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Friday, January 29, 2016

40 Great Nail Art Ideas: Films








Films are this weeks motto, and I went with one of my favorite movie trilogy: The Lord of the Rings (because I wanted to try out my brand new MoYou stamping plate).





I used an old (well ancient, it's at least 15 years old, maybe even 20, but it still applies like butter) L'Oréal polish with the fancy "name" 343. It's a simple gold metallic polish, opaque in two coats. The stamping plate with the awesome The One Ring inscription pattern is MoYou Geek Collection 05, my stamping polish my usual black P2 Eternal. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top finished this mani.














Another thing I want to show you is this clear jelly stamper Born Pretty Store sent me for reviewing purposes, thank you so much! What's special about this one is that it's see-through, so you can place the stamping exactly where you want without having to "work blind". The silicone stamping head is transparent, and the back of the holder is open, so you can see your nail while placing the stamping. The head has a diameter of 2.8cm and is removable for easy cleaning and replacement.

The head is quite squishy and somewhat sticky, but only slightly. I cleaned the head with some dish soap before using it. I don't now if it was necessary, but I can tell it was all the priming it needed, it picked up the color nicely, as you can see in my pictures. I recommend cleaning it with a lint roller and not acetone. I've read that acetone can destroy the head and I didn't want to risk it, but the lint roller cleaned it perfectly. Another thing to know: to pick up the pattern, you have to roll it over the plate, pressing it down doesn't work. So instead of pressing it to the plate and rolling it over the nail, as you might do with a hard stamping head, you roll it over the plate and press it on the nail. I've seen in a Youtube review that this stamper would only work with stamping polish and not with regular polish, but that's not true, my go-to black stamping polish is just a regular black creme polish, and I had no troubles with picking up the pattern.

You can get the clear jelly stamper in three different holder-colors (white, pink or lilac) for 2.99$, or the complete set with all three colors for 7.99. Each stamper comes with a plastic scraper.










For more nail art items, check out Born Pretty Store (use the code below for a 10% discount)




The stamper was offered for reviewing purposes. Again, thank you very much, Born Pretty Store!




Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Blue Topaz Snowflakes





At the moment, winter seems to be already over here in Switzerland after just a few days. I'm not ready to let go yet, so the snowflakes are on my nails, when they don't want to show up in the sky...





My base color is KBShimmer Blue Topaz, of their new birthstone collection. Blue Topaz is a foil polish with light blue and silber foil paticles and small silver holographic glitters that are more visible in my pictures than they are irl. I used three coats for opacity.






The stamping plate I used is Uberchic Beauty Christmas 01, and I stamped with Exurbe Two Minutes To Midnight. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top finished this mani.












KBShimmer polishes are sold on their website (US only) and at Harlow & Co.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Tartan Squeeze with Born Pretty Store Water Decals





Today I want to show you some water decals Born Pretty Store sent me, thank you so much!





For this mani I applied three coats of Catrice Squeeze Me on my thumb, index and pinkie finger. Squeeze Me is a dark teal polish with golden shimmer.

 


On my middle and ring finger, I applied the water decals over a white base (two coats of Essie Blanc). The decals come in a single sheet without any pre-formed cutouts, so you have to cut them yourself. It's not too easy to get the right width, I cut mine a little too narrow, as you can see on my ring finger. The sheet is rather small (roughly 5x6cm), so if you're going for a full mani with these decals, you need quite narrow nails to cover them all. Application was easy, just soak the decal in warm water (remove the clear protection foil first), slide it from the white protection paper, apply it to the damp nail, pat it dry with some tissue and topcoat it. You can get these tartan water decals in 24 (!) different shades here for 1.87$.








 




For more nail art items, check out Born Pretty Store (use the code below for a 10% discount)




The water decals were offered for reviewing purposes. Again, thank you very much, Born Pretty Store!

Friday, January 22, 2016

40 Great Nail Art Ideas: 3 Shades of Purple







Three shades of purple are this weeks prompt, and py personal pattern prompt is nude base.





My nude base is Pahlish La Dernière Reine, a pale beige nude with copper colored flakie shimmer. I used three coats.

My three shades of purple are OPI Vant To Bite My Neck, OPI Planks A Lot and Essie Full Steam Ahead. I painted them on my Ubermat, let them dry, cut out the triangles, placed them on my nails and fixed everything with a coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top. Sadly, I managed to smear the design with my topcoat.

















Pahlish polishes are available on Bigcartel and at Overall Beauty.



Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Meow Or Never





KBShimmer's Meow Or Never is today's polish.










Meow Or Never has a light grey, milky jelly base with white, grey, blue, perywinkle, lilac and purple hexes in different sizes plus some microsized silver hologlitter. I used three coats for the pictures, that left the polish still a little translucent. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top finished this mani.

















KBShimmer polishes are sold on their website (US only) and at Harlow & Co.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Mauve Lily





 Another purple stamped mani, I seem to be in a "purple mood" at the moment :-)





My base color is Catrice Mauving Leaves (FALLosophy Limited Edition), a dusky mauve creme. I used three coats for opacity.





For the stamping I used Catrice LilART Lily (Viennart Limited Edition), a lilac foil polish, and Pueen plate 92. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top secured the stamping and gave the mani some extra shine.