Review: Incoco Nail Polish Appliques--Part 1, ease of use :)

(Incoco Nail Polish Appliques provided for review.)

Hello!

Today you are about to join me on a nail journey...you, my dear friend, will be by my side as I try my very first nail wraps.

I don't just mean that I've never tried Incoco Nail Polish Appliques before (I haven't), but I haven't tried any nail wrap of any sort by any brand, ever. It's true--and my shame is about to come to an end.

Incoco sent me three sets of Nail Polish Appliques to try out, and I'm going to focus on several aspects of the appliques, one with each set. For this set, I'll be testing out their ease of use. Because I have never tried any nail wrap of any sort, I am the biggest newbie in the world at this, so if this requires any sort of skill at all, I'm sunk. And so, if I can do it, you know you can do it, too. You ready? Let's do this thing!!

For my first attempt at nail-wrappery, I chose the Love & Liberty set, which features patriotic flag hearts in red, white and blue, on a white background:

Love & Liberty appliques, in the package

Love & Liberty, contents of the package

Close-up of the design :)

The package contained a sealed set of the nail appliques, an instruction booklet (every package contains instructions for their regular strips and French manicure strips, so ignore the French Manicure instructions you see in the picture, lol), and a strip of metallic paper, which I think is just for packaging because I couldn't find a use for it in the instructions.

The instructions are both inside the package and on the outside of the package, which I like, because if I there is a way to accidentally throw out the instructions, I'm the girl that's going to find it. So more is better as far as I'm concerned:

Instructions on the back of the package

Instruction booklet included inside the package as well.

As you can see, the instructions are extremely easy to follow:

1) Remove the clear cover from the top of your selected applique.
2) Peel your applique from the backing.
3) Remove the silver tab from the applique, and select which end matches your cuticle best.
4) Apply the applique, gently stretching as needed.
5) Use your nail file to remove the excess.

This also made me happy, because I was a little bit nervous about whether or not I was going to mess up all of the samples they sent me, and have nothing to show you! (BTW, that's the nail blogger equivalent of the nightmare where you realize you're standing in the hall at school completely naked). But, it turned out, these really are just that simple to use.

I decided for this post I was going to show you the results of my first attempt to put these on--no redoing a nail just because I got it too crinkled or messed up. You'd see exactly how hard or not hard it was for a complete noob to do this manicure. And that's what I'm going to show you, with one exception--in one case, I stretched too hard, and the strip ripped diagonally so I couldn't use it anymore. Since I couldn't really show you that, I'm telling you about it, and will show you the rest exactly as the ended up on the nail, first try. Here is the finished manicure:

What do you think? How did you do? Did you spot my two boo-boos? In case you didn't see it, I have one spot where I got a crinkle and have an imperfection because I...um...flattened it a little too vigorously. In another case, I got a little tear, but it was fairly easy to keep the edge together, so the tear was barely noticeable. Can you find them? Go back and have another look.

Did you find it that time? To make it a little easier, let me show you another view. The rip is on the bottom right side of my index finger, and the over-vigorous smoothing of the crinkle is on the bottom right-ish side of the ring finger:

I think this bears repeating: this was my very first time putting on nail-wraps of any kind, and these were so easy to use I barely had any difficulty at all, and what I did have is almost impossible to see. And these pictures show my nails at about 2X their normal size--I promise you that in real life you'd need to be told where the imperfections are and look very, very closely to see them.

Okay, so, a little more information about this process. Each applique has a slightly different shape to each end, so you have a fair amount of variety when picking a wrap that will fit the shape and size of your nail. The appliques don't rip at any little pressure; they held up pretty well, but if you pull too much, they will rip, so err on the side of being gentler at first, and using more pressure as you go. I found it was easiest to pick a size that is nearly perfect so you don't have to stretch much, or to pick a size that overlapped a small amount. I say a small amount because you can clean up a teeny bit of overlap; because these appliques are made of actual polish, you can use a brush and some acetone to remove any small areas of oopsie. But, if you do this with a large amount of oopsie, things will get messy.

All in all, it took me less than 5 minutes to do one hand. This is much faster than normal polish application and drying time.

But, see...I love to do nail art. I can't leave anything alone, as is! So I also wanted to see how these would look in a little nail art...Here's what I came up with:

To make this skittle, I also used Pure Ice Siren, Pure Ice Celestial, and some little heart glequins. I really love how this came out, and I can see a bunch of possible variations on this...::wheels in brain whir loudly::

So what do I think? I'm really impressed by these. Because they are made of real nail polish, you can put them directly on the nail, no base polish or topcoat needed; they're fast, and they're remarkably easy to use, even for a noob like me. You don't have to worry about having to trash your first package just learning how to use them, because you shouldn't have an issue with that. I did rip one of the appliques--but they provide extras, so it should be no problem if you mess up one or two. I found the range of sizes worked well for my nails; I didn't need to use the smallest or largest sizes, which means people with smaller and larger nails than I have should also be fine. So far they're wearing well, but I'll be testing that out more carefully for you in another post.

Because of this, these would be great for taking on vacation, or for use during really busy times. I'm thinking about Christmas Eve when you've got 12 batches of cookies to make, presents to wrap still, and you have to be at your in-laws house in an hour. At times like those, I'd love a pretty alternative that goes on easily and doesn't have to dry for ages before I can touch anything.

There is one downside to these, and that is that because they're real nail polish, they dry out once they are opened. So you don't want to open them up to try one out, and intend to use the rest a few days later; that won't work. I went back the next day and tried to put on one of the remaining appliques, and it did go on, but it didn't stick quite as nicely, and one corner wanted to peel up. I expect this will get worse the longer the package has been open. So, they mean what they say when they warn you that the appliques will dry out once you open the package up. However...I have an idea I want to test out for using the leftovers, and I'll report back to you once I try it and see if it works. :)

With respect to ease of use, great appearance, and fun-quotient for use in nail art, I recommend these wholeheartedly. You can find these and a ton of other designs on Incoco's website--they have quite an impressive array of colors and patterns, including French tips! They sent me a set of these, so stay tuned to see my review on those, as well as my report on wear-time.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about these, let me know, and I'll be sure to test out your issues before my next post about these appliques. :)

Hugs and love,
M.

(Incoco Nail Polish Appliques provided for honest review.)