Blixz Me, Baby: The DIY Nail Decal Review

Saturday night's Blog Awards were a great excuse to get all dolled up, right down to my fingertips. Literally. While the lovely people at Longlex had a lady blogger's nail bar on the go at the pre-awards Ladies' Wine Tea Party, I was determined to put my newly arrived packet of gold metallic Blixz decals to the test.

So I whiled away the train journey from Portarlington to Galway applying said decals, which are like a DIY version of the Minx we've been swooning over for the last couple of months. Minx are blimmin' gorgeous, but they are a salon product and I mostly prefer to tend to my talons myself, ta. (Although that might just change if a branch of Mink ever opens up around the corner from me.)

Application is fairly straightforward, although unless you have Hulk-sized nails you'll likely need to trim the decals down to size as they are wiiiiiide. Having gently buffed the nail surface and wiped it with nail varnish remover to get rid of any lingering residue, peel an individual decal away from its plastic backing strip, position on your nail, press firmly all over to adhere, and file away the excess, say the instructions.

Only... it's a bit more involved that that. I needed a rubber-tipped hoof stick and a lot of pressure before I was happy that the decals were firmly stuck down. Pinching together the edges that overhung the free edge of each nail and trimming that excess down to almost the same length as the nail before filing seemed to help minimise lifting. There were a few slightly gammy edges that I wasn't totally happy with, but I blasted them with a hairdryer and got busy with that hoof stick again once we hit the hotel and that smoothed them right down.

Once applied, these really look the business but four days on, the tips have all lifted and curled slightly. Not too noticeably, now, but just enough for my once pristine metallic mani to be a bit shabby looking.

By the by, when you peel the decals away from their plastic backing you'll be left with a silhouette in the same colour as your decal. The base of that silhouette is crescent moon in shape and, with a little trimming, is absolutely ideal for DIYing that CND look without having to use an entire decal. I gave myself a gold/navy half-moon pedi using these trimmed silhouettes and it's still totally perfect.

Waste not, want not, ha?

I bought my Blixz from Ideal Beauty Products for £9.99. Delivery took 5 working days and cost £2.75.