Nailene Skinny French Tip Pen

My review of the french tip pen from Nailene has been waiting For. Ever. I am a total slacker. Sorry! I have some swatches and a review now. I played around with this about two months ago so there are some pics from then, and then I used it last week for a mani so I have some pics of that for you too. Here we go!

This is the pen. It's supposed to make a self done french quick and easy. It comes with a mini bottle of top coat, which honestly, I didn't try! Oh no!

This is the tip before use. It look like it would be spongy, but it is actually very stiff. On the one had that is good because it allows for lots of control, but can cause issues. I think maybe it may have been better if it had a little more give.

So two months ago, this is the first swatch I did with it, with my dominant hand, free-hand, with no tip guides. Not bad huh? This is completely bare, no base, no top, no sheer pink.

Here is what it looked like after I threw on a coat of sheer pink.

And another.

Last week I needed a conservative mani so I decided to try this again. This is what it looked like with two coats of Essie - Jackie On My over it.

Not too shabby, right?!

So how easy is this to use? I think it is much easier than trying to free hand with a regular white nail polish, for sure. The issues I encountered were these:

1) This isn't entirely the pen's fault. It is mostly the user's, but I tried to use tip guides the second time around to seen if I could get a cleaner line, and I did just the opposite. I put all ten guides on and then did two coats of white, and then tried to take off the guides, and since the "polish" had dried, it pulled up when I took off the guides and I had to take it all off and start all over. I should have took off each guide after each nail was done so that the polish wasn't dried to the guide.

2) Some times the hard tip will prevent getting an even coverage because it "scratches" off what you have already painted. I found that I had good results if I got a good amount on the pen tip, and then when I painted, I essentially touched only the polish to my nail, and not the tip of the pen to the nail.

I would choose this product to do a french mani for these reasons:

1) The pen's style allows for much more control than painting with a regular nail polish brush.

2) It is much faster to use than painting with a brush.

3) The formula is very pigmented allowing for one coat, providing you are careful not to do the "scratch off" as mentioned above.

4) If you do have to do more than one coat, it doesn't result in a gloppy, thick tip like you would get if you tried to use regular NP. It is very thin, but it isn't water soluble like some other similar pen products I have tried before. It is still like a polish.

5) It is fast drying.

So overall, I would give this product a "B". I would definitely use this for a french manicure, but there are special requirements to get it to look flawless. If you don't have a steady hand, this may not give you the results you want, but you can use tip guides as long as you remove them immediately after painting each nail. It must be a good product if there are more pros than cons!

What do you think?
-Elaine
:c)


Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.