Everyone and their mother has heard of these by now - if you haven't you must have been living under a rock! Made by a company called Broadway Nails, these are a new type of manicure that involves no glue, no waiting around and is very easy to apply. I received these in the Leeds Blogger Meet Up goody bag, and the original plan was to wait until I had some time off work. Now that I'm not doing as much "manual labour" should we call it I decided to pop them on on a Sunday night ready for a full week of work.

I was given the style "Rock It", which is a natural, French manicure style. This particular style looks very nice; fairly opaque and not overly fake. There are 24 nails in the bottle that come in 12 sizes; this made it easy to find a good fit for each nail. However, the nails were quite a lot shorter than I was expecting. I had cut my nails anyway, but if you are trimming yours in preparation then you need to cut them really quite short - make sure that only a sliver of the white part of the nail remains.


Now for the application, and there is one thing that I feel that I must mention with these. I had taken off my last nail polish the night before - therefore my nails were completely clean and ready for these nails. If you take off your nail polish and then put these on straight away I have a feeling that they might not last as long - a little tip for you there! Applying the nails is very easy; simply peel off the clear backing (each nail has a little tab for you to grab on to), then stick down onto the nail, making sure to rub quite hard across each nail to make sure it is fully stuck down.


Now, the question on everyone's lips when it comes to these nails is how long they last for. The packaging claims that they last up to a week... up to, and I think that's the bit everyone forgets. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I applied these on a Sunday night and they lasted until the next Saturday. In truth only one of the nails had started to lift off (my left middle finger), and the rest were completely intact - I only took them all off because I had no glue to stick that one back down. If I had, I guess that I might have got another couple of days out of these, which I'm really very impressed with!


The only thing I didn't like about these was a little tab that was visible on the underside of the nail, as shown in the image above. I tried filing them down, but it didn't really work as it was underneath, and not sticking out as such. However, when the time came to take them off I noticed that they had filed themselves down of their own accord, just by me using my hands as usual every day - so in the end it wasn't really an issue. These were very shiny when I applied them and the shine hadn't dulled at all after a few days, nor were there any scratches, marks or other blemishes to speak off. They were also easy to remove - they left a few glue marks on my nails, but these came off with some soap and hot water.

Final verdict: A surprisingly good manicure that can put up with any usual wear and tear, provided you apply them properly. Seeing as they come in so many shades and designs (seriously, you name it, they probably sell it), I may have to buy some more in the future!

imPRESS Press-On Manicure* can be bought from Boots and Superdrug; this style and some others are £8.99 but a selection of styles can be found for £7.99.