Like many beauty editors I know, when traveling, I don’t always remember to bring the exact products I need. I might have 10+ tubes of SPF at home but do you think I brought any on a beach vacation? Nope. That’s how I found these Kiss Gel Fantasy Nails. I was in San Francisco for a long weekend attending Create & Cultivate. While getting my hair and outfit together the night before the conference, I looked down and was horrified by my nails. Of course, I have a ton of awesome nail polish at home but nothing in my suitcase. But I didn’t have time to go get my nails done and am unfamiliar with the SF beauty scene. So, I walked to Walgreens.
Lately, I’ve kept my nails on the shorter side, whether I get some cool nail art or just a regular mani. I used to do almond-shaped nail extensions but it got too expensive and time-consuming—not to mention, slower to text. But I still miss the length sometimes so when I saw Kiss had almond press-on nails, I scooped them up.
Image: Kiss.
The set comes with 28 nails to fit to your own nail beds, as well as a tiny nail file, little glue stickers and a tube of nail glue. I decided to skip the stickers because I’ve never had great luck with them in the past and went right to the big guns—the glue. To be honest, it was 1 a.m. when I did these and didn’t really follow the directions. I just filed the own nails to make the nail beds a bit rough (I didn’t have polish remover to remove the natural oils, which can help the glue stick). And I just put glue on the nails and popped them on and went to bed.
I took the tiny tube of glue with me to Create & Cultivate because I wasn’t expecting these nails to stay on all day. But not only did they stay put, five days later, they’re still on. I got compliments the entire weekend and since I’ve been back to LA, people have asked me what salon I hit up in SF. The salon is Walgreens.
Image: Elizabeth Denton.
Are they perfect? Nope. My cuticles are a mess. But I’ve been on two planes and washed my hair twice and even did some dishes. And they still look pretty great. The best part? They were $7.99. So, if they can last a full week, I’m stoked.
If you want to try them, I recommend following the directions and maybe they’ll stick around even longer and look a little cleaner. Kiss Gel Fantasy Nails are actually on sale now on the Kiss website for just $5.60 so hurry before I buy them all.
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