Colour me happy!

I'm not sure if any of you have noticed, but I have a certain fixation with painted nails. I am thus rather curious about when and by whom, certain terms are used, as I have become acquainted with both 'polish' and 'varnish' terms, to refer to the same material used to colour nails. Of course, one of the terms, 'polish' is more familiar to me, and as there were two main 'standards' of English varieties used relatively widely, I suspected that each term was primed for either the British community of English speakers, or the American community and their 'proponents'. I looked both terms up in the various online dictionaries and here are the results:

Merriam-Webster-

Main Entry: ¹var·nish

Pronunciation: \ˈvär-nish\

Function: noun

3 chiefly British : a liquid nail polish

Macmillan-

nail varnish

noun [countable/uncountable] British
a shiny liquid that goes hard when it dries that women sometimes paint onto their nails

Oxford Learner's-

nail polish (BrE also nail varnish) noun [U] clear or coloured liquid that you paint on your nails to make them look attractive: nail polish / varnish remover

(BrE) Josie was sitting at her desk, varnishing her nails. [vn-n] Her nails were varnished a brilliant shade of red.

Merriam-Webster's Learner's-

nail polish

Function:

noun

Meaning:

[noncount] : a liquid that is used to paint fingernails and toenails ▪ red nail polish ▪ nail polish remover —called also (Brit) nail varnish; —see picture at grooming

Longman's-

nail polish also nail varnish British English [uncountable]

DCB coloured or transparent liquid which you paint on your nails to make them look attractive:

As an added measure, I also Google-d both terms to find out if the websites which use the term 'polish' was non-British and whether only British sites used the term 'varnish' in place of 'polish'. However, I noticed that out of the top 20 search results, only 2 sites (both UK sites) used varnish in place of polish,

whereas polish still showed up in 16 of the search results, and both terms being used interchangeably in 3 of the sites, with some of them including UK sites. Hence, I feel that although it does support the finding that 'varnish' is a term predominantly used by British English speakers, it also shows that 'polish' is a term more widely employed by English speakers worldwide, including some British English speakers. Hence, although I am a speaker of Singapore English, which tends to take after Br EL, I am still more lexically primed to use the term 'polish', than 'varnish'.