The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
What’s all the fuss about …
Nails Inc’s spray-on nail polish?
There are so many mini wow moments during the application of Nails Inc’s new spray polish (£10), you may be tempted to tr y it for sheer novelty. It is, af ter all, ‘a world frst’ (British, too). But is it worth buying for yourself as well as for all those teenagers’ Christmas stockings?
The concept is genuinely startling. It comes in a can and, yes, you really spray it on. First though, you apply a base coat in the conventional manner, with a brush. Any base will do. I tried it with Nails Inc’s own, which doubles as a sealing top coat (£8).
Next, shake the can and spray on to your nails, after which your hands will look as though you let a three-year-old Auerbach loose on them. Keep calm. Wait a minute or so for the colour not to feel tacky, then fnish with top coat.
Now comes the extraordinary part. Once they’re dr y, wash off the excess colour that landed on your fngers with water and, if necessary, some soap. There should be no need for scrubbing. Et voilà, good-to-go nails. Or maybe not. The frst few times, I wasn’t convinced. It’s disconcertingly messy and the texture on my initial attempts was uneven, veering from ‘interesting’ to sandpaper. The results chipped within a day and I got a build-up of colour around my cuticles.
However, I’ve been practising and what I’ve learnt is… 1. It’s important to maintain an even pressure on the nozzle. 2. Hold the can about six inches from your nails. 3. Go easy on the base coat around the cuticles. 4. Waiting for the top coat to dr y requires patience.
Those provisos apart, if you follow instructions to the letter you get something that may not match a professional manicure, but looks sleeker than my normal attempts. And it’s way faster.
At the moment, it only comes in two colours: a bilious pink, and a rather good metallic silver that could become a new neutral, especially at this time of year. Once it sorts out the longevity and introduces a dark red and a nude, I think Nails Inc has got itself something revolutionar y.