Girlwiththeskew-Earring: Love me a bit 'o bling...

€4.99 will buy you a packet of Nail Bliss Bling Nail Appliqués containing 18 'patches' in 9 different sizes. There are loads of patterns and designs and even ones made wide enough for toes, which would be nice for summer. I got mine at my local pharmacy, Bradley's in Blackrock, co Louth.

I really like these. Its my first time using them and I was a little sceptical as to its ease of use, but this was actually quite easy and straightforward, and while I wouldn't use these on every nail, I LOVE it as an accent.

The back of the pack also shows a few different ways to trim the stickers to achieve different styles of nail art.

The instructions on the pack are pretty basic:
1) clean the nail base using alcohol, but the only alcohol I have in the house is vodka and I am not wasting that, so I just used good old Cutex nail varnish remover
2) size the appliqué to completely cover the nail without any touching the skin
3) apply the appliqué to the nail pressing firmly
4) gently fold the appliqué over the nail edge and file in a sideways motion to remove any over hanging product. This is the only instruction that I thought was a bit hinky, as with my design the pretty bits would just be filed off the ends, but then I realised that these are generic instructions.

I like that the backing on the actual appliqué (or sticker) is see-through and flexible so that you can actually bend and match the correct size to your nail.

The sticker peels of of the backing very easily, and I didn't worry too much about tearing it as it felt pretty sturdy and thick enough. I misplaced the first sticker, but since I hadn't stuck it down properly, I quickly peeled it off, lined it up with the edge of my nail and re-placed it. Dunzo.

The problem I did have was cutting neatly around my cuticle. Which was entirely the fault of me and my giant kitchen scissors. What I should have done was cut the selected size off the big sheet first and trim it to size, not just peel it off the backing and whack it onto my nail and try to cut the excess off. Live and learn. So I did get a bit of folding around the base of my nail in my haste to apply this. I used a toothpick to push the air out of the fold and 30 seconds later it was flat with no sign of a fold, but I didn't take a pic :(

There was a bit of lifting at the very edge of my nail where the petal of the flower touches the edge of the appliqué. I think this is pretty much because my nail curves quite drastically here and the design at this point is quite thick. On a nail that is much flatter than mine this will not be a problem because I have not had any other areas lift off my nail.

Huston: we have lift off

I used the left over bit that I trimmed off my first nail I did this to the nail on my other ring finger. I call it the Mullet. Its not pretty, but I didn't want to waste it... It filed down over the edge really easily.

can you say S&M???

On the rest of my nails I decided to pick up on the purple in the flower, but it came out all wrong. All the purples I own are blue based and I needed something more pink. But I still like it.

I decided on Avon Matte Nail varnish in Violetta. 1st coat goes on pretty patchy but I would rather build up layers with this polish. You need to work quickly as this starts to dry almost as soon as it hits the nail.

Just call me 'patches'

The 2nd coat evens out the patchiness completely and gives a really really beautiful matte finish.

BUT Matte polishes chip and wear terribly!!!

So I topped it with a Limited Edition top coat from Essence. Make Me Holo gives a beautiful cosmic/ fairy/ iridescent/ pearly/ blue based /shimmer/ non-holographic (ie: difficult to describe) finish to any polish it is used over.

Top: with holo top coat
Bottom: just matte polish

It looks pretty cool over a matte polish. It kind of keeps the matte finish, but gives it an eerie shimmer. Its odd and pretty, but terribly hard to describe.

This mani lasted though almost two days (38 hours if you must know) of doing dishes, 2 showers (including vigorous hair washing), the bathing of two squidlets (my kids) as well as washing their hair , 8 loads of washing (including hanging) and 8 meals and tons of hand washing & moisturising before the flower sticker started lifting off. The half nail lasted another day before I got bored of it.

The textured nature of the stickers took a bit of getting used to, but I did get used to it eventually. I have to say I was happy to get this off because I was babying the nail where it was lifting. It peels off easily and a little bit of nail varnish remover removes any sticky residue that remained.

Overall, this is an easy way to achieve a really interesting manicure for a night out. I have no nail-tech training and I got a really nice finish with these.

This is what I used: