digital imologue

Wordplay stolen from Carissa.

Iron Fist ‘zombie stomper’ nail transfers

These Iron Fist bad-boys came in a neat lil packet with a nail file and wooden stick to poke your cuticles with.

I’ve used lots of different brands of nail transfers, and I have to say (having only worn these so far for a few hours) that I’m pretty impressed.

The instructions recommend buffing your nails and applying the transfers to a clean surface, but I also suggest putting on a base coat, whatever you would normally put on your nails if you are so inclined.  For a while I have been using Sally Hansen Miracle Cure Problem Nail Strengthener.

I recommend this for two reasons; partly to give the sticker something to grip, but mostly to protect your natural nail.  So when you peel it off, it doesn’t take bits of your own nail with it.  Stickers are dark horses; wearing them back-to-back for several weeks last summer, I found myself with soft flaky nails, good for nothing.

I suggest putting on a base coat, letting it dry, then applying your transfers.

All nail stickers are usually designed for long-ish nails; you need to have some length to be able to wrap the transfer over, to file it off.  And the designs are usually for longer nails – some of the zombie eyeballs were kind of cut off, even on my nails which I would say are pretty long right now.

Speaking of.  You might have also noticed that some of my nails are revoltingly long and pointy; this is a nail-shape that seems to work well for me, as in, it resists chips and splits etc, and I can grow my nails disgustingly long if I file them in to a point while I do it.  Also makes me feel like Cat Woman.

Anyway.  These nail stickers went on really well; they are a lot softer and more pliable than many other brands I have used, so they were very easy to stretch-to-fit onto my nails, and being so pliable, fit really easily.  I screwed up on two of my nails and to be honest those two are already (a few hours after applying them) showing signs of poor resilience.

Compared to other brands (including Nail Rock) that have been somewhat more brittle, it looks like these will wear well.  I’ll update this post to let you know for sure.  Other brands I’ve used have been more difficult to apply completely smoothly, and that seems to be the trouble with any nail sticker; as soon as it’s not perfectly applied, any wrinkles will quickly turn into peeling and lifting.  Makes sense I guess.

Anyway – this post is scheduled to go live on Monday, when I will be heading back home to Oban from Glasgow.  I was there to see Jettblack, so it’s possible that by the time you are reading this, I will have run off with Jon Dow and you won’t hear from me again.  If that is the case I’ll give Chloe my flog password so she can let you all down gently.

Do you think he likes zombie nails?  I hope he likes zombie nails.  Screeeeam!

Update: this is what they look like after 48 hours wear.

The index and pinky finger are the worst; these are the two that I screwed up putting on.  The pinky is ripped in the middle and the index finger just has quite a big chunk missing from the tip.  As the pattern is so busy it’s not actually that noticeable in real life.

The rest of the nails have worn a little on the tips but not too much.  None of them have peeled or lifted, so, they remain the best-wearing nail stickers I have used – hands down!

Tags: fingers, gig, Glasgow, green, hands, Imogen Maxwell, Iron Fist, Jettblack, Jon Dow, makeup, manicure, nail art, nail foils, nail stickers, nail transfers, nails, Oban, product review, purple, ring, Sally Hansen, skull, zombie