Essence Magnetic Hex Hex!

As I expected, it wasn’t long before I got into the magnetic polish.  It didn’t turn out too bad for my first try!
It was quite difficult to do because the process is that you paint your nail, slip the magnet on your finger on the other hand and hold your freshly painted finger up against it.  Sounds easy enough, but what isn’t easy is holding it close enough without hitting your finger against the magnet.

No lie, I did every finger at least 2-3 times just because I kept hitting my fingernail against the magnet and smudging the polish. Very irritating.

I also noticed that for some strange reason, the pattern shows up a lot better on my natural nails than it did on the fakies.  You can see that my ring and pinkie finger look a lot better than the other two fingers.  I can’t figure out why that is but there is obviously something with the fake nails that affects it.

I have seen a different type of magnetic polish on a German website and I wonder if that is easier to use.  From what I’ve seen you just sit your finger in a little stand with the magnet above it, which seems like it would suit me a LOT more.  With shaky hands like mine, getting up as close as you are required to do with the Essence magnet does no go well at all.

I may try buying the magnet on the German website and see if it works a bit better, because I really like how it looks.  I’d especially like to try some different designs with it!

Have you tried the Essence magnetic polish, or the other type like on the German site?  If so, what did you think of them?

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Funky French

Today I was out running some errands and had to pop into Etos and Kruidvat to peek at their polishes.  I picked up a few Essence products to try them out.

French manicure tip guides and nail polish remover pen by Essence.

The tip guides seemed to work pretty well, except I acted like a big cheapo and tried to use the same one again and again which lead to things looking a pretty smudgy in spots.  I think I would have better results if I 1) waited for the base paint to dry a little longer (I am so impatient) and 2) used a different strip on each finger and pressing it down firmly (unlike tonight where I was afraid to stick it too much because the base wasn’t completely dry).  All in all I liked them and will continue to use them, as I really don’t have a steady hand at all so doing it freehand is not an option.

The remover pen, I’m not so sure about.  Either it’s slightly crap or the one I got just happened to be somewhat dry, because while it will remove the odd smudge I wouldn’t rely on it to remove dry polish or any large amount of it.  I had the feeling the whole time I was using it that I wanted to dip the tip into remover because it didn’t seem wet enough, which made it not work so well.  I’m wondering if this is the case with all of them or if mine is a dud.  I’ve seen various other types of remover pens from other brands, I may try one of those to compare.  It didn’t seem to do a whole lot that a dipped Q-Tip wouldn’t. 

Next time I will dip it in some remover to see how I feel about it then.


I did a small stamp on each of my ring fingers with a small stone sticker from the Broadway Fashion Diva set, just to spruce it up a bit.

It’s supposed to be over 20 degrees here in the Netherlands tomorrow so I wanted a color that said SUMMERRRRR!!!

Another concern I have is the fakies.  If you look at the photos my index finger and middle finger both have fake nails on them.  After removing my acrylics my nails were left so thin and such a mess that they were tearing really easily.  These two broke really far down and I got tired of being afraid they were going to hook on things.  So I got the set of 100 nails by Broadway thinking they would work as a ‘patch’ to cover nails that are broken low and painful.

Problem is, those nails didn’t fit! They were far too curved for my nails and they weren’t comfortable at all.

I went back and got the Smart Fit nails for FLAT nails by Broadway.  They fit a lot better in the arch but 3/4 of the package were even too big for my thumb!  I tried to get the best fit I could, but when I look at the photos those two nails look so much wider than the rest of my nails. Unnaturally so, I think… not that I expect them to really look natural but should I have chosen a size smaller for each? 

They FEEL surprisingly good, like I could easily wear them on all fingers full time, but I won’t as I just want them for cover up purposes.  Does anyone have any tips for small, flat nails and any comments on if this is just par for the course with fakies or did I choose the wrong size?

Products used:
Sally Hansen Double Duty Base / Top coat
Miss Sporty Pink
Claire’s Super Speed Polish Black
Essence Stampy Set
Braodway Fashion Diva jewel sticker

PS – Did anyone get tricked for April Fool’s Day? I did, big time!  You can read about it on my day to day blog Canadutch.  Man oh man… I got PUNKED!

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