Incoco calls their products dry nail appliques, but they're strips of nail polish that you peel off from a backing and stick onto your nail. Pretty cool, right? I've tried a couple of them, and while they do have a slight learning curve, once you get them right, they're very easy to use, and produce a very professional effect.
However, it can get a bit used to applying nail polish strips instead of liquid nail polish, so here's a step by step guide of how to apply them:
1. Find the size of nail strip that most closely matches the size of your nail, and tear off the relevant nail strip. In this case below, I'm using the last strip for my little finger.
2. Peel off the plastic covering on top of the strip. Then peel off the nail polish strip from the paper backing. Be careful not to tear the strip when doing this!
3. Gently smooth the strip over the nail. I personally find the easiest way to do this is to start with center of the nail, and smooth out towards the sides to avoid any wrinkles in the strip.
4. File off any excess nail polish strip. I think the best way is to file downwards, isntead of from side to side. This way, the strip isn't disturbed by any filing motion.
5. And viola! All done.
I guess the fit of the appliques for the nails would vary from person to person, but for me, I found that I was able to find a match for all my nails. I thought the strips were nicely sized, and they also matched the natural curvature of my nails and cuticles. I also liked that these strips were very thin, unlike some other nail appliques I've tried, and thus easier to place on the nail. As far as nail strips go, I think these are one of the best.
Here's 24 Karat, in it's full glory. I don't think I ever got such a neat gap by painting manually, LOL.
I've also discovered that if your nails are short, you can further save money by cutting each nail strip into half - so that instead of wasting the free end (shown in the image in Step 3), you could use it for another nail - perhaps the same nail on your opposite hand. I've managed to do this successfully, but your nails have to be pretty short in order for this tip to work.
These strips lasted about 3 days on me - a bit shorter than if I had painted my nails myself, but given that they were very little trouble to put them on, I thought it was still worth it.
One thing makes me wonder though - these strips so happen to fit the curvature of my cuticles perfectly, but I'm wondering how they would work for other women with more square-shaped cuticles. Also, I'mm wondering how the strips would work for girls whose nails are differently-sized compared to mine. My sister is tiny, and I think most of the strips would probably be too large for her teensy nails. But on me, they fit perfectly, so I'm not complaining, and I imagine they'd be fine for most women. But I could imagine on very petite girls (I'm talking about having to get your clothes from the kids' department petite, not size 2 petite here), the strips might be too small.
These strips would probably appeal to women who want to wear nail polish for special events, but who don't wish to paint their own nails or hop into a salon. I don't foresee these replacing the traditional method of painting nails due to the higher cost, but I do think that Incoco products are a beautifully executed concept, and might be worth it for that special occasion.
(Product was sent to me for review. This is my honest and complete opinion of the product. I am not compensated by/affiliated with the company.)
