Incoco Pride Nails - Update: Removal

Happy Friday!

A short post before the weekend to follow up on my Incoco real nail polish strips. I applied these on on Monday June 22nd in the evening and the photos below show what they look like on the evening of Monday June 29th before removal.

These wore fantastically! I was really truly impressed with the wear, especially considering that these are white and are likely to show every little imperfection. I started to get more wear on the strips over the weekend, but overall I have no complaints. Not only did they apply and wore well but they look look great!

Here again is a before picture, fresh after application:

And here are a few after shots, a full eight days later:

If I really wanted to I could have gotten away with another full week of wear, but I wanted a change for my birthday nails.

Removal was pretty straightforward. I assumed since they really push the whole "real polish strips" thing that it would remove the same as a regular polish. I'd say yes and no to this. Although the polish was easy to remove with my standard non acetone remover, once I the colour was removed from my nails there was this sticky, gluey layer that was slightly more difficult to remove. I ultimately just shoved each finger in to my Sephora Instant Nail Polish Remover for Glitter bottle and removal was a breeze. Maybe I needed acetone to more easily remove the sticky layer, but it was just unexpected.

On a side note before the weekend if you haven't already heard, Zoya has an awesome promo this week for Independence Day in the States, buy three polishes, get three free. This also includes FREE shipping! Just use code 3FREE at checkout.

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Show Your Pride!

Last weekend officially kicked of Pride week here in Toronto and this coincided with an Incoco Pride Nails rep. contacting me asking if I'd like to share their latest initiative with you including some limited edition  nail polish strips in support of Pride Vancouver. Of course I said yes!

About The Initiative: Pride Nails are a fundraising tool developed in partnership with the Vancouver Pride Society. Our intention is to enable supporters of the LGBTTQ community to demonstrate their support by purchasing Pride Nail and wearing them with Pride. Pride Nails are sold online and at select retailers throughout the city. Each year we will launch a new limited edition design, and we hope you are happy with our designs, our quality and our desire to support Vancouver Pride.

I love the pattern of these strips, simple with the white base and with a hint of triangle rainbow at the base of the nail.

With this being my first time using Incoco real nail polish strips I wasn't really sure what to expect. I read the directions on the packaging and watched a short video online to familiarize myself with the process. There is a really short learning curve and after the first strip was applied to my left pinky, I was confident in applying them to the rest of my nails.

It was easy to find strips that were the same shape of my natural nail. My pinky nails were a little wider than the smallest strips, but overall you can't tell, which is good! I found out after the fact that it is actually really easy to trim or file down the larger strips to better fit the nail. Noted for next time!

These were super quick ans easy to apply and I just love the look! The white base has a very faint shimmer that give the overall look more dimension.

A big thanks again to Incoco for sharing these with me and all of you. If you'd like to show your support and pick up a set for yourself, you can find more information at pridenails.com.

*This product was sent to me from the Vancouver Pride Society for consideration. All views expressed are my own honest option.

Copycat + Red Angel Plates Comments

So I am finally removing my Incoco nail polish strips today, but a few days ago I decided I wanted to replicate that design on my other nails painted with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. I found a ver similar design in my Red Angel collection which can be found on plate RA 113. It is kind of stripy and reminds me of zebras, but when paired with Nail Junkie it reminds me more of seaweed!

So here is the finished look. Now I had some issues with this design inparticular, first of all the design is engraved to deeply. What happens when the image is to deep is when to go to stamp it on your nail or smudges :( I had to be really careful with not pushing too hard on the stamper when picking up the design and gently rolling it on the nail. After a couple of tries I got the hand of it, but below is an example of when I stamped too hard (left) and just right (right).

A little messy right? I guess that is something to be aware of when stamping with new plates. I didn't realize that deeply ingrained images could be just as bad as shallow engraved images. I guess I will need some practice to get it right.

Hope you have a great weekend :)

Brights!

The weather has been freaking amazing the last week and what better way to celebrate than with a bright neon! I picked up China Glaze Shocking Pink on one of my first ever trips to Sallys making it one of the first China Glaze polishes I ever owned!

Fast forward to now and it has been collecting dust, never used. I had sudden urge to pair the Incoco design I had on my ring fingers with a hot pink, that was when I thought of using Shocking Pink. I thought I would finally try it out... And it is awesome!

Application however is a whole other story :( neons are usually a little difficult to apply, this one in particular was visibly thin, meaning multiple coats were needed for opacity, yet thick in smoothness. Since neons dry matte they also dry faster which I found if you went over the same spot more than one you get some balding. I only applied three coats to my nails but could have used four on some nails for strokes and eveness. Luckiliy Seche Vite was good at leveling everything out and making everything glossy and pretty :) three coats was perfect for me.

I feel lie the accent nail looks a lot better with pink, I wasn't given a choice when they were applied. I decided to keep the nail strips on to test out the wear on them. So far they have been going strong for a full week! And that is after filing my nails down with them on! I am super impressed with these.

An Incoco Surprise

So my awesome boyfriend took me shopping at the mall for my birthday and what did I spot? An Incoco kiosk! I haven't seen these before, but I do have a few of Incoco products I have yet to use. Anyways, anything that has to do with nails I am drawn to, so I gravitated towards the booth and started to educate my boyfriend.

A sales lady poped eventually up and proceeds to ask if I'd like a demo! Super cool. So she applied some nail polish remover to my ring finger nails and picked out a patten and slapped them on. Seeing application in person was awesome plus it looked super easy! I think she could have been a tiny bit neater with filing off the excess, but maybe that's just me!

As you can see the pattern is a gold glitter base with a zebra type pattern in black. I applied top coat over it the next day, again, just me being anal (I also touched up the uneven tips with China Glaze's Blonde Bombshell), but it has worn wonderfully! No peeling or chipping, I am very impressed, so far it has been four days and no wear whatsoever! I definitely have to bust out some of my other Incoco and Sally Hanson strips to wear soon!

Have you tried nail polish strips before? Which are your favorite?