Revlon Runway Collection 'Stella' Artificial Nails

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but I'm sure you're all aware that french manicures and I do not mix. I feel very... strongly about french manicures. Indeed.

However, there are some exceptions. I have seen or worn french manicures that I actually liked. For example, french manicures with glitter for tips instead of chalky white.

So, when I received these artificial nails from Revlon, I was quite pleased. Finally, a french manicure I actually like!

Sorry, guys!  These are actually Stella nails.  Mine were mislabeled- sorry if I have confused anyone!  :)

These are the Starlet nails from Revlon's Runway Collection series of artificial nails. There are two styles of nails named Starlet- this is the first version. I'll post the second version soon- I just wanted to clear up any confusion caused by having two different styles with the same name.

Anyway, this is a set of false nails, also known as press-on nails. It comes with 24 nails that come in 12 different sizes, a bottle of nail glue and an orange stick.

The interesting thing about this set of fakes is that it has half sizes. Woohoo!! I am often complaining about sets of press-on nails that I would like to wear but can't because all the sizes are too large for my nails. These ones fit much better than any nails I've tried so far. I do have one complaint though- there aren't enough of the small sizes! I only do one hand for my pictures, but I used all but one of the smaller sized nails. I wouldn't be able to do both hands. They need to include more of the smaller sizes and less of the huge toenail sized ones.

But then again, maybe my nails are just freakishly petite and regular people have nails the size of the ones in the kit.

To apply them, you simply drip some glue onto your natural nail and press the artificial nail onto it. The glue bonds instantly. The application process is very fast and straightforward.

I do have a few tips on applying them, though- it can be very messy if you haven't done it before. The directions say to put glue on the fake nail and on you natural nail- DON'T!! You will have glue everywhere if you do this.

What I recommend is to put a very modest amount of glue onto your natural nail- don't cover your entire nail. The glue spreads out when you press the fake nail onto your natural nail, and even with a tiny amount of glue on your natural nail it can make a bit of a mess. The glue is a very thin texture and it oozes out from under the nail onto your cuticles. So, go easy on the glue.

Since these are a transparent french-style nail, you need to be careful of air bubbles under the nail because they will be very obvious. To prevent air bubbles, press the nail down firmly, making sure to provide firm, even pressure across the entire nail. Do not release the nail until the glue is completely dry- it should only take about 20 seconds. If you don't apply pressure until the glue is dry, the nail will lift from the natural nail and cause an air pocket.


Now that that's out of the way, here's what they look like on me!

Pretend that you can't see my pinkie nail sticking up over the top of the fake nail. I filed my nails down as short as they will go without bleeding and they're still a little too long to be covered completely by these nails.

Here's what I like about this particular french manicure design.

As you can see, instead of a thick bright white tip, these have a subtle semi-sheer natural looking tip with a fishnet/lattice design. I love the design on the tip- it has personality!

The shape of the tip has a subtle and natural smile line that perfectly mimics the line of my naked nails. The shape of the nails themselves is also very flattering- soft square. This shape looks good on everyone and it gives the nails a very groomed and professional look.

The colors of the nail are completely natural and clean looking. The base matches the color of my natural nail but provides just a hint of sheer milkiness. The tip is also very natural and has just a hint of pink to it. If you can see from the pictures, it's not a solid color. It's made of teeny-tiny dots of sheer color!

The best part about this nail for me is that from a distance these don't look french. They look like clean, shiny natural nails. Only when you look at the nails up close can you see that there's a french manicure with a fishnet design on the tips.

One more thing I love about these particular nails is the thickness of them. They aren't thick at all- they are perfectly thin and not obviously fake looking. I know I've used the word 'natural' about a million times already, but these are so natural looking, no one would be able to tell the difference!

There are a couple things I don't like about the nails. For one, they're very short. Like I mentioned above, my nails are filed down as short as they can go, yet my natural nail is still longer than the artificial nail. I have long nail beds, so my nails are long even when they're short. A slightly longer length would be perfect.

