I am normally pretty skeptical of nail polish in pen form- I have tried to use them in the past with disastrous results.
I do trust Nicole to make good polish, and hey, it was on clearance! I had to see for myself.
The color I have is called "Baby Go Bye Bye." Ummm... Interesting name.
This is what a Nic's Stick looks like. It's a little fatter than an average Sharpie, but it really looks like a pen. I don't think anyone would suspect that it's nail polish if you had one at your desk. It has a cap that screws on so it can't come open accidentally and it has a little button at the opposite end for dispensing polish.I was sort of shocked when I removed the cap. The brush is CRAZY!
Look at that. It's like a mop! It's huge and wild, bristles pointing in every direction. How am I supposed to apply polish with this thing?!Despite all my doubts, that crazy brush applied polish extremely well. Near one-stroke coverage on every nail, no polish on the cuticles at all. It was like magic!
The color (Baby Go Bye Bye... I hate typing that... worse than ordering at Denny's!) is dispensed into the brush by pressing the button on the end. You hold the brush pointing downward and click the button three times. I couldn't see the polish coming out at first so I pressed it a few more times and ended up with a lot of polish. One click is enough to do all of your nails.
The polish itself is almost opaque in one coat. Almost being the key word. It is probably opaque enough for most people, but I needed it to be completely free of visible nail line.
This is where I had trouble.
Let's call that one and a half coats. You can see parts on the center of my nail where the polish isn't opaque.
Since the first coat was still a little sheer, I wanted to do a second coat. I had waited about three minutes since doing the first coat, so I assumed that would be more than enough time for the polish to dry enough to do a second coat.
I clicked the brush once to dispense a little more polish and then tried to paint each nail. The polish on the nail wasn't dry enough to not be disturbed by the brush. When the brush touched each nail, it wiped off all the polish that was on them! It's not soft or flexible enough to paint on wet nails like a regular polish brush would be.
I tried waiting for the polish to dry longer and tried again- I still had problems, so I just left them the way they were. That's what you see in the pictures.
The formula of the polish is very different than traditional polish. It's very thin and paint-like. It doesn't seem to dry on the brush and it flows very freely. It's almost watery, but not runny!
It took forever to dry for me. This is supposed to be a speedy, last-minute on the go type product, so I don't think the dry time is appropriate.
However, this could be a miracle product for a lot of people. For one, it's extremely fast to use. Click the pen, one swipe on each nail and you're done. If you want painted nails in a hurry and you don't want to deal with a messy bottle of polish, this is the way to go.
And maybe it's just the color I chose or maybe I'm too picky, but I can see this being a one coat polish. I think that if I had chosen a darker color it would have been. Maybe mine was just meant to be a sheer sky blue. I think red would have definitely been opaque in one coat. So, maybe bad color choice on my part.
Overall, I'm not totally impressed but I will still be keeping one of these in my purse for emergencies. I wouldn't paint my nails with this product every time I do a manicure, but I would definitely use it if I needed to paint my nails quickly and I didn't have all my 'equipment'. Perfect emergency polish. Keep one in your purse!
I do think the name is kinda funny. Nic Stick? Am I suppose to light one end of it?
