Normally I prefer to stick to either pale non-glittery neutrals or clear varnish on my finger nails but when it comes to the tootsies, I tend to let rip when it comes to colour but after walking into a fabulous chemist in Epping High Street a week ago and staring in wide-eyed awe at their huge ... Read review
Advantages: Dinky bottle. Wide range of shades. Disadvantages: Finding stockists.
...at their huge display of Mavala nail polishes (apparently there are over 100 shades to chose from) I decided to throw sensibility to the wind and paint my finger nails a shocking colour too.
I'm quite addicted to what I call 'fizzy orange' shades right now - y'know the colour of a perfectly ripe orange?, that and reddy coral type shades so I purchased two bottles - one called Nice; a creamy-orange and the other being Paris ... .../>
The best thing about Mavala bottles is they are teeny tiny - although the price isn't, you can expect to pay around the £3.85 mark for a 5ml sized bottle but you can easily wedge it between your fingers to keep the bottle steady when painting your nails.
The silver angled lid is really easy to hold and the brush holds its form well so you can cover your nails in the '3-sweeps' method.
Normally I prefer to stick to either pale non-glittery neutrals or clear varnish on my finger nails but when it comes to the tootsies, I tend to let rip when it comes to colour but after walking into a fabulous chemist in Epping High Street a week ago and staring in wide-eyed awe at their huge display of Mavala nail polishes (apparently there are over 100 shades to chose from) I decided to throw sensibility to the wind and paint my finger nails a shocking colour too.
I'm quite addicted to what I call 'fizzy orange' shades right now - y'know the colour of a perfectly ripe orange?, that and reddy coral type shades so I purchased two bottles - one called Nice; a creamy-orange and the other being Paris which is a medium red-with-hint-of-orange. ~ Nitty-Gritty ~
The best thing about Mavala bottles is they are teeny tiny - although the price isn't, you can expect to pay around the £3.85 mark for a 5ml sized bottle but you can easily wedge it between your fingers to keep the bottle steady when painting your nails.
The silver angled lid is really easy to hold and the brush holds its form well so you can cover your nails in the '3-sweeps' method.
Colour coverage is good, one coat gives good cover, two coats and the colour is richer and more opaque. It dries incredibly quickly too so you can paint your nails about 30 minutes before bedtime and get up in the morning without crumpled patterns all over your nails.
Due to a medical condition I'm now on new medication which as a joyous bonus has meant my nails grow faster, the downside is that right now, all the feeble nail is growing out so some of my nails are quite flexible and prone to peeling. With regular nail varnish if I had a nail bend, the varnish would crack and a big piece of it would then peel off. My nails are subject to a lot of abuse - my job entails a lot of data entry, fiddling about with printers, I do gardening (often without gardening gloves), and I'm a gym-bunny and I often bash my nails on the machinery or the weights so I was very surprised to find that the worst that occurred was the varnish wearing off very slightly on the very tips of a few of my nails after 2 days. A huge plus point is that the colour stays put on my toes for over a week, despite wearing trainers at the gym and having shoes rubbing on the toes.
I tend to remove and re-varnish every 3 days as I think chipped varnish looks awful, but with this I can easily go beyond that as it just seems to be welded to my nails and it retains its bright, fresh, glossiness throughout and I know this sounds weird, but my nails still feel like they can breathe, unlike when I used to apply other brands in the past which made them feel heavy (I'm hoping die-hard varnish wearers will understand me on this!). To prove I'm not completely insane I just found on the Mavala website "…Unlike traditional nail colour, Mavala's unique formula delivers microscopic air pockets to allow nails to breath and absorb nutrients found in hand creams and other topical treatments…." .
The only snag and it's not a biggie, is that although its really really easy to remove with regular varnish remover - literally one swipe and it's gone - I tend to get a slight colour transference on to my nails and I have to dig about a bit to remove the colour from the skin around the nail bed. This wouldn't be a problem with light shades but I imagine it could be worse with deep reds, browns and so forth. ~ Recommended? ~
Yes! Although you may think that paying that much for a teeny bottle of varnish is excessive I've found that the quality of the product and its longevity far outweighs other varnishes of similar price *and* the highly priced 'designer name' varnishes too. The colour range is absolutely stunning so you could easily find a shade to compliment any outfit you plan on wearing.
If you pop along to the Mavala website you can check out the shades for yourself although the website shading only gives a rough approximation of the shade http://www.mavala.co.uk/miniColor.html#Glam and there is also a "find stockist" tab for your area although for my postcode it doesn't tell me about the huge chemist a short drive away in Epping so it's quite limited.
www.mavala.co.uk
Mavala also won the 2008 Best Beauty Essentials award for its 002 Double Base [coat]. It will protect your nails from pigmentation staining and "….It perfectly adheres to the nail plate and stays slightly sticky to allow nail polish to last almost twice as long…". May have to give it a whirl! ~ Finally ~
News to me but Mavala not only make nail varnish, they also produce mascara, eyeshadow, foundations, blushers, face treatment products, make-up remover, foot care products and hand creams as well as nail treatment products, tweezers, nail trimmers and cuticle nippers. . You can order on-line (P&P is £1.95 for 1st class post) AND their website shows you various exercises to do for your hands, face, feet, etc to keep them in tip-top shape. Sounds like a truly fabulous one-stop-shop to me.
Advantages: Had the shade I wanted. Disadvantages: Just have to look at it and it chips.
I've been really happy with my Mavala and Revlon nailvarnish but sadly, neither range stocked the rich dark chocolate brown I was after so after visiting a department store I was told the one brand that did the shade I was after was YSL. I tried the tester bottle and it was indeed the very shade I wanted.
I paid my money - luckily from Ciao! Funds - of £16 (yes, I must've taken leave of my senses) and after a bit more shopping, went home.
.
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After removing my Revlon Vixen shade which had clung like a limpet to my nails for a week, I applied base coat and then applied the YSL polish. As each brand is different it takes a little while to get used to them; some brushes hold lots of polish, others don't, some brushes are really flexible, others quite rigid - you get the picture - so I wasn't too concerned at the first application ...
Advantages: Sticks like a limpet to your nails. Stays glossy for ages. Disadvantages: Fairly limited range of colours in the UK shops.
this could stop that problem!
~ Condition of my nails ~
In the past I've used nailvarnish that feels heavy on my nails - I mentioned in my Mavala review that when using Mavala polish, my nails felt light and like they could breathe - it's exactly the same with Revlon. My nails don't feel weighed down with colour and they've actually been growing like wild-fire in the few weeks that I've been painting them to the point I've had to file them several times which is something I've never had to do as they usually break before they get anywhere near a trimable length.
~ Recommended? ~
Yes. Right now in Superdrug the polish is reduced so you'll be paying around the £4.18 mark for a bottle, usual price being around £6. However, this may vary in other chemists or on-line retailers. Revlon don't have a huge range of shades ...
