Ok, so perhaps that is a slight exaggeration but let me explain. I have never been one for wearing nail varnish. Or anything manicure related to be perfectly honest. Whilst friends sported all the prettiest colours or perfect gel nails I was the one who was au natural. I will admit to being a little bit jealous. I always admired the pretty new pastel shades in the spring or deep autumnal hues that seemed to grace everyone else’s nails.

There is no elaborate reason for my plain boring nails. The simple reason is I’ve never been able to paint them! Give me a room redecoration or an afternoon painting rainbows with my girls and I’m fine. But my nails, no! I just never got the knack of it. I can manage to be quite neat but within minutes I have smudged, scraped and generally ruined all the hard work!

Yep, I’m impatient! I can’t stand sitting around waiting for nail varnish to dry and thus normally end up ruining it within seconds. Even when I do it seems to be a mess by the next day. I can’t even blame it on having kids as I’ve been like this my whole life. Maybe I’m doing something wrong or just haven’t bought the right brand. I have tried a whole mix from cheap and cheerful Rimmel to a bit of Chanel. I therefore came to the conclusion that it is just not for me so I gave up on nail varnish many years ago.

Then I discovered Kiko. The lovely Charlotte introduced me to the brand and I have to say it is my new favourite. So many lovely goodies and such reasonable prices. But, back to the nail varnish. On a mad beauty dash on the way to a glitzy night out I grabbed a new bottle of the Kiko Velvet Satin Nail Lacquer in Ivory Taupe thinking I would give it a go. It is the softest grey and oh so pretty. I had a few hours before heading out and was without the kids so thought it might be a success. However, 10 minutes before leaving I realised I hadn’t painted my nails. Disaster! So I quickly swept on a couple of layers thinking I would let it dry in the taxi. I gave my fingers the usual quick wiggle (that really does not dry nail varnish!) when I realised they were already dry. I gingerly touched them thinking they would smudge. Nope, they were dry. Rock solid dry. In under a minute. How on earth was this possible? Plus the best bit is the price, only £4.90. Seriously good value.

The nail varnish dried to a lovely matt finish which I rather liked. You could of course apply a top coat but I guess that would defeat the purpose of my new super speedy nail varnish. In terms of durability the varnish didn’t chip. It wore down a bit at the top of the nails after a day or two but when it only takes 2 minutes to redo I really didn’t care. I have since discovered this is sadly a limited edition so I am quickly buying up every pretty colour I can find!

Now that I have a new found love of pretty coloured nails does anyone have any recommendations for varnishes I should try or top tips for super speedy but super lovely nails?

So there you go. If you are like me and don’t have time to do your nails you may just want to give this a whirl. Who knows, it may just change your life!