Estée Lalonde & The Body Shop - Nail Art Kit Review
Estée Lalonde, or essiebutton as I first knew her as, was one of the very first bloggers I followed. I love her infectious enthusiasm and sense of humour. It's been great to watch her progress in the blogosphere and with her recent rebranding and elevation to what seems to be the upper echelons of the blogging world, I was so pleased to hear that she was going to collaborate with one of her favourite brands (and ex-employer) The Body Shop to bring out a nail art kit.
As a fan of both Estée and The Body Shop (and nail polish obvs), I knew I'd be all over this collab so I've been keeping an eye out in my local Body Shop branch and I finally got my mitts on it during one of their special discount events. I also got A LOT more stuff but maybe you'll see that another time. Anywho, I've taken the liberty to try out the nail art kit and show you what you can do with it (beyond the two nail art tutorials included with the set) so pop under the cut to see what it's all about :-)
For £15, you get three of The Body Shop's Colour Crush polishes as well as what they call a "nail art pen" BUT it is really just a double-ended dotter. That's the main problem I have with the set, and that's the fact the words "nail art pen" feature prominently on the packaging. People might expect the likes of Wah!Nails style striper/pens or Barry M marker-style nail art pens, not dotters. Even changing it to "nail art tool" would make all the difference, but this is the opinion of someone who is kinda a nail art snob but that's my main gripe with the set, otherwise, it's a pretty solid nail polish set.
The individual polishes are £5 each so basically you are getting the pen/dotter/tool free, which you can't really complain about. I have a few of the Colour Crush polishes already and I like the quality and finish of them so I hope these shades will live up to my expectations. What I really like about these polishes is the brush and top combo. The brush isn't anything particularly special, neither is the top really but together, they just seem to make controlling the brush really easy. The specific shades included in the set are Got the Blues, Gorgeous Grey and Deeply in Love. If anyone's a fan of Estée, you can tell that these are very "Estée" colours and so they suit the kit perfectly.
Within the nail art kit, you get a card with two different tutorials. One is for a dotticure and the other is for a half moon design. They pitch the smaller dotter to be a line tool which I don't really get but maybe I'm just unskilled! Anyway, you can actually watch Estée doing the designs here and here if you'd like to see.
I of course went off-book and did my own thing. Challenging myself to use just a dotter meant I pulled out the old faithful, which is of course leopard print. For my base colour, I used three coats of Got the Blues and waited for it to dry. It had a thinner formula and although two coats might have been enough, I went for a third just to be safe.
Once dry, I used the big dotter to create irregular shaped dots on the bottom half of my nail using Gorgeous Grey. Once I finished this, I used the small dotter to outline the grey shapes with Deeply in Love, to create that iconic leopard print.
To fill the rest of the nail, I continued using the small dotter and Deeply in Love to create smaller irregular shaped dots to sort of gradiate the leopard print. Once I finished this step, I left my nails to dry for a few minutes then sealed them with top coat. It's a pretty simple design but it has great graphic impact.
So what do I think of the nail art kit? I think it's a great gift for any polish lover, someone who's a fan of The Body Shop, a fan of Estée, or like me who is all three! Like I said before, three polishes from The Body Shop are £15 themselves so if you like these shades, you may as well get them in the kit and get the dotter for free. The dotter itself is pretty standard although I do really like the small dotter side because its really tiny. What would have been great would have been a brush/dotter combo but this probably would have pushed the price up a bit a fair bit.
You can get the Estée Lalonde & The Body Shop Nail Art Kit from The Body Shop website as well as select Body Shop stores (ask their twitter if its in a shop near you!) and it is priced at £15. If you purchase the kit and do your nails using it, be sure to post them on Instagram and Twitter with the hastag #nailit4charity, The Body Shop will donate to Wateraid for every nail art post featuring the hashtag until Christmas so get creative!
What do you think of the kit? Let me know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe, follow and like all my social media sites on the side, until next time :-)
As a fan of both Estée and The Body Shop (and nail polish obvs), I knew I'd be all over this collab so I've been keeping an eye out in my local Body Shop branch and I finally got my mitts on it during one of their special discount events. I also got A LOT more stuff but maybe you'll see that another time. Anywho, I've taken the liberty to try out the nail art kit and show you what you can do with it (beyond the two nail art tutorials included with the set) so pop under the cut to see what it's all about :-)
For £15, you get three of The Body Shop's Colour Crush polishes as well as what they call a "nail art pen" BUT it is really just a double-ended dotter. That's the main problem I have with the set, and that's the fact the words "nail art pen" feature prominently on the packaging. People might expect the likes of Wah!Nails style striper/pens or Barry M marker-style nail art pens, not dotters. Even changing it to "nail art tool" would make all the difference, but this is the opinion of someone who is kinda a nail art snob but that's my main gripe with the set, otherwise, it's a pretty solid nail polish set.
The individual polishes are £5 each so basically you are getting the pen/dotter/tool free, which you can't really complain about. I have a few of the Colour Crush polishes already and I like the quality and finish of them so I hope these shades will live up to my expectations. What I really like about these polishes is the brush and top combo. The brush isn't anything particularly special, neither is the top really but together, they just seem to make controlling the brush really easy. The specific shades included in the set are Got the Blues, Gorgeous Grey and Deeply in Love. If anyone's a fan of Estée, you can tell that these are very "Estée" colours and so they suit the kit perfectly.
Within the nail art kit, you get a card with two different tutorials. One is for a dotticure and the other is for a half moon design. They pitch the smaller dotter to be a line tool which I don't really get but maybe I'm just unskilled! Anyway, you can actually watch Estée doing the designs here and here if you'd like to see.
I of course went off-book and did my own thing. Challenging myself to use just a dotter meant I pulled out the old faithful, which is of course leopard print. For my base colour, I used three coats of Got the Blues and waited for it to dry. It had a thinner formula and although two coats might have been enough, I went for a third just to be safe.
Once dry, I used the big dotter to create irregular shaped dots on the bottom half of my nail using Gorgeous Grey. Once I finished this, I used the small dotter to outline the grey shapes with Deeply in Love, to create that iconic leopard print.
To fill the rest of the nail, I continued using the small dotter and Deeply in Love to create smaller irregular shaped dots to sort of gradiate the leopard print. Once I finished this step, I left my nails to dry for a few minutes then sealed them with top coat. It's a pretty simple design but it has great graphic impact.
You can get the Estée Lalonde & The Body Shop Nail Art Kit from The Body Shop website as well as select Body Shop stores (ask their twitter if its in a shop near you!) and it is priced at £15. If you purchase the kit and do your nails using it, be sure to post them on Instagram and Twitter with the hastag #nailit4charity, The Body Shop will donate to Wateraid for every nail art post featuring the hashtag until Christmas so get creative!
What do you think of the kit? Let me know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe, follow and like all my social media sites on the side, until next time :-)
You're nails look fab and so professional!! Love those colours so much.
ReplyDeleteEmma | www.unf4bul0us.com xx
That's very kind of you! Thank you for the comment 😊
DeleteYour nails looking amazing! The colours go perfectly together. Wish I was this good at nails!! x
ReplyDeletehttp://zoeisclueless.com
The colours work really well together so the set is great in that respect. It just takes practice but this manicure is pretty easy to do, you just need a dotter and a tiny bit of patience :)
Delete