The other thing I don't like about the nails is the size. Again, like I mentioned above, there aren't enough of the small sized nails in the kit to do both hands. I think I used the same size nails on all but my pinkie- 7 or 6.5 and then an 8 for my pinkie. I think there was one leftover 7 in the box when I was done.

So, overall, this is a really great nail. It's not something I would normally wear, but the fun design and the natural, non-tacky look of this french manicure are really appealing to me.

They're fast and easy to apply, and they're inexpensive to purchase and maintain. Think about it this way- a fill on a set of enhancements will set you back around $50-$70 a month (not including tip!) depending on where you go... Four boxes of these press on nails will cost you around $20 tops per month, and you can do them yourself. You might be able to get two full manicures per box if you have larger nails than I do. No damage, no unhygienic conditions, no appointment, no tip!

These can be purchased at any drugstore (though they're with the nail art section and not the regular Revlon section) and they're around $4.50 a box.

Revlon Intensifying Lashes

Now for a little change of pace...

I recently received the opportunity to try out several styles of Revlon fake lashes. I'm a big fake lash fan, but they're not an every day thing for me. However, some of the lashes I tried were so nice, I think I could make them an every day thing if I wanted to! Some styles I loved, some not so much. I'm going to start off with a review of my favorite.




This is the Revlon Intensifying lash. As you can see, it's a full strip lash with soft black lashes arranged in a very natural pattern. I would call these medium length. They're twice as long as my natural lashes but they're not so long that they're costumey or over the top.






I applied them with the glue included in the kit. When the glue was fully dry, I curled my lashes and applied two coats of mascara to blend the false lashes into my real lashes.

As you can see, this is a very natural look. Long, but not necessarily dramatic. I normally go for a lot more volume with my lashes, but these gave a really pretty wide-awake fresh look.

The band is nice and flexible and nearly invisible. It's a very thin band, which is good for three reasons. The first reason being that the lashes will conform to your natural eye shape and not try to fight with you, second is that the lashes look natural and not immediately noticeable as fake (a thick band is a dead giveaway), and third, they're just easier to apply with a thin band.

The hardest part for me when it comes to applying fake lashes is getting the inner corner of the strip to stay down. It's like I can never get enough glue on there and it always pops up and looks bad. It's more due to my application skills than the product itself most of the time, but a good strong glue helps.

The glue included with these lashes is decent. It is a bit on the watery side and doesn't form a very strong bond until it's 100% dry. The key to applying lashes is letting the glue dry for at least 60 seconds before putting them on, and that's what I did with this glue. It was still a little watery after 60 seconds but it seemed to work okay. It removes easily when it's time to take off the lashes. It comes off either with the lash strip or in one whole piece when washing your face.

Overall, I really love the Intensifying lash from Revlon. They're one of the easiest to apply lashes I have ever used (due to the flexibility and size of the band) and they're natural looking enough to be worn every day.

The only thing I didn't like about the lashes was the lack of density or volume, but I don't think this style of lash is meant for that. Mascara helped provide some of the missing thickness and I was satisfied with the way they looked after two coats. If you really want dramatic lashes, you can always apply multiple strips, and I might try that eventually.

If I had to give these lashes a rating, I'd give them a 4.5 out of 5. Love everything about them except for the lack of volume.

Revlon Artificial Nails

Thank you all for your kind words- I'm feeling much better today!

As I'm sure you read from my blue post, I was feeling very sad last week. It's amazing how everything in your life can just pile up and hit you all at once! I was having such a horrible day, and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, my credit card company raised my interest rate, I got sick, the cucumber I wanted to eat was in the back of my fridge frozen, I burned my arm making dinner and I broke two nails all the way down! It's days like these when I wonder why I got out of bed....



Ouch! I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but both the middle and ring finger were bleeding profusely. That's farther down than my nails can go! Any shorter than the length of my pinkie nail and they start to bleed and hurt until they grow back out.


Like I mentioned, the broken nails hurt. A lot. It was hard for me to do things like cook, wash my hands, bathe- every time I touched something, my fingertips hurt and sometimes would start to bleed again.

