I've written before about nail polish; it is my own form of cosmetics unless you count lip balm, lotion, or scent. Recently I've experimented with decals and nail decoration that goes beyond polish. I was offered a chance through the Amazon Vine Reviewer program to test a nail kit marketed toward kids from Alex Brands. I hoped this would teach me a bit more about nail decoration. I was sent this kit in exchange for an honest review on Amazon but I thought some of you might find it interesting as well. I received no other compensation for this article.
The kit box proclaims that it has 190 pieces but let's be honest -- most of these are the 135 tiny "sticky nail gems" and I mean I needed tweezers to use them tiny. There are also 49 appliques that you can color in that are very fragile but larger so be careful when you add them. There are 5 2-in-1 nail polish pens that have a brush in and a "precision tip." There is also a star-shaped nail file that is very weak even if it looks cute.
To use the polish pen's brush or tip, you remove the top in different ways that took us a few minutes to figure out. These pens are sealed tight and the polish inside varied in thickness. We discovered that the tips flowed smoothly once you got them going but you needed to scrap off the brush part before trying to apply it because if the nail polish is too thick it won't dry evenly or quickly. There are these taped pins on the flat, black bottom of the pens if the tip doesn't work but we didn't have to use them at all so I left them attached as you could see.
The supplies came in an over-sized plastic box inside the cardboard box. Given all of the small pieces such as the pins and the gems and appliques, I wish this had a storage case instead of the plastic that you can see in this photo.
I applied nail polish to my partner's hands along with some of the "sticky nail gems" as you can see here. He loves getting peacocked up but he feel conscious about doing it in our culture so we can only do it on weekends. Personally I think this is sexist in a bizarre way. In much of the animal kingdom, male animals are more colorful. Even pickup artists, as much as I loath their sexist philosophies and fuck at all costs attitudes, seem to understand that dressing up nice and being colorful is a good way for men to attract attention. I like his nails, what do you think? He has nice large surface areas to work with, we could have easily put 1-2 more of the gems on each one. We didn't use a clear top coat, none came in the kit and the instructions do not mention them; the gems fell off in less than 24 hours with normal daily activity but the turquoise polish remained.
We used the color-in appliques on my nails and my partner used the "precision tip" to color them in. What do you think? We did use a clear top coat because these were more fragile to begin with and I wanted mine to last; he used polish remover Sunday night on his for work the next day. The polish dries very quickly if you do not apply it too thickly. If you use tweezers you can get the stickers or appliques on fairly well. The appliques are less thick and I loved the coloring in aspect of it. Frankly get rid of the "sticky nail gems" and give me more of these with more colors to use.
One final photo for you. These are my nails a week later. I've used basic polish remover but look at what has been removed -- the top coat and the polish. The only damage you see to the appliques are what happened while using my hands for the week I had these on. I'm not sure at this point how to remove them except by working at the edges and peeling them off but that is taking a bit of time. At least it isn't as stinky as polish remover, right? How many of you have done the stickers, decals, and multiple colors to your nails? Tell me about it in the comments please.
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