Salmon Mate

Corals. Ugh. That's what I usually say because they don't suit me, ever: in make-up, in clothes, in polishes. Except some very cold shades of coral, only then they don't make my skin look dirty and/or sick, lol. One of such shades is Sinful Colours Soul Mate: 

Soul Mate is a soft dusty pink coral shade, quite whitened and with a cold undertone. Complex description of a complex colour, hehe :)

The formula is great, very opaque yet not goopy, the application is nice - except one thing: the brush. It's just sooo harsh that it leaves the furrows on the surface. Either I will have to change the brush, or to try to work in easy quick strokes barely touching the surface. I wonder if it's the problem of all Sinful Colors?

Oh, well, I couldn't but stamp it :) So I took the Bundle Monster BM-306 plate and white Konad polish and stamped some flowers over the salmon.

I'm not really satisfied with how the white polish transferred, but noone is perfect :) I don't know if it was the problem of the plate or of my stamping skills.

Do you have any Sinful Colors? What do you like in them? :)

Stamping Plate KD3 from Born Pretty Store

Keeping my promise to show you another stamping plate that I got from Born Pretty Store. The more I use them, the more inspired I get: for such a price these plates are simply a treasure! Because look what a mani I got without any effort:

As a part of the "standard operating procedure" I would like to devote some words to the base colour. But just a few, because there is nothing much to describe, you will know everything yourself as soon as I say the name - Essie Lilacism.

Essie Lilacism is a light lilac cream - just as the name hints. Just because it's one of my first Essie polishes ever - I like it more than I should, probably. To be honest, it's nothing special, neither unique. The formula is good, so is the drying time.

What is more interesting is the stamping plate. I like 2 things about it: the designs it contains are quite simple but always handy and cute - hearts, dots, bows, stars - standard girly set :) And second, the full nail images are big enough not to care if they fit the nails. And my nails are relatively long at the moment.

Just FYI - the stamping plate costs... how much? No. It's 1.55$!!! You can find it at Born Pretty Store here, and as you know they have free shipping worldwide. Sounds great to me.

The stamping turned out quite fine, even though I made it within 7 minutes and used a usual polish for stamping, not any special one. 

So far so good, now if I see any nice stamping pates on Born Pretty Store - I'll take them because I got sufficient assurance in their quality.

And finally, here's a coupon for 10% discount at Born Pretty Store. Check their site, apart from stamping plates they have a whole huge variety of different decorations, nail art tools and supplements and other nice stuff for nails! 
*The stamping plate was kindly provided by Born Pretty Store PR team for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Stamping Plate QA27 from Born Pretty Store

Let me boast about my new stamping plates: for a while I was not buying any, but I was lucky to get some plates for review from Born Pretty Store. And below is a sneak peek of the result I got with their help:

But let me tell a couple of words about the base colour first: this is a 1EUR (sale) Alessandro Candy Floss Pink polish that I own for ages. Together with 2 other little Alessandros.

 

Alessandro Candy Floss Pink is a baby pink creme wannabe, quite whitened out and with a drop of coral. The application is everything but easy, this little b...baby makes such bald spots that you can't imagine. If you get away with 3 coats - you are lucky.

I don't think this polish is still available in stores, but it doesn't matter because I don't recommend it anyway :D The shade is interesting, but not so unique, so you can easily find a substitute. I like how it looked on my nails in the end, and it was a good base for stamping.

The duty is done - the swatches are posted, the honours are paid to the polish, now it goes to "use-them-up" bin and I move furhter to the stamping plate. Here it is, below - QA27, with a blue protection film on the left and ready to use on the right:

As you might know, I prefer the full nail designs over small ones. And for me the major factor is the size of the image on the plate, as I'm not willing to double-stamp, we are not in 2009 ;P In this particular case the size was not a problem at all, the image is 1.6 x 1,4 cm (for comparison: Bundle Monster (2012) is also 1,6 x 1,4 cm, Konad is 1,5 x 1,2 cm). Quite good, eh?

Even better is that this plate retails at $1.99 (!) - you can purchase it here. For this price, the quality was superb - I had no problems with the stamping process whatsoever, I hope it is visible from my pics, even though I used a normal nail polish for stamping - Alessandro Strawberry Daiquiry. 

I'm looking forward to testing the other stamping plates as well, but even now I can tell you - I'm quite inspired by the price/quality ratio.

