Maniko Nails review
I have long been obsessed with well-manicured hands. And it’s totally at odds with who I was as a child. Even though I was a tomboy through and through, I loved painting my tiny little fingernails.
I never played with dolls or makeup; I preferred climbing trees and beating up boys. But I do have vivid memories at 5 or 6 years of age, sitting on the livingroom floor, watching Saturday morning cartoons while my mom slept upstairs. And instead of playing with Legos or drawing pictures, I was making fake nails. I used to cut masking tape – yes, masking tape - into small nails and paint them bright colours. Imagine my excitement many years later when I eventually learned you could buy press-on nails from the drug store!
That love never waned. But my biggest challenge is making the polish last. It’s why I had to give up on manicures many years ago - no point in shelling out the dough if paint starts fading or chipping within 24 hours (thank goodness that doesn’t apply to my beloved pedis!).
Fast-forward many years when Shellac entered my life. The promise of no dry-time, no smudging and polish that actually lasts 2 weeks? I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. However, this particular heaven isn’t without its drawbacks. The first is money, the second is time. You have to go every 2 weeks to remove and reapply. At €30 a pop + the hour you need to do it, we’re talking nearly €800 + 104 hours per year. Ouch. And the third problem is nail health. It ain’t a great long-term solution. Your nails may begin to get thin and brittle. In my case, they gave up entirely and stopped ‘accepting’ the polish. Is just started to flake off immediately. So really I just do this intermittently – holidays, special events, that sort of thing. My nails are always painted so it’s something I have to do at home every few days to keep it fresh. Yawn.
Enter COVID - I was bored at home and looking for an alternative. I came across Maniko Nails on social media, which promised no-smudge, no drying time and up to 10 days of perfect nails. Sound familiar? Of course I decided to give it a try!
I ordered the starter kit, which contains 2 nail strip colours (I selected a bright red and dark blue), a topcoat, a file and polish remover. They claim removing the polish is just as easy using regular polish so this is a huge plus. Any gel polish like Shellac requires soaking your nail in acetone, wrapping in foil strips and waiting while is slowly eats away at your polish and everything surrounding it (i.e. cuticles and skin). Spoiler – they’re dead right. They come off super easily!
Long story, short – it’s bit tricky, but after 3 different applications I got the hang of it. The biggest challenge is filing off the extra bits. After you wrap the strip under the edge of the nail (super tight), you need to really file from top to bottom (even though they say left to right). This will sever the connection and allow you to pull the extra material off. It’s kind of difficult to explain, so watch the tutorial below – you’ll see what I mean.
All in all, I’d give this about a 6 out of 10. The polish looks great – especially from a distance - and super glossy, for sure. Some of the sizes were in between for me so they either hung over the cuticle (a big no-no) or were a bit too small. But this, I could live with. It’s the edges that presented the problem for me. I wasn’t able to get a completely seamless application. So after days (or even hours) they would start to lift. And once lifted, they started to catch on things. This is when they had to come off.
Would I repurchase? No. I’ll probably use up what I have but I think my next at-home purchase will be more in the gel manicure space. Stay tuned…
P.S. Maniko got in touch after watching the YouTube video and gave a few pointers on how to better manage my edge problem. Well done Maniko! So I’ll give it a few more tries and report back soon.
