Lace and Lacquers: INCOCO: Nail Polish Applique Review (Zig & Staccato Tips)

Incoco Nail Polish Applique in Zig (left) and Staccato Tips (right)

Today I am sharing Incoco real nail polish strips! I've always wanted to try these, like the last 4(?)-ish years. I'm super stoked to share these with you. When I first discovered these they only had solid colors and solid glitter strips, now they have branched out into patterns. The two patterns above are what I have to show to you today!

I'd show you the packaging, but Mr. Scout decided to turn one into a chew toy (he's done this to Sally Hansen strips too! UGH) :-\ Haha, I got lucky, the goods were safe!

Incoco Zig

I was super happy to recieve this pattern! This is one of the ones I've been wanting to try. I think I squealed a little bit when I opened the package lmfao. Zig features a colorful chevron stripe pattern with tons of glitter!

Below I'm going to outline how to use them and show you what their wear looks like :]

Incoco Packaging

What I love about the packaging is that the instructions for how to apply the Incoco strips EVERYWHERE. By everywhere I mean back of the cardboard package, back of the sealed package, and a handout inside. They got ya covered, yo!

If you have ever used Sally Hansen's nail polish strips, these apply very similar to these. I personally think that the Incoco strips are a tad thinner than the SH version. I like that though. They make the strips easier to apply and work with. I did apply top coat to the strips and I did clean my nails with Zoya Remove+, just as an extra precaution due to life happenings.

They did include a file and an orange stick, which Scout decided to tear to shreads as well -.- so I don't have the ones that come with the packages to show you (they're again similar to the ones that come with the Sally Hansen strips).

The one downside to this product to me is the way they are sealed. Once you open the package, you're pretty much 100% obligated to use them. There is no separate packaging for the 16 strips, they're all in 1. I don't know about other people, but with these strips and Sally Hansen strips, I can get a full 2-handed manicure out of less than 1/2 the strips when my nails are longer or shorter. Just call me a magician! :P What I did with the extra 8 strips is I stuck them in a small ziplock back and sucked everything out of the bag. From there I did the same thing with a larger bag. I checked a week later and they seem to be fresh still - so only time will tell lmao.

Now onto the wear! I'm sorry Incoco, I can't wear them for 14 days. As much as I would like to, you'll see in my last full hand shot, I personally feel my nails grow too fast for 14 days of wear haha. ANYWAYS here we go:

Excuse the light changes and the dry fingers - c'est la vie. Yes I snapped the crap out of one of my nails haha. I left it shorter to see how the strips would do with being filed at the end and left so - and it actually did pretty darn well. As you can see from the 5 days of wear, there is some tip wear, but very very little. VERY little for the way I treat my nails (as tools pretty much lol. tsk tsk I know!). I was pretty darn impressed with the wear of these in 100% honesty. When I use Sally Hansen's strips (and I've done so maybe 10+ times), my tip wear by day 5 is a llllooottt more noticeable. Not to mention when I use the SH ones there is lifting near the cuticle area, I didn't experience that with these.

I have no complains to report. The application was easy and the wear was great! I can totally see myself using these on trips in place of my regularly purchased Sally strips.

If you're curious about removal, Zig removed like removing a typical microglitter polish. I was scrubbing the crap out of my nails with that acetone jar-brush thingie haha, that stuff was on there GOOD!

I also recieved a second set. This set is a little different because it is a French manicure style.

Incoco Staccato Tips

I was super intrigued by these. I don't know why I didn't use these first haha I think these would of looked better on my longer nails and Zig on my shorter nails - OHWELL!ANYWAYS Staccato Tips is a french manicure style. The tips are a very light gold shade, that can appear white in some light and a stronger gold in others, with black polka dots.

Incoco French Tip instructions

The reason why these strips apply differently is because it is a 2 step process. You first apply the tips, the tips are separate from the full nail strip. The full nail strips consist of a strip of clear top coat.

I didn't really enjoy this application, but I also suck at French manicure in real life lmfao. I had trouble peeling the French tips off of the backing. They seemed to stretch as I was taking them off so they were semi uneven. Because of this, I went back in with a brush with acetone to shape them more evenly on my nail. The top coat strip was 100x easier to apply haha. It applied just like the Zig full strips from above. I was really impressed once I put the two together they came together and were really flat on the nail.

About an hour of wear

Another complaint about these is about 10 minutes later I somehow was able to get wrinkles in the tips, like they looked pushed back and like the polish shrunk on my nail. It honestly looked like visible tip wear. You can see in the picture above, that was about an hour after I had taken the first pictures. I have a feeling this has to do with the strip-on-strip action going on because I didn't experience anything like this with the full nail strip. :-\

If you're interested in trying these strips, I'd watch their Facebook page or subscribe to their email updates. They seem to run sales frequently! ~~Currently they're offering 20% off their Total Bombshell full strips for a limited time, these were voted as the top VMA nails, you can find them here! (Offer ends TONIGHT 8/27)~~ They're now offering 10% their entire website until September 2nd! Check out the sale here!

Overall, in summary: I don't think I will buy the 2 step French set, but I do see myself buying the full strip sets in the future for traveling. I really enjoyed this brand more than I thought I would! I kinda want to try out their pedicure sets, that sounds perfect for my hatred of doing pedicures lmfao

Happy strippin'! Bahaha :P

These items were sent for review. My opinions of the brand are my own and are not influenced in any way. Please read the disclaimer tab for more information about my reviews.

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

INCOCO: Nail Polish Applique Review (Zig & Staccato Tips)

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