Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Swatch: Incoco Star Spangled nail appliques

The products in this post were provided to me for review. All opinions are my own.

Happy (almost) 4th of July to my fellow Americans! I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend planned! We're still recovering from the wedding, so we'll probably just do a lot of sitting around. How will you celebrate the 4th?

This post is very special for me--it's the first time I've been sent a product to review! I feel like a real blogger now! But rest assured, dear readers: I'm still going to be giving you my 100% honest opinion.

I received the Star Spangled nail polish appliques from Incoco just in time for Independence Day. As you may remember, my last experience with nail wraps didn't go so well, so I was slightly wary of trying more. But the Incoco wraps are different from the L'Oreal ones in that they're made of nail polish rather than plastic, and claimed to be stretchable. So I had high hopes for these!

In each set of appliques you get two sets of eight strips; each strip has two slightly different-sized ends so you can pick the best fit:


To apply them, you just peel off the backing, choose which end you want to use, stick them on the nail and stretch them to remove any wrinkles. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that I was indeed able to get a smooth, wrinkle-free application! Finally, you fold the excess over the end of your nail and file it off.

Incoco Star Spangled nail polish appliques

This particular design is packed with glitter and makes me feel really patriotic! The texture of the wraps is not quite as smooth as regular polish, but that might be due to all the glitter--I'll have to try some of their solid-color appliques to compare. And once again, there are no wrinkles or bunches! (Can you tell I'm really happy about that?)


Some notes about the application process: first, although the Incoco appliques are indeed stretchy, they are also fragile--if you stretch them too far, they'll rip. (That's what happened on my ring finger.) So you just have to be gentle.

Second, although Incoco claims that you can stretch the wraps horizontally if they're too narrow for your nail, I had a hard time doing that. What I did instead was use wraps that were slightly too wide for each nail. Then, since they're made of nail polish, I was able to grab my cleanup brush and acetone and remove the excess from the sides of the nail. That only added about 5 minutes or so to the whole process.

One more thing I noticed--although the appliques are claimed to include base coat and top coat, they are still vulnerable to chipping since you can't wrap your tips. The edges of the appliques were actually snagging on my clothes. And while I was washing my face before bed last night, I noticed some flecks of polish coming off. So after I took these pictures, I slapped some Out the Door on my nails for extra protection.

To sum up:

Incoco Nail Polish Appliques--Pros:
  • quick and pretty easy to apply
  • no dry time
  • no wrinkles
  • pretty designs that would be hard to do by hand
  • remove with polish remover
Cons:
  • can tear easily
  • you will probably have to throw out some strips from each package (they dry out if you don't use them immediately)
  • can't wrap tips--prone to chipping (not sure they would last 14 days as claimed without extra top coat)
Are they worth the $$?: Yes.  I wouldn't use them all the time, but I think these wraps are great for special occasions where you want a really intricate design that might be very hard to do by hand. They look really nice as long as you're careful not to tear them.

Star Spangled Nail Polish Appliques, along with many other patterns, are available for $8.99 at incoco.com. They also sell French tip sets, pedicure sets, and solid colors (which, frankly, aren't worth the money unless you really hate waiting for polish to dry). Incoco appliques are 3-free.

You can follow Incoco on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram!

The products in this post were provided to me for review. All opinions are my own.

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