Treatment Boots Electric Shape-Up Nail Care Set
Cost £14.99
Spa cost £20
Home time 50 minutes
Spa time 20 minutes
Is there a more perfect beauty aid than the simple nail file? Portable, effective, cheap and eminently replacable, it cannot be bettered. One would think.
Boots, however, has elevated nail filing to PhD level with its Shape-Up Nail Care Set, a cute blue box that contains a violently powered electric nail file, giving you “salon style nail care at home”.
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The set essentially depends on a “power handle” (a bit like the handle of an electric toothbrush) that you fit with an alarming number of filing and buffing accessories to give utterly perfect nails on both hands and feet.
Before I started with the set I thought that my nails were in good shape. Then I clicked the auto cuticle Pusher on to the power handle. Yuck! I now realise that my cuticles were so long it was almost as if I had grown miniature hats over my nails. Hah! Dispensed with in seconds.
Nail filing, however, was a different matter. Bringing your finger towards a rapidly spinning sander and touching it with the tip of your nail is not for the weak-willed. It was like using an instrument of torture. In your bathroom. On yourself. After burning several fingertips from the sheer friction of the device I began to yearn for a night in with an emery board.
Never mind. With cuticles vanquished and nails perfectly crescent-shaped, it was on with the buffer disc. This is meant to give a “dazzling high shine finish” to your nails but cast only an odd, white film over mine.
Now it was on to my feet. After cauterising, sorry, filing my toenails in the same way, I clicked on to the power handle the large shaping stone (I told you there were lots of accoutrements) and attacked the many patches of dry skin on the soles of my feet. This had no effect whatsoever apart from being ticklish and making me laugh.
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Still, the best was yet to come. After varnishing finger and toe nails with bright pink polish, I popped the miniature nail polish dryer (a small plastic fan) on to the power handle and, hey presto, dry nails in seconds.
Only be careful not to wave your newly wet fingertips too near the fan, which is effectively a Barbie-sized strimmer. For the very first time I was left with no smudges.
Home Spa summary: Seems a bit silly to spend £15 on a glorified nail file.
Do It again? Well, now I’ve got the kit, it would be a shame not to.
Verdict from Mr Millard: “That spinning fan looks very dangerous to me”