17 Rock Hard Nail Effects swatch

Hi there!
I must apologise for the quietness of the blog in the last week, I'm a bad blogger! I've had a crazy couple of weeks, with very little time to myself in the evenings, so unfortunately I didn't have time to write up posts or even properly paint my nails! Thankfully, the madness has abated now, so regular posting will resume once I've caught myself up and have time to get some serious nail art going!

Today I’m showing you some pics I took a couple of weeks ago of a textured polish from the Boots brand, 17. This is one of their rock Hard Nail Effects polishes, their version of the popular textured polishes available these days. There are 4 colours, black, grey, red and blue, and I decided to go for the blue one.

This is two coats with no topcoat. I decided to jazz my thumbs and ring fingers up a little with a snakey stamp from an Essence stamping plate and Barry M Silver Foil.

The application on this was good, but clean up was a bit of a horror. I spent so much time trying to get the bits of stray grit that I ended up taking off more than I wanted to around my cuticles. This also chipped on one of my fingers the day after I applied it, so it doesn't seem to have great wear (I've patched the chip up to take these pics).

I think the textured effect looks better with the darker colours, rather than the pastels that you can get from Barry M, but I still prefer the extra dimension you get with the glitters in the OPI Liquid Sands at the moment. During my hiatus, I got to wear a Liquid Sand polish for a few days, and it definitely lasted longer before any wear appeared, and the texture wasn't as coarse as this one, so I'd definitely go for an OPI over these. I’m hoping to pick up a Zoya PixieDust or two after payday, so I can try those out as well. For a budget buy though, the 17 is good enough if you want to test out the textured finish without breaking the bank.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x