Essence: new products – nail stickers (fall 2010)

One of the new Essence products we got for review were also nail stickers.

After seeing preview of Essence nail stickers I knew I had to have some of them. I did hope they’ll be more like Minx manicure style, but they’re classical nail stickers. I guess it really was too optimistic to expect Minx nails for 1,99 EUR.

Let’s take a look at all the sticker we received:

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: cool cover!, just say yes!, catwalk!

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: the real me!, light forever!, drama queen!, all or nothing!

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: just fashion!, trust me!, unexpected!, so hot!

Essence has a special Studio nails fashion file that is suppose to be used with their nail stickers. Darker side is for cleaning/preparing your nails and lighter one for removing excess sticker. Darker side smooths out the surface of the nail, so I don’t recommend you use it more than once in a while. But it looks it will be handy for removing those pesky light polish stains.

You get 14 sticker in package and this set of instructions:

  1. be sure that your natural nail are clean & greaseless, if necessary push back cuticles
  2. select correct size strip for each nail
  3. apply the predecorated nail fashion stickers onto your nails – important: place rounded edges against cuticle line, but still leave a little space between cuticles and nail fashion sticker
  4. press sticker onto nail while flatten the surface through gentle  rubbing
  5. smooth excess over nail edge. gentle file of excess of the sticker with essence special fashion file – ready!

There were 2 out of 4 my most wanted stickers in the package we received: Trust Me! and Unexpected!.

First ones I used were Trust Me! stickers. Application itself was not as difficult as I expected but I did have problems with centering the sticker and wrinkles at the side of the nail. I guess most of those with similar nails as I have will have simmilar problems (my nails are kind of curvy at the sides) … we’ll unless you’re expert at applying nail stickers.

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Trust Me! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Trust Me!

You don’t really see the crisscross design in real life, but camera picks it up. That is why I blurred the second photo.

If you look at the thumb, you can see the stickers are to narrow for my nails.

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Trust Me! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Trust Me!

I took more time to apply Unexpected! stickers. I made progress with centering the design, but wrinkles were driving me nuts. So I asked my boyfriend to help me out. I suspected that the main problem was the thickens and in-elasticity (besides the shape of my nails) of the sticker. I did try to heat the sticker up … but with very poor heat source.

My darling didn’t hesitate and he immediately brought in the big guns … hair dryer. :D

He set the speed to minimum and quickly heated the sticker held by tweezer (too much of heat and you end up with roll instead of sticker). OK – I got that part. But then he vertically stretched the sticker! I lost my breath – I was sure the sticker is ruined. Well – it wasn’t.  I was stunned how easy it was to apply the heated and stretched sticker. Sides were no longer problem as now I could rube the wrinkles out. And since the sticker was just slightly stretched, the design deformation was slight one. Bigger problem/deformation occurred on the thumb, where sticker had to be stretched vertically and horizontally.  But cracked design is not problematic one, so the end result was still very pretty.

My last problem was filling of the excess sticker. I had poor results with Essence file and their instructions. So my boyfriend again came to the rescue and suggested I file up to down (only in one direction of course) with crystal file and it looked better but still not perfect.

The other thing I didn’t consider was the fact that stickers will shrink a little bit after the cool down, so you have to wait with filing a bit.

I managed to combined everything I learned when I reached my thumb (let’s call others practice fingers). Next time I’ll just ask my boyfriend to put them on – he does it better and faster. :D

I think I listed most of the problems that can occur if you heat the sticker, but as always when you don’t follow original instructions – use this method at your own risk.

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Unexpected! swarch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Unexpected!
Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Unexpected! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Unexpected!

MAESTRA tried out Just Say Yes! stickers.

It took me 25 minutes to apply stickers on all 10 nails. I had problems finding right shape for me, but I managed in the end. I centered the sticker with tweezers and then rubed the sticker to the side with orange woodstick. I filed with medium Alessandro file and finished with cristaly file. With top coat.

Even with top coat, the tips started to lift up the same day I applied the stickers.

Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Just Say Yes! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Just Say Yes!
Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Just Say Yes! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Just Say Yes!

MAMY tested the Drama Queen! stickers.

Essence Nail fashion Sticker: this is the first time I used nail stickers and I can say it wasn’t easy. I hope you’ll learn from my mistakes and follow the instructions.

Especially no.3: “place rounded edges against cuticle line, but still leave a little space between cuticles ans nail fashion sticker”.

And no.5:  watch how are you holding file while removing excess sticker. If you don’t – white tips will be visible. Enclosed picture is very helpful.

I’m not sure I like the stickers. Images are nice but application calls for time and precision. Those with smaller nails could encounter more problems than I did.

Top coat is recommended but I didn’t use one. Maybe that is one of the reasons the sticker started to come off at the tips.

