Foil flirtation - NOTD circa 1998

I'll try and let the pictures do the talking this time.

During my massive clear-out of stuff a few weeks back, this baby surfaced from the darkest depths of my cupboard. And from the darkest depths of my clueless make-up years.

These are Special FX Nail Foils! What fun! They have the dubious honour of being the first thing I had ever purchased from telesales (QVC to be precise). When I saw the magic happen (glue + foil = instant metallic nails!) I picked up the phone and put my newly acquired credit card to good (or bad) use.

Special FX Nail Foiling Kit

Here's how it works. You paint a thin layer of the glue on to your nail, you wait for it to go clear and then you apply a small piece of foil (which you've previously cut to size). You smooth over the foil with your finger or a cotton bud (q-tip if you're in America) and then you cautiously peel off the foil. You should be left with the foil on your nail as the design sticks to the glue. Then you finish with the top coat sealer.

Top coat and glue plus 6 c-c-crazy foils..

 I can't pretend I didn't have fun with this. The leopard print design proved to be very popular with everyone, including my brothers and my dad who all decided it would be kind of cool to have a leopard print pinky nail for all of five minutes.  I had a whale of a time foiling my toes. I wasn't brave enough to wear any of them on my fingers as I was still a French manicure kind of girl back then.

 After about 13 years, here is a taster of what you can achieve with these. 

 The animal print is kind of in fashion I guess.... I'm not so sure about the other colours though, they really do look like you've just glued foil onto your nails, which I guess is the point, but I've never been convinced it's a look that works for me.

In terms of lasting power these are not great. They are a fun one-day flirtation on the fingers, but they do last a bit longer on the toes.

If you're at all interested in doing funky stuff with your nails then you can check out the Special FX website: http://www.fxnailz.co.uk/index.html I can't see the nail foils on here, I think they've been discontinued but a quick google revealed that you can still get them on ebay and various other outlet sites.

So, what do we think? Tack-fest or fun-fest?