Manicure: Bourjois nail art kit and China Glaze Desert Sun

Coming home from the supermarket with a generous supply of roasted pistachio seeds - shells intact - meant that my nails were vulnerable to breakage, and the dreaded event occurred when I was removing my previous manicure. I am not a fan of my nubs; my fingers are too short and stubby to pull them off. So I decided to do something simple for this week's GOT Polish challenge, where the theme is "a silver accent".
Sometime last year, I had bought the Bourjois Easy Nail Art Kit and forgotten all about it. This was a Spring-Summer 2013 launch. I picked the swallows from the kit because summer is the right time for swallows. More on the kit below.

Here is a summer manicure using the Bourjois Easy Nail Art Kit and China Glaze Desert Sun nail polish.

Before I talk about the Bourjois nail art kit, let me show you the beautiful dusty or medium-burnt orange polish that goes by the handle Desert Sun. This is from China Glaze's On Safari Collection and needs at least two coats for opacity. I am actually wishing mainstream polish brands would step out of textures, flakies, shatters and glitters and go back to making amazing cremes and crellies in colours like this.

Formula is more crelly than creme and goes on smoothly, no problems. The photos are with flash (above) and in natural light (below). Drying time is actually better than most cremes. Although this was part of a fall collection, I think this does not look out of place in the summer.

Now for the Bourjois nail art kit. It consists of a rather small pouch and claims to have 122 pieces inside. I expected oodles of stickers, but was sadly mistaken, as you will see in a bit.

Apart from instructions and suggestions, the packet tells you this is what is inside:

And then, you open the sealed kit to find the sum total of all the contents is actually this:
One silver striping tape roll, one sheet of stickers - four of those missing swallows are on my manicure - and one sheet of stencils.

The stencils are beyond "disgustoid". They slip, slide and simply do not stay on enough to get the polish in. I have tried them and found that they are of no use at all. And the designs are nothing fancy - a stripe, a triangle and a star that is too small to even show up. The only products I can salvage from this kit are the stickers and the striping tape. Even so, the swallows are the only cute stickers there.

Now, if you go to eBay (.co.uk), you will find a sheet of 25-100 (depending on the seller) nail art stickers for a mere £1 each including free registered postage from China. You will also find 12 rolls of striping tape in different colours for the same £1 including postage. I know, because that is where I buy both stickers and tape, although I also get some stickers and tape in a local beauty store for about £1 each. So basically, I paid £6 for a sheet of stickers, ONE striping tape and some dud "stencils". Not nice at all. I could have picked up oodles of stickers and decals off eBay UK for six quid.

I used the swallows for all nails but the accent nail, where I used silver striping tape to fulfil the requirements of the GOT Polish Challenge. Nothing very fancy or special.
This is my submission to the GOT Polish Challenge. Can't wait for next week's theme!

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