Magnetic nail polish - Nails Inc and Fashionista

As soon as I saw magnetic polish in the blog world I knew I would want and love them. Not only is the look amazing, but the science aspect of using a magnet really appeals to my geeky side.

I brought myself the Nails Inc magnetic polish collection from QVC and two polishes from the Fashionista range to I could do a bit of a comparison.

Currently Nails Inc have three colours available, Trafalgar Square (silver), House of Parliament (purple) and Big Ben (gold). The set came with one magnet, which attaches on top of the silver bottle for storage. 

Fashionista have five colours available (all linked to one of The Saturdays ladies), purple, silver, blue, red and green. The magnet is exactly the same as for OPI and fits on top of the bottle also, which you buy seperately.

Both sets of polish have a thin consistency, which is easy to apply. Each coat dries extremely quickly, which I love as I did find myself impatient to start using the magnet.

You initially apply a thin base coat of the polish, allow it to dry and then apply a thicker coat. You then immediately hover the magnet over the nail for 5-10 seconds to reveal the design. I personally didn’t have any issues holding the magnet, you don’t need to hold it very close the ledge on the magnet top provides really good support at the top of the nail to hold the magnet over, although this is not as easy if you want to get a vertical wave. 

I found the longer I held the magnet, the more pronounced the wave, which I didn’t particularly like the look of, but it seems to spread out or become more subtle as you leave it to dry.

The red and green Fashionista polishes (mum requested an accent nail for her manicure, which I think is a really nice way to include the effect and has given me some inspiration for a some upcoming looks!)

I love the finished look and all of the colours are amazing, but the red and the gold are my favourites. You can in fact place any of the colours on top of one another, or a completely different polish, and still get the magnetised look with a different base colour also coming through.

My big negative with these polishes, is that they chip massively within the first 24-48 hours. I have tried different base and top coats and the results are always the same. This is partly the reason why this review is so late and why in the end I resorted to painting a nail each with colour and photographing my nails immediately. It must be the formulation of the polish, but I haven’t read anyone else having problems with this. I find it really frustrating since I like to wear my polish for up to a week, and that is out of the question for me with these.

Do let me know what your impressions of these polishes are, and if you have a solution to the chipping issue I would love to know!