the online reviews, you'll probably come out thinking it's the best thing ever. Personally, I'm on the fence - it does a good job, it's fine, but it's smelly and expensive and the last third of the bottle is rarely useable (or only useable with Seche Restore, which basically exists specifically for that purpose). I won't pay full price for it again, but as I mentioned above, I did give in & get more when faced with a Sally Beauty BOGO for it recently.
• HK Girl (Glisten & Glow) - I like this one a lot. It's pretty similar to Seche Vite in texture and dry-time (and for that matter, the bottle, which seems exactly the same) but it's not quite as smelly as SV - or at least I think so on some days! - and doesn't seem as prone to goopiness at the bottom of the bottle. One unusual thing about HK Girl is that you can buy refill bottles for it - I can't think of any other top-coat where that's the case.
• Hardwear (Butter London) - I usually forget to use this, and I've had it for ages (I bought it at the same time as the base coat, which is almost empty). It's not that I don't like it, it just gets lost in all this other stuff. It's a nice big bottle, and reportedly is not prone to the SV-type goopiness issues

Hall of Fame (because I don't own a bottle of this right now): Insta-Dri, which is just a very good top-coat for the price. Also I should say a bit about NYC Grand Central Station, which I mentioned up top - it's technically just a clear polish but does very good work as a top-coat.