Influenster VoxBox: ImPress Nails

Or: Did I remember to take pictures of this?

I did not. Or at least, I took pictures of the BOX... hold on a second... okay, we're good to go.

And here, the card cleverly disguises where I ripped the box open because apparently I don't know how they work and I was trying to open the wrong side. Yeah. There's nothing special on the back of the card, just some pricing info and links for checking in and stuff.

Anyways, I got this from Influenster as you can probably tell. Full Disclosure, yada yada, all that good stuff.

These are the two designs I got:

For some reason, my camera has a hard time picking up this pink colour. I edited these a little in Picasca, but it's not coming off as true to life.

This one's better:

This is called Shout and it's a bubblegum, Barbie pink that fades down to clear/nail coloured at the bottom, with silver and black accents. You get a couple different designs per nail that they're supposed to go on. I ended up with mismatched nails - my thumbnails were different from each other, even - but it all kind of goes together so that's okay. The silver is glitter and has some texture, but nothing too terrible.

The other colour is impossible to photograph. It looks like a gunmetal grey in pictures and if you look right at it, but it's a duo-chrome colour. They look kind of grey looking at them head-on, but then if you shift them, they end up looking purple one way, or a greenish blue another way. Kind of... well, like a crow's feathers, actually. They also have some shimmer, but they're completely smooth.

This set is from the Disney Villains line so the packaging is kind of cool.

I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of thing XD But they are a little dark for summer, so I'll probably not wear them until fall or winter. I like bright colours during summer. I have used two sets of these now and I'm confident in saying they perform pretty much the same each time I've used them, though.

How these work is: First you try each nail on your fingers until you get all the ones you need and figure out which ones fit better. At some point, you spill them on your bed and mutter words and do it over again... or at least I do.

Included with the nails you get a little "prep pad" which is just a little wet alcohol wipe to clean and oil and dirt off your nails and help things stick together better. You swipe your nails and then you grab the little plastic tab on the nail and rip it off. That can kind of be hard sometimes and you mutter words about how you will not be defeated by a piece of plastic and viciously yank it off... or at least I do ;) Underneath the plastic is nail glue already applied to the nail and it's actually a good thing it's hard to get the plastic off because that means the glue is strong.

Then you just stick them onto your nails, pinky to thumb, and you're done. I do like to file the tops a bit because there's like a little tab on the top - you can kind of see it in the close up picture of the pink pair - and it bothers me. They give you a tiny little emery board, but I prefer a metal file. That can take a little while, but I usually do it before I stick the nail on so it's not terrible.

These lasted me just about a full week. On the 7th day, I had one nail that was starting to lift pretty badly and I'm kind of terrible and played with it like a loose tooth, so it ended up coming off and after that, I was tired of wearing them, and ripped them all off. Well over half of them still had lots of glue on them and could have used some soaking in nail polish remover/acetone. The bottle says "gently" peel off from sides or soak around edges with nail polish remover and I'd recommend go for the nail polish remover to dissolve the glue, but I'm impatient and kind of like the way it feels to rip them off.

I'm weird, though.

Ripping them off while the glue is still going strong can leave a little surface damage, but nothing major. My nails always feel very sharp at the edges for some reason, but a little filing fixes that up. And I get a week of growth without any breakage. Because of the length of these, sometimes I have to trim my nails to fit because these are a short length. I do think short fake nails are easier to deal with, though.

My nails for the last year or so have been very weak and easily broken. I've actually been taking calcium supplements because I Googled what weak nails can be a sign of and calcium deficiency is one of them and I realized that with the whole lactose intolerant thing, even if it did nothing for my nails, my bones would probably appreciate it. (Plus it has Vitamin D in it to help the absorption and I'm a very pale person who lives covered in sunblock and I have brain issues so Vitamin D is a good.) I've been taking them for... oh, maybe a month now. And I noticed after I took these off, my nails didn't IMMEDIATELY break. I even have a little length on my pinkies and ring fingers that just wasn't happening for quite a while there.

So, for me, it's probably the calcium thing that's helping, but getting a week of growth with no chance of breakage was nice, too. Like "resting" your nails, you know? Is that a weird way to think of it? XD I also had a nail break super low my left thumb, like badly enough that it bled. So I had to wait for that to heal enough to not be a scab before I put these on, but

Okay, I've been talking for a while, so here, have a creepy photo of my hand wearing these and holding the bottle with the extras in it to break things up:

(Seriously, these come off so pastel and they're really more bubblegum than anything.)

I should wrap this up now. Alright, so. I think these are a lot of fun. The application is really easy, probably easier than nail polish - especially if you have mobility problems. They're really basically just stickers. They would also be good for an event, like grad, or prom, because you could put them on the day before and not worry about them getting messed up. And I know people like them for travelling. The thickness of the nail makes scratching annoying because it doesn't make the itch go away and honestly? That's about the only complaint I have. They can feel a little weird first going on, but you adjust after a while. Other than that, I'm pretty much satisfied with these as a product.

Where I live, the only store I've seen them in prices them at 15 dollars. As much as I like these, I think that is too much. The selection is also very limited and they aren't really fancy or exciting colours or designs. But I live in the middle of nowhere. So if you can get these at a better price - the card I got in my VoxBox says they retail at 8.99 to 10.99 and that's a much better price - I'd say give them a shot. Maybe you're not going to wear them every week of your life, but they can be a fun treat and they're a pretty good value for a price under or around 10 dollars.

Okay! Normally I would post this on Friday, but I'm going away for a couple days and I don't know if I'll have time tomorrow and I need to link this review on Influenster XD So you get it today.

So what do you guys think? Have you tried anything like this? Would you?

Peace and cookies,
Laina