A week of Models Own polish

I was trying so hard to be good this month, and was approaching the til in Boots with little more than some wax strips and a box of hayfever tablets in my basket, when alas, out of the corner of my eye, I aspied the Models Own stand, and its array of delectable, brightly coloured nail polishes at a tempting £5 each (plus a free buffer with each polish!).

I purchased three colours:

1. Fuzzy Peach - As I don't have any oranges / peaches in my collection and it looked like it would go great with my tan.
2. Pure Purple - As I don't have any purple creams in my collection - just the gooptastic and sparkly Sexy Divide by Essie.
3. Blue Lagoon - As I don't have any blues in my collection. Well maybe a navy, and some blue-greens. But no blue blues.

I liked all of the colours, though with the possible exception of Pure Purple, probably not enough to repurchase in the unlikely event that I finish any of them. The consistency and application was.... okay. Better than Essie, worse than OPI (again Pure Purple applied the easiest). A bit thick and gloopy but definitely workable (two coats definitely needed). However the thing that put me off a bit was the smell - utterly overpowering chemical smell, more like nail polish remover than polish. I know that nail polish by its nature is smelly, chemically and generally quite nasty, but this was another level. It made me wonder whether this would cause more damage to my nails than a less offensive smelling polish.

The staying power isn't great either, all three chipped after a day and I conducted a highly scientific experiment using a different top coat with Pure Purple to determine whether it was the polish or top coat to blame - the former it seems.

Fuzzy  Peach
This applied a bit brighter and more neon than it looked it the pot (an than it looks in these pics). Despite feeling a little bit young and 80s, I liked wearing this for a couple of days as a way of adding a bit of brightness to neutral outfits.

I also liked the clash of Fuzzy Peach with the coral shade Brook St by Nails Inc on my toes - I blogged about that shade here.

Pure Purple
My favourite shade of the bunch. It's a lovely mid-purple cream, nothing fancy but just a very nice, modern looking shade. Generally I'm not a fan of purple nails but I think I'll wear this a lot come autumn / winter.

Blue Lagoon
The blue was just a little too unsophisticated to me. If it was a cream, it might have looked quite chic but the shimmer edged it dangerously into 'mutton' territory. My hairdresser did say he liked it but he was wearing white shorts, pink socks and brogues at the time so I may have to discard his judgement! It did look nice with my tan though and again a great complimentary colour for a coral pedicure. In fact I think this might work better for me as a pedicure colour.

Overall verdict
Although not blown away by the consistency (and smell), this range presents an affordable way to experiment with colour. I'll probably buy a couple more shades as they do have an interesting and fairly extensive range of colours and my experience with Pure Purple was encouraging - I like the look of Peach Sherbert, Beth's Blue (I am yet to add a lilac to my collection, may have missed the boat on that one a bit!) and particularly Utopia, which looks like a lovely light gray-lilac. You can view all of the shades here.

Models Own is available from Boots stores and online at ASOS and www.modelsownit.com. The free five sided buffers that come with the polishes in Boots are also pretty good - and a pretty good bargain considering you'd pay around £3 for a buffer anyway.