Stickers for Adult Beauty Nerds

Yep, that’s nail polish strips for you – stickers for grown-ups we put on our nails as opposed to inside a photo album.  And because they come in generously-sized, multi-use packs, you can even trade them with your friends – hey, wanna swap your pink heart camos for my polka dotted reindeer?  (Parenthetically, here inside these very parentheses, I friggin’ loved sticker-collecting when I was a kid!  And my collection was THE SHIT – fuzzies and holos and googly eyes and puffies and smelly stickers for DAYS, and all of it housed in an officially licensed Sandy Lion hardcover binder with custom photo pages…and I might have just legitimately drifted off for a few minutes there as I remembered how much I loved that book and my entire sticker collection.) 😉

So it’s no surprise that I love these stickers, too, a lovely gift from the wife of one of my husband’s online gamer buddies (they’re like penpals who communicate through swapped boxes of Canadian and American foodstuffs, and midnight games of Ghost Recon.)  She’s a nail art aficionado like I am, and she’s into these nail polish strips from Color Street that she was kind enough to send along in one of the guys’ boxes.

Here I’m sporting Color Street‘s very Valentine’s Day-appropriate Crush Hour, a glittery pink camo design that, upon closer inspection, is actually made up of overlapping hearts.

These double-ended nail strips are made from nuthin’ but nail polish, so they’re thin, flexible and dead easy to apply – simply peel, pat down and then file off the excess.  And if you’re really careful and your nails are quite short, like mine, you can absolutely get away with using one strip for two nails, as the designs are printed on both ends of the strip.  That leaves some of these fun beauty stickers to swap with friends – now, you were saying something about a trade for a polka dotted reindeer? 😉

Peel ‘n Stick 4th

I was visiting a friend and her new babies this afternoon, and when I commented that these nails were not freehanded, but were in fact nail art strips, her son let out a tremendous squak, I suppose in protest of my sheer laziness (hmph, judgemental baby.) 😉 But if I *could* argue the finer points of nail adornment with him (it’s hard to argue with someone in a onesie), I’d deny that it’s laziness that motivated these super fun July 4th nails, because come on, look at them! They’re totally awesome! Here I’ve shown a set of nail polish strips I purchased late last summer and have been hoarding ever since in anticipation of exactly this date, Incoco’s Stars & Stripes. I’ve come out swinging in favour of Incoco’s products in the past, because they’re just great, and these appliques proved to be no exception. And because my nails are on the shorter side, as are my friend’s, and these nail strips are double-ended, I was able to get two full manicures out of one set, so we could both proudly rock patriotic paws (okay, so we’re Canadian, but we both have American relatives, so it’s chill.)

Making New Friends

I think it’s safe to say that in life – and more specifically in nail polish-related commerce – we all occasionally buy something with the best of intentions that simply. doesn’t. work. Oh sure, it promises us the moon, the stars and everything in between, but in practice it just ain’t happening (I’m looking at you, magnetic nail polish; you’re just weird.)

So imagine my total delight when I cracked open a new-to-me product, Incoco nail polish strips, hoping for the best, sort of expecting the worst, and being TOTALLY MISTAKEN.

Because friends, these things are fabulous! Made of real nail polish and offered in about 150 different designs and colours, these nail strips are not only gorgeous, but also dead easy to use. Absolute polish newbies would have no problem whatsoever wrangling these babies, as they’re little more than peel and stick (and stand back to admire!)

And the finish? Outstanding. The set I’m sporting in this photo, Galactic Glitz, look heavily textured, but they’re smooth as silk, no top coat necessary. And while I regrettably won’t be able to speak to their durability and longevity (two weeks, supposedly), as time waits for no nail blogger, I’ll point out that I’ve washed my hands about 10 times since applying them (flu season, you know) and they still look perfect. Removal is likewise easy – I goofed on my pinkie and had to reapply a strip (not as economically devastating as you’d think, as there’s 16 to a pack) and it came right off with regular remover.

Now, isn’t it nice when something works out just so? 🙂 Colour me terrifically impressed; these nail polish strips are definitely a do-over. If you’d like to check out Incoco’s offerings (including some adorable Valentine’s designs) you can find them here. Bet you can’t buy just one! Heavens knows I couldn’t.