Happy Monday, peeps! Hope you had a great weekend because I did. I went to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday and then had a pot luck lunch gathering at a friend’s house on Sunday. I also ended my Sunday with a Skype chat with Mr BB and a movie marathon of Breaking Dawn (I know, I’m so behind but I live in a country where English movies come out later than the rest of the world, and when they do, it’s pretty pricey to go to the cinema, 1800JPY or USD23 a ticket, so I just wait for movies to come out on Apple TV) and Eat Drink Man Woman (an Ang Lee classic filmed in ’90s Taiwan — natsukashiiii, or nostalgic in Japanese).
Marching on with the Japanese Drugstore Hunt 2000JPY & Below series (previous posts were on lipsticks, blush, and lip gloss), today’s post is on nail polish.
There are many nail polishes out there below 2000JPY, including high-end brands, so I took the liberty to change the challenge to find drugstore polishes below 1000JPY. There are a plethora of brands that have very cheap nail products but they are lacking in quality and colour range. I’ve tried Majolica Majorca, Canmake, Visee, Rimmel, Revlon, but have always been quite dissatisfied with the results — they either chip the same or next day, or the tips fade quickly. The ones I have not even bothered to try, e.g. Coffret D’Or and Maquillage, are way too sparkly for my taste. I like a bit of shine and the occasional glitter but these polishes are full-on shimmery, pearly, and glittery stuff all at once.
But there is one brand that performs beyond its low price-tag — Integrate Gracy; 367JPY or USD4.70 (pictured above as the triplet of smaller bottles) with 20 shades; 4ml. I understand that this is the cheaper brand under the Integrate range so I was surprised by its quality. The brush is pretty full sized even though the bottle is teeny tiny so application is easy. I only ever need two coats (another sign of a well-pigmented polish), and it chips from the third day onwards (which is on par with OPI and Essie from my own experience). The colours are many shades of the nude spectrum so it’s very work-appropriate or just for gals who not so flashy.
The Integrate polish, 420JPY or USD5.40 (on the far left) for 5ml, I have is a lovely creamy pink shade which is rare to find at the drugstore. Creamy without any sparkles belong to the high-end or foreign brands in Japan so I was happy to stumble upon this brand. The colour range is not so wide but not bad at all and is ranked in the top ten on Cosme. Integrate Gracy has been at number three for the longest time after Chanel and OPI.
Do you have any favourite Japanese drugstore nail polishes? Do share!
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