I picked this nail art kit up from new brand Lottie a few weeks ago as part of my Superdrug haul. I’ve been eager to find the time to sit down and have a play with this kit. Especially since trying out a few of their polishes during the past few weeks, as I’ve been really impressed.
The Lottie Paint By Numbers nail art kit contains 3 different style of designs – Chevrons which are silver, stripes which are black, and grid/colour block which is gold in addition it also has a nail art brush which comes with the set to get into the little gaps. My first thought on this is that I would prefer to pick up either all of the designs included as one particular colour of sticker (so all the designs come in black) or pick up the design in (so the same design in 3 different colours) I don’t love the gold colour or the colour block design.
Secondly as there’s not a lot of instructions on the outer packet, I presumed these would act a bit like striping tape which you would peel away to reveal the design underneath, that’s not the case, they need to be left on.
Thirdly, I wouldn’t say that I have the most wide nails, but I do have larger than most. I found that most of these were too wide to use, if you have narrow nails you’ll almost certainly find them a pain to find ones which are the right size. I think these would also be more handy if they came on clear sheets, it’s difficult to tell what size would be right for each nail, a clear sheet would help take the guessing out of it, I wasted 2 by thinking they would be the right size, but they were both too big.
I’ll start by saying, I’m not a nail art pro, but I do have a relatively steady hand, I couldn’t have been more careful or precise than what I was…
Attempt 1: Chevron
I decided to use Barry M Matt white as the base for trialling, with Lottie Sunset Secrets as the accent colour. I didn’t find the brush that easy to use I was using a design which had the most narrow gaps from the sheet and I found it difficult to get into the gaps even on the widest design. Let’s just say the end result was definitely shit…
I did attempt peeling the design off before removing to see what the effect would be, it didn’t leave a clean edge, and removed the nail polish underneath.
Attempt 2: Peekaboo 
I tried again with something simpler, the stripes. this time I found it easier, the second time round I discovered that very small dabs was much easier to do than long even swipes that you would do with painting your nail whole. The black sticker also does a better job at hiding over inevitable accidental slipping onto the lines.
It’s very time consuming to do, and even with a white base coat where normally you could just use one coat of the shades I used to get a perfect colour I had to go over it twice, and 3 times in places. This meant that it took 10 minutes per nail, I can’t imagine doing this on all nails before losing concentration or patience!
Overall the finished look is okay, and looks better from a distance – but I’m not 100% happy with the end result. I waited 20 minutes for the nail polish to dry before doing a topcoat, The orange colour streaked into the white and ruined the sharp lines which I had actually managed to achieve. The topcoat felt bumpy over the ridges, and straight away I could start to see the sticker peeling away from the nail at the edges
I’m impressed with the nail polishes which I’ve tried from Lottie, but I would skip this Paint by Numbers kit, if you struggle with nail art, I’d say that this kit doesn’t make it any easier – unless you’re happy to use the stickers by themselves. You still need a steady hand, and I’d argue that I actually find these more difficult to use than stripers.
These are also quite pricey – at £8.99, I think there are much better things you can find on Ebay which if you’re not the best at nail art you would find easier and quicker, such as water decals which you can pick up for mere pounds.
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Thanks for reviewing this! Too bad it’s way too time consuming and fiddly to do in reality. I like how the gold looked over white with nothing filled in.
I guess it’s just easier to go with a stamping kit or one of those nail stickers.
Yes you’ve hit the nail on the head with stammers or decals – effect looks better, lasts longer and fits the nail. The sizes were a bit too staggered with only a few sizes rather than being gradual scaling up, for me it meant that I couldn’t find a perfect fit x
Thanks for the review. The idea behind it seem great but from your results and the effort to get good results. I would now pass should I see these.
thank you. just bought these at a flea market for 1£…took me a while to figure it out too..did exactly the same mistake the fisrt time… feel less lonely now ,)
Her nails look amazing and the fact that she did them but herself makes it even better.