Life gave me lemons- I decided to make some lemonade.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to try out a product that I never really use- artificial nails, aka Press On Nails. I usually do acrylics to cover my broken nails until they grow out enough not to hurt, but I was sick and didn't feel like stinking up the house with acrylic or doing anything that involved moving or effort.

The nails I used were Revlon Color Allure nails, medium length in Vintage Velvet.




What it is is a set of 24 individual pre-polished nails, some glue, a nail buffer and an orange stick. The nails come in one length, but two sizes- they follow traditional nail tip sizing and includes sizes 0 to 9.


The application of these is extremely simple. You clean your nails, gently buff them for better adhesion, apply the glue to the entire surface of the natural nail, and press the artificial nail onto the glue until it sticks. Very easy.

The removal is also extremely simple. You soak the nails in acetone and they dissolve almost immediately. Similar to removing acrylics, but it seems a lot faster.

These types of nails are great for people who want a temporary nail look for an event- they come in tons of designs and there's no commitment and no damage from visiting a cheap nail salon for a set of carelessly applied acrylics. These nails will last for over a week, but they will start to grow out like any other nail enhancement and they will need to be replaced.

That's the basic idea behind this product, and here's my experience with it.

Applying the nails was easy- finding a match for my nail size was the hard part. I never really thought of myself as having petite nails, but apparently I do. I was only able to find a good match for two of my nails- 9 on my pinkie, 8 on my ring finger. The other nails were closest to size 7, but not a perfect match.

Not only were most of the nails too big, but the length of the nails is much, much too short for me. The artificial nails just barely covered the broken nails on my hand, but I had to file down my natural nail on my index and pinkie all the way just to get the artificial nail to cover them. My nails are now much shorter than I am comfortable with.

I would be a lot happier and more comfortable if these nails came in a longer length- at least twice as long as these medium length nails.

The entire hand took me about five minutes to apply. The glue bonds quickly. The most important part of applying these is making sure that there are no air bubbles or pockets, and that the glue covers the entire nail. You don't want any lifted areas where water and bacteria can get trapped.

Here's how they turned out:












What do you think? Do you like them?


The color of these nails is called Vintage Velvet. I love this color. It's extremely sexy. It's a vampy burgundy-brown with a very soft shimmer. One of those 'lit-from-within' vampy colors that I love so much.

My husband loves the color of these. He didn't notice that I was wearing fake nails! He looked at my nails and said, "Wow, that's a cool color." How about that!

The color is awesome- I wonder if Revlon makes this color as a polish? I'll have to look for it!

I have other likes and dislikes about this product.

I like the easy application, I like the sturdiness of the nails and the included glue is perfect. I like how long these nails last and how shiny they are. I also like that they are not damaging to my natural nail and also that they are not difficult to remove. The nails themselves are very thin and from a front view are not noticeably fake.

I LOVE the shape of these nails. They are, in my humble opinion, the perfect nail shape. Slightly rounded square, more commonly known as 'Squoval'. This shape looks good on just about everyone, and I find it to be the most flattering nail shape for people.

There are a few things I don't like about this product. The nails are too big for me- only two of the sizes fit my small nails and very curved nail plates. I am not very comfortable with how my middle and index nails look- they look too wide and unnatural compared to my natural nail. I now have a box full of artificial nails that are too big for me and I won't be able to use. I know that these nails are standard tip sizes, but I would love if the sets came in a 'petite' version which only had the smaller sizes, and maybe a new half size.

I'm also not comfortable with the length of these nails. The box states that they are medium length, and if this is medium, I can't imagine how short the short length must be! I understand that this length is perfect for most people- barely any free edge but enough to cover bitten nails. But for me? I prefer long nails. My natural nail plates somewhat long, which causes these artificial nails to be even shorter on me. This is just my personal preference. Longer is better to me.

