First nail post on here. For years & years I’ve never cared about my nails. Around 5-6 years ago I started biting my nails. I know it’s a filthy habit & I’ve tried many times to stop but somehow I relapse. I’m currently trying to make a serious attempt to sublimate the nail biting habit into a nail polish habit (does that make any sense?) I’ve been buying new nail polishes & getting interesting in nail care, I think it’s working. Any way, I think there will be regular nail posts on this blog now at least once every week.
I first started noticing the Revlon Nail Art (pens?) on international beauty blogs earlier this year. Anyway them seemed really unique & fun & so I started the patient wait till they arrived on Indian shores.
So when Dolon from Pout Pretty instagrammed that they were in stores around this time last month, I was all over it. (Revlon seems to soft-launch all of their products here in India. They start mentioning / promoting their new products weeks after it first becomes available, they started promoting these nail art pens a few days ago.) For the first few days I resisted the urge to run to the mall in favor of sensible reasoning – I have enough nail polishes, do I really need more? But then I had to go to a mall for a different reason so I decided to just give in & buy one of these. And thought I’ve been very excited to try these, I had to wait for my nails to grow to an acceptable length to do so. But I did try these out on my mom for her birthday & we were both liked how it turned out.
The Nail Art pens are all double ended & come in three basic lines – Neon {neutral base (white!) with a bright accent color}, Expressionist {one side comes with a skinny brush to paint on details} & Moon Candy {dark base color + chunky glitter (flakies)}.
All of the moon candy ones appealed to me the most, & I’m not even someone who usually goes for glitter.
This is the pen – I really like how it feels & looks. It’s quite the no brainer, start with the base polish & top with the flakie (they’re even indicated as 1 & 2).
The base polish is charcoal grey (though my parents like to call it black! Orbit in the moon candy range has a black base shade) & goes on very smoothly. In fact, I own had to put one coat to get perfectly even, opaque nails. Even the brush was a pleasure to work with. I’m pretty pleased with the formula & if all Revlon nail paints are like this I see myself buying more soon.

Rings – The peace heart is custom made & the twig ring is by Colby June.

The flakie polish is much thicker / gloopier. It’s not hard to apply (even for a relative newbie like me) but there certainly is a knack to applying it right. When you get it out of the bottle, wipe one side on the rim & apply with the other. And try ‘placing’ the flakies on your nails (with the brush) instead of brushing on a first. Then just brush to smoothen them. I didn’t have problems with them, they sit quite easily.
I am not very pleased with how these photos came out (must practise!) because you really can’t see how vibrant they are. They’re beautiful chunky, holographic flakies in teal, lemon yellow, seafoam green, dark purple etc. The photos make them seem so flat but they are stunning & very 3D in person (just google swatches for it on nail blogs & you’ll see what I mean). I can’t stop staring at my nails. The nails do feel a bit rough / bumpy with the flakies so you have to seal with a top coat. I put two coats (I’m fresh out of top coat so I just used my base coat by Rimmel) & now they feel much smoother.

My hands look a bit dry but don’t my cuticles look healthy? I’ve discovered a lovely new cuticle product & I’ll be sharing a review of it soon.

In case you’re interested, I put one base coat + one coat of the Revlon base color + one coat of the flakie + two coats of base coat (as top coat!) I wouldn’t recommend any more layers… I’m pretty sure the more you layer on, the more the polish gets prone to chipping. And I have heard from a few bloggers that these polishes stain if you don’t put on a base coat. I always do, but if you don’t then you definitely shouldn’t skip it for this.
Five whole days after I put these my nails they’re 98% chip free. I saw that because on very close inspection I’ve found some minor chipping on one nail. I haven’t done a lot of work with my hands during this time (other than typing) but I’m still happy with the wear time. I think the two transparent coats really helped seal in it.

Price: ₹300 for each pen (they’re all priced the same, thankfully)!
I’m very pleased with this polish. It looks lovely & is very affordable too. If you’re into polishing your nails at all, you should check them out.

love,
Magali