I recommend you try them out – if for nothing else than just to satisfy your curiosity.

Finished manicure looks really nice but all the mistakes I made are very visible.
Essence - Nail Fashion Sticker: Drama Queen! swatch
Essence – Nail Fashion Sticker: Drama Queen!
  • If we draw the line under all the Parokeet reviews we can conclude that we  find the sticker appropriate for the occasions when we need special/stand out manicures like party’s and masquerades … when we need the effect and we’re not looking for staying power.
  • Other group that could benefit from the stickers are little girls and pregnant ladies that are not suppose to be in contact with harmful chemicals.
  • You can encounter difficulties with sizing the stickers (they’re to wide for Maestra and to narrow for me), but they did include 4 extra stickers so you’ll probably manage to find 10 of them in your size.
  • Staying power seems to be poor mostly due to the filing of the excess sticker.  Maybe I should add that the heated stickers lasted longer and were as easy to remove as non heated ones.

The one thing that I miss the most is the gold foil look. I hope they’ll add that one in one of the future limited editions or products changes.

How do you like the stickers? Did any of the shown designs impress you?

This post is also available in SLOVENŠČINA.

25 thoughts on “Essence: new products – nail stickers (fall 2010)”

  1. :nails: I love the look of your nails in these stickers.  They are pretty amazing looking.  A pain to use but I do like the.  I don’t own them and don’t know if I’d buy them.

    Reply
  2. Sliši se komplicirano ampak bom vrjetno vseeno probala zadevščino, sploh zaradi kovinskih vzorčkov :wub:  Glede da so tako poceni se splača experimentirat :yes:  Z kakšnimi dražjimi bi me že bilo strah da bom kaj zaj**** in pol bi šlo vse k vragu :blush:  Pri teh pa mi bo vseeno, pa če si jih moja tamala na koncu po sebi zalepi :silly:
    .-= Lyra´s last post … Ciate- Cookies &amp Cream Konad =-.

    Reply
  3. Zagotovo se sliši zanimivo, ampak zaenkrat berem samo slabe ocene  :undecided:
    Ampak je za poskusit, sploh nekateri vzorčki so super simpatični :thumb:

    Reply
  4. Vzorčki so mi zelo všeč vendar pa se mi zdi metoda preveč komplicirana da bi se je lotila. Bi pa z veseljem držala prste če bi to naredil kdo namesto mene :whistle: (samo še žrtev moram najti :idea: )

    Reply
  5. Uh, me sploh ne potegnejo. Niti mi niso všeč vzorčki, niti sistem. Očitno sem tu bolj old-fashioned. Tole z lepljenjem in piljenjem pa sploh odpade, imam preveč “v roki” navadne lake za nohte. :) Slaba obstojnost je še en velik minus zame, vsaj tri dni bi morale zdržat, da bi jih sploh vzela v poštev. Ampak hvala za super reportažo in oceno!

    Reply
    • Meni so vsi kovinski vzorčki zelo všeč, ostali pa bolj tko. Že planiram “zaporniško” manikuro s So Hot! nalepkami za eno izmed rojstno-dnevnih zabav. :biggrin:

      Obstojnost bi res lahko bila boljša. Me zanima kakšen bi bil rezultat, če bi na konicah uporabila lepilo. :think:

      Reply
  6. Uh, tudi jaz se bojim, da bi bile nalepke preozke. Še posebej na palcih. Bom pa zagotovo poskusila! Catwalk mi je všeč :3
    .-= godisarockstar.´s last post … Catrice – Back to black =-.

    Reply
  7. Hihihihi, mene se je pa najbolj simpatičen zdel Gejbin dragi! :biggrin:
    Kaj bi me brez tako fajn moških. :hmm: :silly:
    Nalepke pa super izgledajo, čeprav se mi postopek zdi zeeelooo zakompliciran. Ampak verjetno bom tudi sama poskusila, da potešim radovednost. :angel:

    Reply
  8. Za večino vzorčkov se da s konadom naresti dober približek, za foil look se mi zdijo še najbolj podobne folije, ki so pa meni totalna španska vas. :biggrin:

    Reply
  9. ideja se mi zdi super.. tudi vzorčki so mi ful všeč.. ampak sama ne vem če se bom ukvarjala s tem.. v tem času si že pokonadiram :)  je pa fajn za tiste punce, ki nimajo ”roke” za lakiranje in risanje vzorčkov :)

    Reply
    • Jaz lahko rečem, da se mi zdijo foil finiši vredni truda za en večer, ker je učinek res uau. Še moj dragi je opazil kako lepo se svetijo tudi pri zelo slabi svetlobi … pa je navajen vsega hudega pri meni. :biggrin:

      Reply

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