I am absolutely obsessed with nail art – problem is, save for Konad nail stamping, I really can’t do it myself. Plus, I don’t want to pay someone to do it – especially since a professional manicure won’t last me for more than a week.

Over the weekend, after mindlessly looking at nail art on Tumblr, I decided to bite the bullet and buy Sally Hansen’s Nail Art Pen at Walmart for $7. I may not be a nail art pro with a brush, but with an easy-to-use pen? I thought I could make that work.

You can basically find these pens at any drugstore in the nail aisle. They come in a bunch of different colors (I went for black) including silver, white and pink. Fifteen minutes after purchasing mine, I was back at my apartment and ready to start drawing amazing (or, you know, kind-of cool) patterns on my nails.

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My Experience:

The nail art pen is exactly what it sounds like – an actual pen with a pointy tip. If you’ve ever used a felt-tip marker or a concealer pen, you know what you’re doing.

My one gripe with the pen is that it took a while for the product to get to the tip – I actually thought it was defective at first. However, once it’s running, the pen really gives you a perfect amount of nail polish – enough to draw with but not too much so that it will run.

The color was also super-opaque, which is a huge plus. I had my roommate write letters on each of my already-painted nails (thanks, MB!) which took all of five minutes and looked great and seemed to dry pretty fast. Because I didn’t want the polish to run, I decided to wait an extra-long time (45 minutes) before applying top coat, during which I just lazed around watching Spice World.

When I was ready to apply top coat, I saw that almost all of my ‘nail art’ had somehow wiped off, even though I hadn’t done anything that would have caused that to happen – annoying, right? After another quick application, however, and top coat ten minutes after that, my polish plus the nail art stayed put for the same time as a regular manicure.