Growing stronger, healthy nails

For most of my life I struggled with short, weak and flaking nails until a few years ago I purchased my first bottle of OPI's Nail Envy. Along with a glass nail file and a little bit of attention I now have strong and healthy nails that need little to no looking after.

Nails of the Day #1 | MUA Bright Coral

Another one of Mua's £1 nail polishes, Bright Coral is a lovely vivid coral shade that looks peachy pink in some light, orangey red in others. It reminds me of Essie's Cute as a Button but vamped up.

It applied easily but a little sheer, though it was opaque across most of the nail in two coats, I found that when it I was getting sheer patches at the bottom of my nails where the brush had pulled the polish. This is probably more to do with my application than the polish and was easily solved by carefully painting a third coat after I'd let the layers dry for a little longer than usual.

With a topcoat (Rimmel's Pro Super Wear) it lasted around 4/5 days before I had any big chips and wanted to take it off.

I think it's a pretty decent polish, such a beautiful colour and a bargain for £1.

You can buy Mua Polishes from Superdrug stores or online at Superdrug.com or Mua online.

Mua Pistachio Ice Cream

Although I love using Mua's eyeshadow palettes and have a handful of other products from the brand that I really like, I'd never paid much attention to their nail varnish. Assuming that for £1 the formula would be poor and not worth the bother.

But the brand recently repackaged their polishes and they looked so cute I couldn't resist picking up a few. I went for Pistachio Ice Cream as I wanted to test it out as a dupe for Essie's Mint Candy Apple.

As you can see from the swatch above, they are really close shades, I would say that Pistachio Ice Cream is a touch lighter and greener and I actually prefer it to the cult Essie shade.

As for the formula, the application is hard to describe, while it was easy and only took two coats to build an opaque colour, it also felt somehow dry. But the overall finish is find and really no different to an Essie polish despite being 1/8th of the price. I wore Pistachio Ice Cream underneath L'oreal's Confetti for about four or five days before it started chipping so the wear time really impressed me.

The only negative I have about this polish is that the brush is so tiny, but I guess that it matches the sweet bottle.

Overall this is a great dupe for Essie's Mint Candy Apple if you haven't got it yet, but also a really nice polish, and at just £1, I know I'll be picking up more colours.

Mua Polishes are available in Superdrug stores, from the Superdrug website and from Mua online.