Sweet as Cherry Pie

EDIT: I have a coupon code for Inspired Nails that I completely forgot to post here the first time around. It's NEVERUNPOLISHED15, and it's good for 15% your entire order, excluding shipping. I'd definitely encourage you to take advantage! The code expires October 31, 2011.

For those of you who haven't heard of them, Inspired Nails is a fairly new company that sells full-nail water decals. They have a lot of interesting designs, so when they contacted me to see if I'd be interested in doing a review, I was thrilled. I was asked to choose two designs that I wanted to try, and I picked Mini Cherries on White and Van Gogh Starry Night. I figured it would be a good idea to pick one "unusual" design (Van Gogh) and one more normal one (cherries), though one that wouldn't be easy to recreate - I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd have an easy time making cherries that were that small without making it look like my nails have chicken pox. I decided to use the cherry ones first, because I knew that if I made any mistakes, the cherries would be a more forgiving design to make mistakes . . . also, I would be less mad at myself if I screwed one up, because there is absolutely no way I can paint Starry Night on my nails. So, here they are:

 outdoors, cloudy

outdoors, cloudy

I'm sorry for my messy hands...I've been a bit afraid of moisturizing my cuticles when I'm working at my new computer because I don't want to get it all greasy, but unfortunately that means that my hands look a bit gross. Soon I'll have everything set up and I'll be able to moisturize safely, I promise! ;) I wore the decals yesterday and the day before, and this is what they looked like mid-afternoon yesterday. As you can see, there's some tipwear on two of my fingers, and later that day the index nail chipped even more, so I sadly had to take them off. However, I honestly think that might partly be due to my base coat - I decided to give Nailtek Intensive Therapy II another try after it made my polish peel off a few months ago, so I'm suspicious that that might have been the problem. I'll be trying the Van Gogh decals over my normal base coat to be sure.

Aren't they cute, though? And to me, they're easier to apply than strips made of actual polish, because you can move them around before applying top coat, which makes them stick for good. I followed the instructions that came with the decals, and I had no problems. Unfortunately, my trusty Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - which has never bubbled on me before, even when I used thick coats - chose this manicure to bubble over. :/ I'm not sure, but I suppose it might be because I'm getting toward the end of the bottle and I've had to thin it several times. Or maybe I just slapped it on a little too thickly. 

Overall, I really enjoyed having these on, and I would've been happy to wear them longer. Also, I can't wait to try my Starry Night decals, and I think I might have to buy some for myself . . . except, I have no money. Boo. I suppose I can plan for the future - Burberry plaid? Peacock feathers? Alice in Wonderland? American Gothic? Blue lava? Blue stained glass? Okay, I'll stop - but seriously, there are so many great designs to pick from, so go check them out!