Claire's failed to polish my life up.... (Claire's Triple Pack Nail Polish)

Member Name: xxfoxyredxx

Product:	Claire's Triple Pack Nail Polish
Date:	24/04/09 (248 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice choice of colours, cute enough pots

Disadvantages: Read review lol

I absolutely love nail polishes. I own loads and loads and usually buy Boots No7. It's my preferred brand when it comes to the quality and durability and even the ease of use. However I don't mind paying more for colours I know I will often wear. Of late though with slightly warmer weather appearing and investing in loads of cute peep toe shoes, 5 inch heels (which are also peep toe though I stagger about in them lol) and pairs upon pairs of gladiator sandals I've wanted to be a bit more 'out there' with my colours choices and I'm limited with the No7 range.

I've bought a George (Asda) bright yellow polish, a Collection 2000 bright blue and them type of purchases I don't want to pay more than a couple of quid for but still I need great results and usually when buying cheap you get cheap results and I have terribly bad nails that chip, flake and break easy so I still want something that isn't going to hurt any of that.

I was on a mission the other day to get a few, new bright colours as I was going on a date. I was going out quite demure with a lovely new simple dress on and stuff, quite understated. However my shoes were bright purple and I wanted clashing nail polish for my tootsies (I bite me fingernails so I don't bother with high lighting those lol).

I was walking past Claire's and on a rack, near the main entrance I spotted their nail polish collection and decided to take a nosey.

There was a lot to choose from at about £3.00 a bottle but I went for a triple pack which set me back £3.00 as it gave me 3 very different colours to play with and I was impressed that although they are small in size that means I haven't got to to cram yet a load more stuff into my already overcrowded bedroom lol.

The Packaging....

Firstly there are a few colour combinations to choose from but none have names as such. All you get is three 2.5ml (really small pots) of clear bottles (you can see the colours through of course!) and all say in small silver writing on the front that they are Claire's Cosmetics and on the back of each bottle you get told they are nail polishes, weight is stated and your given contact details for Claire's Accessories. They all have black plastic tops that contain really short black coloured 'wands' and a reasonably thick and good quality black brush at the end of them. The 3 polishes are lined up in a see through box that has a hanging hole to the top of it and on the front in silver lettering I'm told they are Claire's Cosmetics. The black sleeve at the back of the box gives me a list of ingredients, weight is stated, warnings are given and finally once again I'm given contact details for Claire's Accessories. Cute little pots, these are. I loved the dinkiness of them and for me a great handy size which even though they are small I know I'd get a lot of applications from them!

Using Them.....

My results were a mixed a bag really. My colour choice was a dark purple, turquoise green and a navy blue colour so dark it was almost a black.

Firstly the application of these is totally rubbish. These might be great for little or young people with little hands but as an adult they're a pain because the brush is far too close to the handle not giving any flexibility to the application.

All the nail polishes smell exactly as you would expect them to and from what I saw from the colours on display in my local shop they all very glossy.

I think it's fair to warn you here in my review as well that I do really feel a base coat is necessary when using these polishes. All the colours without base coat lasted a couple of days on my toes but if you want them to not fade, chip or stain your nails (they do badly) you really do need a base coat. Without base coat my nails went yellowish after a couple of days and my nails needed repainting. With a base coat I got 3-4 days perfect wear.

Saying that I got perfect glossy wear with the purple and the turquoise. I found the consistency good and I used a base coat with both colours, then 2 coats of polish and I did use a top coat as well with one of the colours just to see if it made any difference but it didn't. I was perfectly happy just with the polish.

It was tricky to apply and I had little control over the brushes but I found mistakes easy enough to correct at the time of doing them however you really do need 2 coats of any of the polishes to get a completely even colour. However both colours gave me glossy nails that were full of the colour so I couldn't complain.

However the really dark colour (the navy) was just too hard to make look decent! Because it was dark the mistakes were tricky to remove and some colour got under my nails and I simply couldn't remove it. It was so thin in consistency (after really shaking it and all-sorts) it basically went on drippy and like water and showed every imperfection I had on my nails. It was nothing like the other two polishes and was very disappointing and so bad were the results I achieved I removed it, tried again and still felt my nails looked bad lol.

Overall....

These work out at a pound a pot for 2.5ml. If they were spot on brilliant then sure I wouldn't mind paying that but these really are too expensive for what they are. Nowadays if want funky colours that are out of the ordinary I can get them for about £1.46 (large sizes too, say from Collection 2000) so we're not limited to paying this much for something that is so hit and miss.

I wouldn't buy them again although the two colours out of the three were pleasant enough they just didn't last as long as I would like, the bottles are tricky to handle and use and one colour was simply a nightmare!

Only available in Claire's Accessories.

Summary: Wouldn't rave for these!