Nail art!

I treated myself for my birthday to a beauty product I’d never bought before because of the price. And that price, folks, is $10. No cheapy here! Right. You’ll see what I mean, though. One of the new trends in nail polish is a nail polish strip – like a decal – you can adhere to your nails. They’re often patterned, giving you a nail art look that appears as if you spent hours on it. But really, you peel off the sticker, stick it on your nails, and file off the excess. BAM, instant nail art. I tried Essie Sleek Sticks, but you can get this type of product from a few other brands too like OPI and Sally Hansen.

The pros are strong. You don’t need base coat or top coat, which saves time. The stickers are obviously dry to the touch, which means you don’t have to sit around waving your hands and saying things like, “Can you grab that for me? My nails are wet.” That, in my book, is a huge plus. Removal is also easy: they peel right off. But strong as these pros are, they can’t make up for the big detractor.

Nail strips are obviously only a one-time use, and packages only come with enough strips for one application. At $10 a pop, there’s not enough bang for your buck to make nail strips a regular in my nail rotation. Especially when you consider you can buy a bottle of polish for the same price (or perhaps two) that will last you years. For special occasions though, I can totally see myself buying these again! The factor that does help justify the price are the designs: you’d have to put a lot of work into creating these nail looks yourself. If you think of it as a manicure (minus the spa treatment and convenience of having someone else do it for you…) then you can sort of justify the price. Sort of. But it’s a fun treat! A word of caution though: your patterned nails will be very distracting! Really, I can’t look at my keyboard without admiring the cool lace design I’ve currently got on my tips.