NOTD–Primark Foiling Around Leopard

Happy weekend everyone! I trust you are all having fun and relaxing times?

My posts have been largely nail-centered as of late, mostly because after months of not being able to wear it I’m trying to cram as many colours as possible on, but also because the weather has been so crap that it’s hard to photograph other stuff, especially when you are using a phone camera the majority of the time but swiftly moving on…

This is a special NOTD for me, the first time I’ve used anything like this. After seeing a lorry parked next to the sliproad from the M32 onto the M4 advertising Rebel Nails (anyone else seen this?! It’s gone now and I wasn’t imagining it I swear!) I’ve been curious about trying nail foils or wrap or whatever you call them. However the prices of some are kinda expensive, between £5-7 and I am sure they won’t last long on me so I hesitated to part with that much. So when I saw some foils in Primark for a mere £3 it seemed a cheaper way of testing them out.

Well…….

I chose the leopardish design, gold with silver splodges. There were a few others but they didn’t catch my eye anywhere near as much and I can’t even really remember what they were, one was dotty I think. They come on a sheet, you can cut them to size and either place them on your nail and smooth it to warm the foil and seal it in place or use the help of a hairdryer.

My main issue with these was the size. My nails are medium sized I would say, there are DEFINITELY people with much smaller nails than I. However I still had to trim these nails down a lot and the translucent but not transparent sheet makes it hard to tell how much more you need to cut them even when I cut each foil out individually. This meant I had to trim them down once I had peeled them off and they were sticky, muchos annoying!

These are them on, a bit messy and oddly cut but considering I did this alone and not really knowing what I was doing I think it’s OK. Should have checked out some YouTube videos before though just to make sure of what I was doing. I used a hairdryer on a low setting to warm the foil before smoothing it over my nail and trying to iron out creases as I went. Hmm, limited success there.

It was hard to file the ends of these down, especially on my right hand. My left hand does not ever do what I tell it to so it was a bit of a calamity to say the least. Hence I am not surprised that within a few hours lifting and peeling began.

This is my nails today. You can see some of the peeling and this is occurring on all but one of my nails. Incidentally the only one that isn’t is the first one I did, my little finger on my left hand, though this is also the finger that probably sustains the least trauma in my day to day doings. I am around 70-80% sure that this is due to my shoddy workmanship but may also be due to the fact that these cost £3 and are from Primark, hardly a measure of good quality.

In conclusion, I am undecided. they look ace from afar and I have had a lot of comments on them, even randomly from a (male) swimming teacher at my local leisure centre when I was on my morning swim today. The pattern is pretty and stands out but these are kind of difficult to use. I tried to add a top coat to try and minimise the lifting when it first happened and this just made the foil go a bit weird. When I have more money to burn I may give some Nail Rocks or similar a try but until then I think I will be giving foils a miss.

The thing that irritates me THE MOST about these is the number you get in a pack. 18 foils, why? Why not just add a few more so I could do two hands worth? Or a few less, ten with a few for mistakes? Obviously not. I could always do eight with an accent nail but gah I would like to be all matching.

Has anyone else seen or tried these? What were the results? Have you tried any other nail foils? I love the look but for the price I just don’t think I can bring myself to do it! Especially not when a Barry M nail paint is £2.95 and theres multiple wears!