And finally, here's a coupon for 10% discount at Born Pretty Store. Check their site, apart from stamping plates they have a whole huge variety of different decorations, nail art tools and supplements and other nice stuff for nails! 
*The stamping plate was kindly provided by Born Pretty Store PR team for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Winter Stamping

...made in the middle of the previous summer. Very consequent of me, I know, I know :) I still like how it turned out, because I used one of my ever-favourite stamping patterns. 

But firstly a couple of words about the base colour. I have to utter it: this is one of the worst polishes in my stash - 17 Toasted Almond. It just managed to be baaad in everything: texture, application, drying time *crazy face* Well, I am not to blame - I got it as an extra in some swap.

As you see, it's a beige shimmer shade with an ugly frosty finish. I don't think it's possible to apply it without the strikes, although they are not so obvious in real life. It takes 2 to 3 coats to cover the VNL, and it doesn't dry any quickly. Sad story - to be brief. Don't buy it. Just don't. Ever. 

What do we do with uglyish polishes? Right, we just put some layering top or stamp over them. I did the latter, and surprisingly I was happy with the result! The plate I used was BM-314, and the stamping polish was Konad Black.

Not so bad in the end, right? ;)

Hearties Day

As you know, I'm not a frantic fan of St. Valentines day, and this is a pure personal thing. I'm not going to poor around bullshit about love capitalisation or whatsoever. Kissing couple make me smile, it's just we don't celebrate it with my bf. However, I find this day a great reason to paint some hearties on my nails :D 

And what colour should be the hearties if not pink... on pink background, hehe! So I used 2 coats of China Glaze Something Sweet as base colour - for its shade, not for its name ; ) And then just stamped the hearts with BM-317 plate and Zoya Andi. I wanted to make the hearts red, but I don't have that special stamping red polish... and the usual reds always lean fuchsia/pink when used for stamping...

I did like the result, only the job could have been done more neatly. The patterns did not really want to transfer to the nails, don't know why : {

What are you wearing on your nails for the Valentine's day? :) Tell me! Or spam me with links :)

Blue Willow

Okay okay, maybe it doesn't have much to do with the Blue Willow, but it does remind me of porcelain, and I simply love white and vivid blue combination. The manicure that I'm showing today was inspired by an upcoming (at that time, half a year ago) trip to Greece. White and blue, aren't those Greek colours? :) 

The workload on "creating" this manicure is minimal: it's just Debby ColorPlay (swatch) stamped over El Corazon Jelly #423/57 (swatch). The stamping plate is BM-314. Everyone can feel free to recreate at home :)

Isn't white + blue = gorgeousness? 

Khaki Squared

Always wanted to try studs in my manicures, but I never could choose which sizes and colours appeal to me more.. A chance turned up recently, when KKCenterHK offered me to post a review on their studs, allowing me to choose whichever I wish to try out. Only then I figured out that I want something middle-sized and silver/gold. Let's start with the gold ones.. :)

...right after I shortly introduce you the base colour - Cliché Khaki. What's so special about it? It killed one of my lemmings which I would probably never own anyways: Chanel Khaki Vert. I know it's not a dupe, and probably H&M Hunt Me Down resembles Chanel even more, but it was this polish that killed my desire for Chanel. And saved me some 200€ lol.

Cliché Khaki is also a... khaki semi-jelly, cold-shaded. Application was great and I only needed 2 coats. The formula is on the runny side, but everything dries fast.

Overall, it's a great shade, and I showed it once already - that was some years ago. By showing it again I'm just trying to show how much I like it :)

And this is how the studs arrived: great packaging idea in my opinion, this little jar is so convenient to work with! The studs themselves are shiny, coloured in gold and 3,5mm in size.

So, after stamping the square pattern with BM-322 and CG 2030, I quickly applied the studs and covered everything with the top coat - this is how I got the "look" :) 

Summarising here.. what you should know about these studs is:
+ they are easy to use and to glue on just one drop of clear polish (top coat);
+ they last pretty long without falling off (esp. with a top coat);
+ you can reuse them (yes yes!!);
- it's was a bit hard to pick them before application lol - or I haven't figured out how to do it yet :D
Overall I'm more than satisfied!

Lastly, I'm sharing a 10% discount code for KKCenterHk online store with you: just enter "ritterbraten" before paying! Check their shop, they really have interesting stuff for nail art and other beauty supplies : )
*The studs were kindly provided by KKCenterHk PR team for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.