Make Up Academy Nail Varnish

Review of MUA (Make up Academy) Nail Polish

MUA products are available at Superdrug. The range is aimed at the budget conscious end of the market and although I am not a regular user of nail varish, I recently purchased three colours in the range.

The Product

Make Up Academy nail polish is presented in a squat, square glass bottle with a black plastic screw topped lid. At just 2 inches tall, the bottle is fairly small when compared to other brands, but I feel this can be forgiven as the range has a wide range of colours and a very tiny price tag!

The nail polish comes in 18 shades, ranging from a delicate pastel pink right through the colour spectrum to a deep, dark damson. Some shades are pearlised, some almost metallic and there are a few wacky colours available such as green and blue.

The brush is quite slender and the texture of the polish is on the thin side, but I found it actually covers quite well. As with all nail polishes, the product has a strong chemical scent when wet.

In Use

I recently had my two granddaughters to stay while my daughter was very ill in hospital with meningitis. The elder child is almost 12, she is becoming very interested in make up and all things related. We were shopping in town and she pointed out the MUA range in Superdrug. As everything was £1 (yes, really!) I decided to treat her to a few items. She chose a vivid blue nail polish (shade no 9) along with an eye shadow and a lip gloss.

When we got home, we had great fun giving each other a mini manicure and I ended up with rather badly painted blue fingernails, thanks to Katy's lack of expertise! It was at this point that I realised that I had no nail varnish remover in the house, not being a regular user of nail polish! I couldn't really go around with my hands looking like that, so jumped in the car and returned to Superdrug to buy some remover.

While I was in the store I decided to pick up some MUA polish for myself in a more suitable colour for a middle aged lady. I chose shade numbers 10, a metallic beige and 7, a rich plum.

The nail polish as mentioned earlier, does cover quite well, I found that one coat of the beige gave adequate coverage, however the darker shade really did require two in order to not look streaky.
The nail varnish dried remarkably quickly, something I was very pleased about as I hate waiting around with wet nails! This product is touch dry in a few minutes and rock hard in around 10.

The polish lasts an acceptable length of time before looking chipped. I found that the paler shade lasted 3-4 days before chipping and the darker one, a fraction less. I have to say that I do not tend to wear rubber gloves for household chores and am a pretty 'hands on' type of person, so my nails do suffer as a result, perhaps the polish would last better for a more careful person.

That said, I have had the same nail polish on my toenails for well over a week now and it is only just beginning to look tired. Pretty amazing really for a £1 nail polish!

Removal is simple, a quick wipe with the nail varish remover pads I bought and it's gone. A word of warning, the deeper coloured polish did stain my nails a little, so a base coat would be a good idea, but I am sure regular nail polish users would know this!

My Thoughts and Conclusion

The polish is pretty reasonable for the price and whilst perhaps not as good value for money as a larger bottle, if like me, you do not wear nail polish very often, it is better to buy in small quantities rather than risk a partially used bottle going off.

The quality of these MUA nail polishes is very good indeed and I think Superdrug are on to a winner with this range. Not everyone can afford to buy the more expensive cosmetics in these cash strapped times and it is nice to find a range of fashionable colours and products at a really sensible price.

It occurred to me that if you were unsure if a colour would suit you, then this range would be ideal to experiment with, after all, £1 isn't much to lose if you make a mistake!

In my opinion, MUA nail polish is an excellent buy and one I would certainly consider again. I appreciate that I am no expert on matters cosmetic, but I have been very happy with my purchases from the MUA range and would recommend them to others.

I am awarding MUA nail polish 5*.

Thank you for reading.

©brittle1906 August 2011

N.B. My reviews may be found on other sites under the same user name.