Another minor imperfection in these nails is that they are perfectly straight and a little flat. I have a naturally strong C-curve and also nails that curve down slightly as they get longer. It is difficult to get the artificial nail to conform to my natural nail shape. If I get the tip of the nail to fit, the cuticle end pops up and leaves a gap and vice versa. This is remedied by applying extra pressure to the entire artificial nail, but you may end up with a little glue on your fingers by doing this.

One interesting observation about these nails: They make your cuticles look perfect! I think it's because they partially cover mine, to they appear smooth and invisible. Bonus.

These nails also get tipwear just like natural polished nails. I've been wearing them on my right hand for about three or four days now, and they're starting to show moderate tipwear. These nails can be re-polished, so that's not an issue. I just wish I had the same polish that's on these nails!

The polish on these nails does wear at the tips, but it does not chip. I can't imagine it being able to chip. It's like the polish is part of the plastic and is holding on for dear life. That's a good thing.

Overall, I really like these nails for situations that require a quick fix. I am definitely going to try out and review more styles of press-on artificial nails.

People who need to temporarily cover their nails to fix a broken nail or a breaking nail, but who don't know how to do their own acrylic nails will love these. I do prefer acrylic in this situation because it is more customizable and natural looking, but I know not everyone does.

They are perfect for protecting damaged nails that need to grow out, but are weak or painful.

People who also want their nails to look good for a special occasion but don't have the time (or patience or money, et cetera) to get a manicure or a set of acrylics should also try these. They are extremely inexpensive, there are a very wide variety of styles and colors and they're practically foolproof to apply at home.

What do you think? Would you ever try them?

Scrangie Goes Green!

That's right... I'm giving up my nailpolish and my car and my AquaNet and I'm gonna SAVE THE PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!!!


LOL, you didn't think I was serious, did you? Me, the Queen of Chemicals???

Well, one thing I *am* going to do is post pictures of green polish. There are not enough green polishes in the world, but I've rounded up the greens from my collection and I'm going to post them here for all to admire.

I will most likely have to do this in three or four installments, so consider this Part One!

On to the greens!

I'll start off with some more common and well-loved greens:


China Glaze Gussied-Up Green


Color Club Limelight


Misa Green With Envy


Misa Toxic Seduction


NARS Zulu


Zoya Suvi


Zoya Tangy


Sinful San Fransisco


New York Summer Amaranth


Nubar Green Tea


NYX Las Vegas


Nubar Grass Green


OPI Green-Wich Village


China Glaze Outta Bounds


Rescue Beauty Lounge Recycle


Sinful Show Me The Way


Sally Hansen Glow


Rimmel Camouflage


Revlon Lush Lime


Sally Hansen Emerald City


Many, many more to come!

Look-Alikes for Misa Poisoned Passion Collection

I've had a couple requests for dupes of the Poisoned Passion collection, but I'm waaaay behind on my swatching! I don't have any new pictures yet (working on it, though!). I do, however, have these pictures that I can use to compare.

If you can't wait until August 15th to get your hands on the new Misa collection, these colors should hold you over...




Misa Forbidden Lust, or....


Sally Hansen Flair, or...


Revlon Primal Purple, or...


NYX Wild, or...


Essie Viva La Vespa (index finger).




Misa A Sin Worth Committing, or...



MAC Naughty Nautical.

(OPI Yoga-Ta Get This Blue or Essie Aruba Blue might match well also!)



Misa Fatal Affair, or...


Misa Blueberry Glaze, or...


Sally Hansen Spark, or...


OPI Ink (though this looks much more purple in real life.)




Misa Love Bite, or...


Black Phoenix Trading Post Blood Countess, or....


Zoya Casey.



Misa Dying Love, or...


Lippmann Collection Hit Me With Your Best Shot, or...


Chanel Black Satin.

(Also, Zoya Freja or Zoya Raven might make good dupes.)



Misa Toxic Seduction, or...


CND Blue Blood. This is the closest match I could find, and it's not a very good one!
Also kinda-but-not-really similar:

China Glaze BLK-BILA-BONG.


Hope this helps!