With 50 polishes lined up from firms based in the UK, Germany, France and the US, tests don’t get much more comprehensive than this. Polishing is hard work, and you want the protection to last weeks, not days, so at the heart of our assessment was stamina.

Each polish faced the depths of a UK winter, contending with snow, ice and rain, while the test period was stretched to eight weeks – two weeks longer than we’ve done before – which caught out some top names. We also took into account ease of application and price.