MUA Nail Varnishes | £1 each?!

Ordinarily, I would never be drawn to a nail varnish that only costs £1.00, because more often than not with deals like that it's too good to be true and with a cheap price tag comes some pretty cheap quality and in the long run isn't worth your time and effort. But for MUA (Make Up Academy), on the other hand, I entered into a little trial of some of their nail colours with a very open mind - mainly because their single eyeshadows are also only £1 each and the quality of those is amazing, so why should their nail varnishes be that different?..

I ordered four shades from Superdrug online (find them here) and picked shades unique from anything else I own (more or less): Bold Blue, Lush Lilac, Pistachio Ice Cream, and Amaretto Crush - cute names, right? It turns out that Lush Lilac is a very similar shade to Models Own Utopia; a very pale and washed out pinky lilac, and I'm happy to say that Pistachio Ice Cream seems to be a nice little dupe for Mint Candy Apple - a very popular shade from Essie. Basically, a light minty green. Bold Blue is standard blue, not all that much special and unique about it but it is a nice colour, and Amaretto Crush is a burnt dark pink; not my favourite but it's okay. 

The main point that seems to have brought the polishes to the attention of many is their recent package revamp that appears to be a very clear and blatant copy from Essie bottles. I can see a very strong resemblance and I think you'd be crazy to say that there isn't some kind of copy cat action going on over here. But oh well, we'll let Essie and MUA fight that battle themselves. 

The bottles are pretty small and 'diddy' (I love that word!) and I can't find anywhere that says how much varnish is in a bottle but I'll hazard a guess at 4-5ml. That's no big deal that they're small because how many of us ever finish off a whole bottle regularly anyway? The thing that does strike a problem with me is that the brush is so small and it makes application quite difficult and streaky because it takes about 10 strokes to coat a nail - argh. Also, the consistency of all of the polishes was very streaky and very sheer, taking atleast four full coats to reach a nice opacity over the nails. This made it very hard work to get a good even coverage over the nails and it also meant that it took forever to dry! Good job I had lots of time on my hands though because when they were fully dry they did all look lovely shades and had a pretty glossy finish to them. Pistachio Ice Cream is the only shade that I wore on all my fingers for a long period of time and it lasted three days without chipping which is slightly better than I was expecting. 

I don't think I'll be rushing back for more shades from this range, but they were good to try out and aren't all that bad. To summarise.. They look like £7.99 Essie bottles, there's a wide range of colours to choose from and I'm happy with my choices, the coverage is very sheer and streaky and they have to be built up a lot; the small brush increases how much hard work this is. But.. they look nice if you've got the patience to work with them and as a bonus they're only £1 and currently 3 for 2 at Superdrug.

Would you try MUA's £1 nail varnish offerings?

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