Friday 8 August 2014

Jessica Custom Nail Colour Summer Loving!

I am, without doubt, a massive fan of budget nail polishes. I generally refuse to spend more than €6 or €7 for a bottle, with Catrice and Essence being some of my favourite budget brands. But Jessica has convinced me to splurge a little on myself with gorgeous summer colours that are only a few euros more than I'd normally be willing to spend.


Jessica is the baby of Jessica Vartoughian. And Jessica is a very hands on lady where her baby is concerned: all of the treatment range products are designed by the lady herself.

I was skeptical about the Jessica Fusion Treatment (€19.95), as I had already declared OPI Nail Envy my holy grail base coat. But the thing with OPI is that is is incredibly expensive (€21.95 from Boots stores) and you had to keep re-applying it every 2 or 3 days, which meant that you'd go through this at a rate of knots. Not good for those of us with splitty weak nails on tight budges. And even after 4 bottles of the stuff, my nails were still splitting. Still.

But Fusion has been WAY better for my peeling nails. "The treatment fuses nails together through rubberised resin, strengthening and conditioning nails for better growth". I have been using Fusion for a little over 2 months now and I can see a massive improvement in the condition of my nails, the peeling has stopped completely, and my nails are much tougher and are growing like bamboo. They haven't been this long in months. I will need more of this, but (frustratingly) I can't find it on the website, so I'll phone one of the stockists listed at the bottom of this post and make sure they have one for me and pop in to collect it when I'm next in Dublin.


On a Sunday night I paint 2 thin layers of it on my nails (it is quite runny), ensuring to cover the tip and paint a little way under the nail to make sure I get the best possible outcome. It dries very quickly, so I don't have to wave my hands about like a mad thing and then I top it with two thin coats of whatever colour takes my fancy. And the manicure lasts all week with no tip wear and no chips. More-over: no peeling. And I'm not even an 8th of the way through the bottle.

Anyways, then a few weeks ago the wonderful folks at Jessica sent me a few of the new colours for Summer 2014 (RRP 12.95 per bottle) and I fell in love! They also sent me the Nourish Cuticle Oil, Nail File and the Brilliance Top Coat so I could get a good feel for the whole range, and by golly they are all pretty awesome.

The two colours they sent me are part of a 6 strong edit of beautiful colours that is called "In Bloom" inspired by a blossoming rose garden. And so far the pastel blue of Jessica Custom Nail Colour 885 Enchanting is my favourite.


It is quite a thick polish, but if you work carefully you can get a thin coat of colour on to the nail (remember to pain the free edge) and it dries fairly quickly (within 2 or 3 minutes) and then add a 2nd thin coat for full opacity and colour depth. Remember to paint the free edge of the nail as this helps to seal the nail edge to prevent the nail from splitting and prolong the colour. Finish with a quick coat of the Jessica Brilliance top coat (€16.30) and you are done with your manicure for a solid 7 days before tip wear makes an appearance. The above picture was taken on Day 8 of the manicure and you can just see a bit of tip wear on my index finger and middle finger. But nothing in your face.

The other colour is a gorgeous creamy lilac called 888 Awakening. I have been wearing it on my toes, sans top coat and it has lasted surprisingly well, even after multiple trips to the beach (our beach is more mudflat than proper beach sand). I might only update the colour on my toes every 2nd or 3rd week and this still looks pretty good when it comes time to take it off.


Jessica Nourish Cuticle Formula comes in a little acrylic pot and resides next to my bed. It smells lovely. I use it in the mornings when I wake up:
- I put it on then massage it in while drinking my coffee and browsing instagram
and at night:
- I put a good amount onto each nail bed and massage it in while reading my book (I am engrossed in the Game Of Thrones books currently) and then pop on my Cotton Moisture Gloves for as long as I can stand them before dying of the heat.


And I think its making a difference in the condition of my cuticles, which I've never really paid much attention to before. Rather irritatingly I don't have a price for Nourish. Pffft.

Something I wouldn't mind getting my hands on is the Jessica Awesome Neons Kit (€27.50). You get 3 mini polishes (7.4ml) as well as a mini Reward, which is a treatment base coat, and a mini Brilliance Top Coat. Jessica say these are proper fluro colours and I would love to give my daughter and I lovely summery nails, as I know these are the kinds of colours she would love! But first... I'd have to get the Jessica Nibble No More for her because she is a villain for biting her nails.

image from www.frenchbeautyroom.com (before the site went down)

I haven't used the Jessica Custom Nail Colours without using the Fusion base coat so I don't know how the colour would fare on other base coats. I previously did a review of a Jessica Custom Nail Polish for the lovely ladies at Closer2Fabulous, and while the colour Sensuous didn't float my boat at the time, I'm looking forward to the cooler months so I can give it a go with Fusion and see if it goes a little better.

I do know that Fusion performs really well under ANY polish. Which makes this pretty darn special.


You can get Jessica Custom Nail Colours and treatments from the stockists listed below and online from The French Beauty Room . The site is up and running again, I checked!

Irish Stockists:
Dublin : Ebano, Ballinteer, Dublin • Ebano, Nutgrove Shopping Centre, Dublin • Howth Haven, Howth, Dublin • Invogue, Blackrock, Dublin •John Adams, Cleary’s, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 • Marker Hotel, Grand Canal Parade, Dublin 2 • Midas Touch, Newlands Retail Centre, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 • Refresh, Leapardstown, Foxrock, Dublin • Refresh, Clontarf, Dublin 3 •Refresh, Sandymount, Dublin 4 • Kildare : Carton House, Maynooth, Co. Kildare • Laois : The Spa, The Heritage Killenard, Portarlington, Co. Laois • Meath : A N U, Clonee, Co. Meath • Wexford : Kelly’s Spa Resort, Rosslare, Co. Wexford



 Products provided for review, Opinions my own

1 comment:

  1. I love budget nail polishes and been using Paese polishes recently, they are amazing. I had the same issue with OPI Nail Envy, didn't see any difference but this version sounds way better, will have to check that out x

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...