Good, affordable nail polish that comes in loads of colours.

Previously, I have gone years without painting my hand nails. Yes, years. I think the last major time was in 2010 or 2009. The reason for this is that nail colour chips often on my hands. I knit, cook, wash dishes, and I just wash my hands a lot. I am not obsessive compulsive, but I am good at keeping my hands clean. I do paint my toe nails more though because they don’t chip as often and my feet are rather boring so I like to spruce it up for myself.

Lately, since the start of this year, I have been needing retail therapy. Then I saw that these went on sale, looked up some reviews and sort of went crazy and bought 6 including the Invisible colour way as a base and top coat. These will last me years.

The bottle recommends 2-3 coats. I will usually just do 2 because I have no patience for 3. I found too much makes it take forever to dry. I will apply a top coat using the Invisible colour. I never use to do this, but it really helps the colour last on my nails mostly on my left hand. I applied a base coat with the Invisible once, but I find it actually makes it easier to chip so I just do a top coat now. I find these last a good few days without major chipping and the pigmentation is really good. On my left hand, I went a good five days without a major chip usually.

The biggest con with this line seems to be that it takes awhile to dry and if you apply too much. Make sure your coats are very thin. Otherwise, they will smudge or dent easily even if you allow more than 10-15 mins drying time between coats. I am also not a big fan of the brush.

Price: Got these all on a Buy One Get On Free (BOGOF) sale so down from a regular $3.49 each to about $1.79CAD before tax.

Pros:

• Affordable and widely available
• Good colour selection
• Very pigmented and sparkly (in the case of the Celeb City)

Cons:

• Drying time can be a bit slow compared to some other lacquers.
• Brush is not the best quality

The Shades

Celeb City: This is the one of the shades I wanted most because I was looking for grey shades or something that was neither dark or too pastel. This looks great. It is very light catching. It makes a statement, but is somehow not too over the top. It also would look good on anyone and silver matches almost everything. In low light, it looks like your nails shine in the dark.

The Real Teal: I thought this would be lighter, but the good pigmentation made this shade darker than it appears in the bottle or maybe it just brings out my yellow tones. This looks good on my toes though.

Wet Cement: As it says on the tin, a stormy grey that goes well with my grey jeans. Classy, but still a bit edgy and not dull on the nails. I was a bit hyped up for this shade to the point where I think I was let down. It doesn’t look as I thought it would, but still very nice.

Blue It: A royal blue with shimmer. Nice, but nothing too special for me.

Invisible: Great top coat. I’d repurchase just to use as it such.