Leather look nails by Nails Inc

This post begins with a short backstory. Having created two beauty boxes as gifts this year, one for a fellow beauty blogger and another for my sister, my mum decided to do the same for me……..

Now don’t get me wrong I am actually very grateful for the socks and of course who doesn’t love a pamper voucher? But I still don’t think mum should be starting up her own beauty box company any time soon!

Now onto the reason for the post...

Nails Inc are releasing a number of nail effects polishes this year one of which is the leather effect. I was glad to get the tan colour as part of a leather and bling it on skulls set, which includes the polish, four faux gold skulls and nail glue. I love the tan shade, which suits my skin well and which I know I will wear all year round.

Of the nail effects polishes I own this is without a doubt the easiest to get right (remember the struggle with magnetic nails?) and is the quickest to apply. In total it didn’t take more than 15 minutes, including shaping and a base coat, to have finished and dry nails.

The polish applies smoothly but as it begins to dry the effect forms. The instructions state to apply the first coat, wait two minutes and then apply a second. Nails inc also recommend that you skip using a top coat since this would affect the finished look. You can then apply the skulls, using an orange stick and the nail glue to stick them into place, but for now I have decided to save these for a special occasion. I am hoping that the glue will secure them well enough so that I can recover and reuse them.

When using this for the first time, after applying the first coat, I smudged one of my nails and, rather than starting again, I carried on with the second coat and the effect masked the original smudge (can you spot where it was?) Your nails do feel rough to touch, which is odd at first but something that you get used to.

The polish lasted 4 days before chipping and considering that was without a top coat, I thought that was pretty impressive. Based on my experience smudging the polish, I think if you wanted to make your manicure last a few days longer, you could try reapplying the polish over any chipped areas.

I've read on other blogs that the leather effect is being released later this year, although the black and tan colour, as part of the set, are available now in Selfridges for £19. There is also a gorgeous deep red colour, which will be available too.

What do you think of the leather effect? Or have you had enough of nail effects altogether?

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!

Bargain Alert! InStyle Freebies

So I spied this is in the newsagents today and of course had to pick up a copy. For £3.70 you get a copy of InStyle magazine and one of 3 shades of Nails Inc polish. One of the colours (teal) was not available, so I chose ‘Candy Orange’ since the other shade (Fashion Fawn) reminded me of one from the diet coke promotion earlier this year.

I haven’t painted my nails for a while, since they seem to be breaking a lot but I wanted to do a quick swatch for you on a few nails, so please excuse the unpainted nail! I want to start some sort of treatment to get them in good condition again (suggestions welcome). My little finger only has one coat applied, whilst the other two fingers have two coats which I think is perfect. I prefer the consistency of this polish to other freebies I have had, since it is thinner and therefore applies more smoothly. Another plus point is that it dries very quickly.

I love the colour, it makes me feel happy, but I love brights generally! Unfortunately, it is very difficult to photograph and appears more neon that it is. It is worth mentioning that the colour is true to what you see in the bottle (which I have noticed isn’t always the case with some polishes), so if you don’t like it in the bottle it may not be for you. Let me know what you think of it, or if you went for the other shades!  

Nails of the Week - Courtesy of Diet Coke Again!

I gave my nails a few days off from polish last week, but decided to go for the 3rd colour of the nails inc. promotion I brought.

Heather grey, a muted lilac which was very difficult to image for an accurate representation! I can’t decide if I love it or not, took 3 coats to get a good finish, it seemed to be a bit tacky and potentially streaky but I don’t know if that was just me being lousy with the application.

What did you go for this week?

Nails of the Week - Courtesy of Diet Coke

So I hit Boots this week on the hunt for the Diet Coke exclusive Nails Inc polishes. With every 2 purchases of 500ml diet coke you get 1 of 4 shades of polish (10ml). I knew I wanted the denim colour having seen it advertised on another blog, but faced with the other shades I then had a dilemma………..

I quickly rejected perfect plum since it is very close to Rasberry by Barry M. Having to then make the choice between the caramel and heather grey, I decided I would just buy the extra two bottles of coke so I could have both!

Of course when I got home I then had to decide what colour to go for, and in the end decided on an alternating denim and caramel, which I think complement one another well. I took too coats to get a good colour, especially with the caramel shade.

I do love Nails Inc, looking forward to next years collection. Go out and get yours now!!