I will be the first to admit that I am quite un-skilled in the nail art department. I have always loved nail art designs and have wanted to try some simple ones of myself for a while now. I have seen so many Sally Hansen products around at the moment, especially since the retail store open in Leeds city centre, that I felt like I had to try these - especially since they were in Boots for slightly cheaper than in the Sally Hansen store - I got them for £6.99 each. This is quite pricey for nail polish at the best of times, but for pens which have less polish in them than the average pot, I thought they were expensive for what they were. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how well they worked...
It took a few goes and 'pumps' on a piece of paper to get the colour to come down through the nib, but once I had done this initial set up, they have been good to go straight off the bat every time I have used them. I went for three colours, which I thought were fabulous for the spring (Hot Pink, Purple and Aqua). I was initially intrigued by the packaging, as there are a number of designs shown on there using the pens inside. They looked really neat and easy to do, however, I did find that the pens were a little thicker than the packaging made out, and to do such thin lines you had to have an incredibly steady hand. However, the colour are really vibrant, which I was impressed with.
I did find that I had to do a couple of layers of the colours if I was using them over any sort of nail varnish that wasn't white or a very light colour - which made doing intricate designs much more difficult - however, I was still very impressed with the designs I was able to make with these pens based on my previous accomplishments of daubing polish all over my nails and hands! I found that the pens dried really quickly, which was fantastic, however, I did notice that the pens nibs were a little harsh. On a number of occasions of me using this, if I used a nail polish which was a matt colour, or a polish that needed more than one layer, the pen nibs would crack in to the polish and I ended up with having a number of flakes of nail polish in with the pen colour, which looked a little haphazard. I did also find that if I pressed a little harder, the pen had a tendency to splurge polish all over my nail, which happened on more than one occasion - however, I can't tell if that's just me being clumsy.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with these pens. They are a fantastic start point for people, like me, who aren't experienced with nail art and want to have a little mess around, though I do feel like there is better nail art pens out there, at much better values, such as the Barry M nail art pens that are only £5.99 each and perfect for beginners! The Sally Hansen pens are best used for designs on very high pigmented nail polish that only needs one coat and for people who have the time to wait 20 minutes before using them for the nail polish to completely dry - or use a clear nail polish thats very shiny on top before using the pens to prevent cracking. I also wouldn't suggest pressing very hard. However, I really enjoyed using them - I wouldn't buy any more, but as a starter pen I thought they did the job. The colour range is quite good as well, but there isn't a lot of variety in metallic or pastel colours of pen.
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