Teal Foil (Picture Heavy)

So I just got the nail foils I ordered from dollarnailart.com and I love the ones that I got! The website has a $25 minimum (but I heard through the grapevine that if you have a printed order form you can get however many you want) and each foil is $1 (hence the name). They also give you a free bottle of nail glue for every 6 foils you get. And each foil strip is 5 feet long, which means that you get a freaking lot of foil.

Now I did my research before I invested, and there are a few major problems with nail foils.

1. The wear is terrible, and they only last for a very short amount of time
2. It's really difficult to find a top coat that works, because any top coat that you use will crease and crinkle the foil, which makes it lose it's finish :(

Even with these issues in mind, I decided I may as well go for it, they are so stunning I can deal.

So here's the first foil I decided to play with :

This picture was taken after I put topcoat on, and you can tell after you see what it looked like before.

Okay now check this out, I did the foil over Sally Hansen The Real Teal, which you can see here. The base color is really important for later, when the foil starts to wear off.

Are you freaking kidding me? Look at that mirror-like finish! That is insanity.

 Keep reading! You seriously won't regret this one:

Here is a picture of my thumb and first finger with foil against the polished three other fingers:

This is really messy, I didn't do any clean up yet, but you can seriously see my reflection. That is awesome.

Okay now this is where we get a little picture heavy. Here is what the foil looks like before any topcoat, check out the absolutely nuts metallic finish.

Are you joking? That is AWESOME.

I read on My Lucid Bubble that you can use a water-based varnish like Mod Podge to seal the foil so it doesn't crinkle, so I tried that and it worked really really well (after I tried to experiment with a few top coats that seriously didn't work).

She also says that you can put top coat on top of the varnish without any poor results, so I tried that and I really shouldn't have. It must have soaked through the varnish or something and took away my mirror-shine :(

 Don't get me wrong, it was still really shiny (a lot shinier than you'll ever get from a polish) but my beautiful metallic shine was gone and I was sad. Next time I'm planning on seeing how they fare with just the Mod Podge on top.

And just because, here's what they look like two days after application:

Some of the foil has worn off, leaving the base color behind, which I actually kind of like. It looks kind of vintage-y, which is fun.

Overall, the foils are totally worth it, but there is a hefty learning curve in the application, and I hope to try it again with just the varnish to see how the wear goes.

 Yay foil!

Song of the Day: Is This Love by Corinne Bailey Rae