A Nail Tale

Have you seen these images from the Daphne Groeneveld for Jill Stuart Spring 2012 Campaign by Mario Sorrenti?


I'm not usually someone who thinks of themselves as a pastel lover but I think my longing for spring and warmer temperatures is winning out. The colors from these photos make me so happy and light hearted that not even a grey sky spewing hail at me right now can get me down.

Since pastels aren't something I look particularly fantastic in I wondered if I could try it in baby steps with my nails.

I ran out and got Rimmel London's Lycra Pro Professional Finish in Peppermint. It advertises:

~ Long Lasting
~ No chip
~ Anti-Fade

I'm such a scaredy cat of pastels I kept it to one nail and paired it with Sinful Colors Green and a cheap and cheerful Top Coat from Primark (good ol' Primark).

Pro's:
~ It's not faded in 24 hours of heavy hand usage. I love to work with my hands which is why I can't keep my nails long. To be able to hang in there after all that hand and dish washing is impressive.

~No chips! I'm in shock here. I'm usually muttering under my breath less than an hour after having my nails done at a nail salon. To have something I did with my daughter last this long is shocking and fantastic!

~Reasonable drying time. Usually I feel like I have to wait at least a good solid hour before resuming any kind of activity with my hands. Otherwise I end up with all kinds of impressions, bubbles, and creases. This dried fairly quickly and I amazingly didn't have any weirdness going on with them.

Con's:
~I'm hard pressed for a con to be honest. The only one I can come up with is that I felt to get a truly opaque look with it, I needed three coats. Otherwise I risked having some transparent streaks in it. That's not too major a complaint over all though.

Summary:
If you're looking for a good affordable pastel, this could totally fit the bill. They had another shade I was really tempted to splurge on, Ultra Violet, but I must exercise self-discipline. I only have so many nails I can paint at one time...wait a minute - I could always paint each one a different colour. Oh no. Someone save me from myself!

(This is not a sponsored post. Just had some fun with my nails and thought others would like to know what I found! ;) xoxo)

(P.S. If anyone knows any environmentally friendly non-toxic polishes or other beauty products, I'd love to hear about them!)

{Jill Stuart images originally from here but the collage and color samples, I created}