Essence Summer Nailart Challenge

Disclosure: Products are PR samples.

 The kit I recieved contained: a nail file, 3 polishes, a double ended nail art dotting tool and nail art stickers. The packaging on the nail art accessories are so cute and for anyone looking forward to Christmas or has a friend with a birthday coming up these could easily be turned into a cute little bundle gift. Essence are available from Wilkos in the UK and are a very affordable brand with a really broad range of colours and finishes. I was super excited to be contacted to take part in this challenge set by Essence – I was really impressed with the products I got to try last time and what is better than a nail art challenge?
I really wanted to try out everything so kept the design simple to keep the manicure from looking cluttered (as much as I wanted to stick the stickers all over my fingers, toes and face). The stickers are SO easy to work with – you just peel them off and stick them down onto the base colour of your choice, a coat of topcoat evens the surface and seals them in for maximum wear time.

I used the larger end of the dotting tool to add these diagonal lines of polka dots – for the best effect make sure to have some dots go off the edges of the nail. The beautiful minty green here is called Prince Charming (RRP £1.60)  from the gel line (not a gel polish, just super shiney finish) and has a lovely green shimmer (you can see on the dots if you click on the picture and make it bigger). This adds a lovely extra dimension to this colour and is unique to my collection! I used two coats of Prince Charming on my pointer and pinky which gave perfect opacity and the brush on this polish is just a joy to work with – flat and semi-wide.

Ugh this holo – my camera can’t even handle it! This comes from the holographics/effects line and has a short flat brush which applies the perfect amount of SPARKLE across the nail in one coat. This is 22 I ❤ Magic – I can’t find it on the Wilko’s website but the other polishes in this range are £2. The particles are super fine and absolutely smooth with a thin layer of topcoat. This dusting of holo is so transformative and going to look great over any polish, one of those versatile staples. I thought it complimented the holographic flower sticker I chose and really tied those elements together.

My favourite polish however is called 11 Bee My Honey and comes from the 6in1 Nail Candies line:

Sweet candies! The nail candies are sure to make all your nail dreams come true. They won’t just make your nails shine in the most gorgeous pastel shades, but also offer six pampering benefits. The nail polishes harden, protect your nails from daily demands, even out irregularities, have a fruity scent, dry fast and give your nails a high-shine finish.

The formula on this polish did need 3 coats for full opacity but this is probably not surprising as it is a pale colour but it is SO PRETTY. There is even this hidden sparkle to it! The scent is not overpowering and is kind of sweet and clean which I like (keep sniffing my fingers, which probably looks a little bit weird but shh don’t you judge me!). This is a perfect year round polish – especially if you like doing nail art. It makes a clean and fresh change from white and compliments the fall/autumn season trend for earthy tones. I am sure I’ll still be reaching for this polish when summer rolls around again next year (if the bottle lasts that long). Would you believe this is only 50p on the Wilkos website at the moment?!

Really impressed with everything here – so versatile and diverse. This manicure makes me feel ready to enjoy the last few days of summer whether that will be hiding indoors from the rain or outside skipping in the sunshine.