Project Grow Your Own: A while since week 4

Well, it's been a while since I last showed off how my nails were growing on here.

I've had my Jessica Nails manicure (which was gor diddly orgeous) and I've applied polish a few times myself (both with favourable and non favourable results).

The one thing I've been doing consistently with my nails is applying this:

I'm more than happy with most of them, apart from one that broke because it was damaged and the two that snapped themselves because I kept nibbling them :( In my defence, they only broke this week.

I've also got a problem, can any of you nail-y gals help me out? Scroll down and you will see it, it's nothing gross!

FOTD: Fail of the day featuring me, Sally Hansen and Nails Inc

My Jessica Nails manicure started chipping the other day and I kept going with it until it started to look totally raggedy.  On Tuesday, I decided that I'd paint my nails as soon as I got home.

So, come 5 p.m. I found myself striding through my front door like a woman on a mission.  I found the polish, "de worked" myself (changed my skirt for pj bottoms and my top for my favourite t-shirt stolen from the Simon fund) and decided to start painting my nails.

The colour I chose was Motcomb Street by Nails Inc.  I've never been shy to proclaim my love for Nails Inc polishes in the past and I never took much notice when people said they found the polishes to be streaky and the brushes to be dodgy, I just assumed they had bought a bad one.

Anyway, I sat down, got the brush out for a polish which looked decidedly like a dark petrol blue.  I took the brush out and applied it and the polish was green! There was no indication from looking at the bottle that it would be green but I didn't mind as this colour was equally nice so I started to apply the first (thin) coat.

In short, it didn't work, the brush was dodgy and didn't take the colour too well, it applied really streaky and I had to apply a massively thick coat just to cover my nail.

I vented about this on Twitter and was told by other bloggers that their freebie Nails Inc polishes were a bit dodgy and also that Nails Inc polishes are like a lottery, some good, some bad.

This experience makes me think twice about Nails Inc, I hadn't noticed this until now but I seldom reach for Nails Inc anymore, I either pick up my George@ASDA polishes or my Jessica Nails ones.  The other Nails Inc polishes I use seem to be deteriorating in quality too but the brushes are fine.

I took a photo so you could see the actual colour and the horrible application job, I blame the polish and brush for the polish on my skin because I had to redo parts of the nail due to streakiness:

The biggest loser in this story is Nails Inc, I was going to buy some more of their polishes during my lunchbreak at work tomorrow as they have a salon down by Canary Wharf station but now I'm not going to bother..

The two winners of the story are me (naturally) and Sally Hansen.

I bought this from the Pound Shop the other day:

I really like it.  However, there is a problem.  The smell.  It smells really strong, so strong that I had to stand by an open window and use it and even then I could still smell it.  If you have young kids, I wouldn't use it anywhere near them because it does really whiff.  I made the mistake of smelling it and it whooshed up my nostrils super fast.

It contains no acetone but it dried my fingers out a bit, I wouldn't use it every day and if you moisturise your hands, you won't realise a difference.  It also contains Keratin which I know is good for your nails!

Anyway, it's a sponge in a jar and you just dip your fingers in and it cleans them, I've done a little step by step thingy so you can see that it actually works:

I'd already taken my finger out of the sponge when I took this shot, it took all the polish off the nail.

You can get this in different smells, namely a lemon scented version and an apricot scented version.

Have you ladies had any fail varnish (see what I did there?) experiences? Don't be shy, share them with the group!

Project Grow Your Own Week 3

This is indeed the third week of me growing my nails (despite my other post just being posted the other day).  The astute amongst you will notice there was no week 2.  This is for many reasons, the main one being my general rushing around doing things and forgetting to take a photo.

My nails are now growing at a speed I like, I can see the white bits forming on many of them, which is nice.  I've ditched the "put coloured polish on so I won't bit them" approach as the polish chipped real quick and I didn't like the frequent re-applying.  I could have overcome that problem by applying ones which don't chip but I'm keeping them for when my nails are at a (near) universally acceptable level.

Anyway, I'm now (under the guidance of Jo) wearing just this:

Funnily enough, I haven't had the urge to bite my nails or anything..I'm not doing anything different in life since before biting them so maybe I was just being silly before and biting them for no reason? I ran this idea past the Mr and he decided to keep quiet..

This was meant to be a quick post but succint and my rambling nature aren't exactly a match made in heaven, so, finally, here are the nails:

I'm not sure why I took one photo with the flash on and one with the flash off and why the second one looks a bit vintage but the main thing I'm taking from this is the emergence of white bits.  I even managed to scratch Mr Ross yesterday :)

I can't believe that next week will be week 4 of growing the stumps, I'm quite chuffed with myself.  The single thing keeping me going is the thought of being able to apply Jessica Nails Black Ice which is my current favourite polish..it has nothing to do with the fact that it smells like Southern Comfort *hic*

Do you guys think that any of the polishes out there which claim to make your nails grow actually work? Also, I was thinking of getting some of those Revlon falsies.  Is this a wise move or should I just let my natural nails grow on as they are?