I am an addict. It’s true. I feel ashamed. Sometimes in the dusk you will see a fleeting glimpse of me down the back streets as I try and get my fix. A shadowy blur will dash before your eyes and dart into a small dingy room hidden in a deep dark alley way. If you look closer you will see a room full of chemicals and machines used to heat things up and dry things out. These rooms are often filled with rows of young asian people working all hours of the night like some sort of modern day opium den……….I am of course referring to the nail shops! I love visiting them and sitting back as I get my finger nails manicured and my toes pedicured. They stink of what I can only assume are the most toxic glues and nail polishes and I really should not get within a square mile of them let alone sit in them for the 30 minutes it takes to get all of the above done. This exact reason is why I have begun my search for natural nail polishes that I can do at home and go cold turkey on my addiction before it’s too late!
So I have been testing out quite a few different ranges and today I want to talk about the one that so far has seemed to impress me the most, Prissy. Their range claims to have 70 delicious colours, all of which are made from the highest quality materials from Europe and the US and then hand mixed in Australia. I got three to test and see what I thought of them, all of which were matt colours: Nail Polish Wise (Light Beige), Nail Polish Pleasant (Light Purple/Blue) & Nail Polish Sweet (Baby Pink). The reason I liked the sound of this brand was based on some of their claims particularly that their range is 5-free which means that they contain NO Tosylamide Formaldehyde Resin, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate, Camphor & Talc/Formaldehyde. Prissy also assures us that everything is made with ingredients that are free of dangerous chemicals, have in no way been derived from animals and have not been tested on animals. In case some of you have not come across the idea of 5-Free before (or don’t have a degree in organic chemistry) I thought I would quickly outline why this is such a great thing. There are 3 common chemicals found in most nail polishes (Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Formaldehyde) as well as 2 other harmful chemicals that are in many as well (Formaldehyde Resin and Camphor). There is loads of information online about each of these products if you want to know more and as I am no expert in these areas I will leave it up to you to decide but all I will say is that I don’t want these possible skin irritants (or from what I have read possibly much, much worse) on my body or their fumes in my lungs any longer.
So back to the Prissy nail polishes, they cost around $15 australian dollars, which is reasonable for a conventional nail varnish, but amazingly well priced when put side by side with their direct competitors, roughly £7 when lots of similar polishes are at least double this. They seem to last ages without chipping which for me is a huge selling point of any nail varnish as I love it when they last ages without me needing to remove and reapply. It also means their value for money raises much higher so Prissy is scoring hugely well with me so far! As I said earlier there is a large range of great shiny colours so you won’t be limited at all in what you want to wear and the ones I tried were very easy to apply too. The brush was great and made application a real pleasure. Finally all three dried really fast which again is brilliant thing for nail varnishes to do.
So what I find myself saying is that the Prissy range is vegan, cruelty free, 5 free, resistant, long-lasting, fast-drying, cheap and has a great amount of colors. Bloody well done to them, I literally can’t fault them. The range also contains cuticle oil, quick dry oil, nail strengthener, top and base coat and nail polish remover. I am going to tell absolutely everyone about these beauties……….
……oh wait. I knew there had to be something, nothing is ever that perfect. All the prices on their website are in Australian (I presume) dollars so make sure you have your calculator handy to do some currency conversions when putting in an order or if you have a boyfriend that’s a trader make sure to find out the best day to get the best rates! At least that’s reassured my sceptical side that there HAD to be something that wasn’t so perfect about this brand but it’s so insignificant that it barely even registers! What do you think of this nail polish shade?