I was so excited to be asked to review the June Nailbox! I've seen so many of these subscription boxes around for everything from dog toys to makeup to sweets, and only fairly recently heard about Nailbox. I'd heard good things, so I jumped at the chance.
Nailbox is a subscription service where for £13.50 a month, you get a box with
three or four different nail polishes, and one or two nail care or nail art items. These include lots of big brands like OPI, China Glaze, MoYou London, Nails Inc and many others. I was skeptical at first - I have so much nail varnish already, surely I would get a duplicate or colours that are similar to what I already have?
The June 2016 box is themed around Festival Fever, and contains 4 polishes and some nail art tape.
OPI Is Mai Tai Crooked - usually costs at least £9
Bourjois Turquoise Block - usually costs around £5.99
Rimmel Cheeky Chap - usually costs around £2.99
Essie Jazzy Jubilant - usually costs around £7.99
Elegant Touch Metalllic Nail Art Tape - usually costs around £4
So I calculate the value of the box at around £30, which is obviously lots more than the £13.50 the box costs! In fact in some shops, you couldn't buy one bottle of OPI for that amount.
It was also a big plus in that there were no duplicates in my collection, and the OPI and the Essie weren't even similar to any polishes I own. The nail art tape is gorgeous! There are five long strips each of 6 different colours. I use striping tape from time to time, and not as often as I'd like, because I generally find the rolls really fiddly to use. I love the idea of having nice short strips all ready for you to peel off the card! Plus, look at that third one down! It's copper, but it's full of rainbows in the light!
So, what did I do with the contents? I decided to try two different looks. First up is a floral design. I started with a base of the Rimmel, which is a one coater that applies nicely and dries to a matte finish. Then I freehanded some leaves with the Bourjois, and flowers with the OPI. I found that the green didn't really contrast with the blue enough to show clearly in the photos, but it was more obvious in real life. I sponged a bit of the glitter from the Essie into the flower centres and topcoated everything. I wore these nails for two days.
My thoughts about the polishes after making this first design was that the Rimmel was really nice, and I really really like the peachy orange of the OPI. I didn't feel I used enough of the Essie or the Bourjois to really comment.
Next up I wanted to swatch all the colours individually. I made a skittle across all my nails, and then used the tape to make a rays design on two of my nails.
The green swatched beautifully - it applies really well and is another one coater. The OPI is a gorgeous colour, but is a bit thinner and streakier than the other two, and needed two coats. I preferred to topcoat the Rimmel one, as I wasn't crazy about the matte finish.
I did the ray design freehand and then added the tape to cover any wobbles on the joins. I topcoated over everything just in case the tape wasn't sticky enough (I think it was though) and because I want to wear these for a couple of days.
Overall, I'm massively impressed! I'm trying really hard to spend less at the moment, but I am so tempted to sign up. The August box is called "Into the Sunset", which sounds gorgeous. It's my birthday in early September, so maybe I need to treat myself!
You can check out Nailbox on their website here.
This box was provided by Nailbox for my honest review. See my Disclaimer for more details.
When the lovely people at Elegant Touch asked me if I'd like to review some of their new nail wraps, I was quite excited, as I've seen these in shops (they're stocked in Superdrug and Boots) and had been very tempted, but wasn't sure I'd be able to get them to work, as I've had zero success with fake nails (they never fit my nails). I wasn't expecting them to send me THREE sets!
Look! Aren't they pretty?! These are 3 sets of the 'bling' nail wraps, which are on sale for between £5 and £7 per pack in Superdrug, although they're sometimes on special offer if you're lucky. Of these three, the Dotty Nude ones were the least appealing to me (they're pretty, but nowhere near as pretty as the other two) so I thought I'd try those first, in case I made a complete hash of it, as I didn't want to ruin the other two packs. And I'm glad I did!
Each pack comes with 18 wraps (a peculiar number!), an emery board, and full instructions. The Dotty Nude set had some wraps with diamante pieces and some with pearly white pieces. I had originally intended to do alternate nails with diamante and pearls, but the sizes didn't work like that. I found it really difficult to get sizes to fit my nails. There were quite a lot of wraps (6 I think!) that only fitted my little nails and were too narrow for all the others, which meant that there weren't enough other sizes to do all my nails. There were some very wide wraps which I cut down to fit my thumb and ring fingers, although that was awkward and fiddly, so in the end I didn't bother with my right hand. The actual application was super easy on the nails that did fit - my little and index fingers. It's just a case of carefully placing the wrap, smoothing it down, and filing off the extra at the tip. I thought my little and index fingers looked great, until I saw the macro shots!
The wraps themselves are fine and soft, easily pliable and easy to remove at the start if you've slightly mis-positioned it on your nail. However, I found that on my ring finger, the wrap just couldn't handle the curve of my nail, and I ended up with that ugly crease at the tip. There's also a notch on the tip of my middle finger where a diamante piece just happened to be on the very edge of the nail. I also found it impossible to cut the wraps neatly down to size to fit my nails, without making a mess of the sides. I was so disappointed with how these looked in the end! It's probably my fault - my nails are an odd size, or my skills are just lacking... There are tiny creases everywhere, which didn't show up much in real life, but which bothered me. In the end, these didn't stay on longer than an hour, and I wouldn't have worn them out because I didn't have enough wraps to do my right hand to match anyway.
I'm gutted! I am pretty sure that many people will love these - the designs are so pretty, and the quality seems really good. I just don't have the nails or the skills to put them on properly. I can't decide whether to try again with the pink ones, or whether to put them in a giveaway for my readers...
These products were provided for my honest review. Please see my Disclosure tab for more information.
