Cheeky Beauty Stamping Plates: Summer Collection (CH30-CH55) ~ Review

In my today's post I have an honour to present you a review of a whole set of stamping plates created by Cheeky Beauty - I'm sure you have hears of this brand already : ) In their online store they offer a whole range of nice stuff for nail art, stamping beauty and more. 

The stamping plates set I am going to review is Cheeky Plates Summer Collection 2012, it consists of 26 (!) stamping plates and includes 161 different designs. This set is currently a top-seller on their web-site, and it's available here for 24,99$ (+free worldwide shipping!) - less than 1$ for a plate, which is a super fair deal.

The plates arrived to me in a big envelope full of cute colourful things, including 2 postcards, a personal letter (very pleasant to get :)) and, of course, the plates themselves. Do you see this adorable box on the photo below? Seriously, I think it's the best packaging for a stamping plates set I've ever seen!   

If we open the box, we see the plates piled inside... and not only! There is also a plastic card, which - ! - can be used as a scraper! I never use a metal scraper anyway, but I can tell you that this card is very handy to scrape away the excess polish from the plate, because it's a bit thicker and more resilient than other plastic cards I use. It's also much cuter :) 

Shall we see the plates themselves? The summer collection includes the plates numbered from CH30 to CH 55. The previous plates, CH1-CH26 are combined in the Vibrant Collection, available here.

Why I liked the Summer Collection set is because it combines small images together with full-nail designs, and because the designs themselves are pretty cool and unique. I fell in love with the monsters on CH32!! 

(all images below are clickable!)

Each plate is covered with a blue protection film (that's why the plates look blue on the previous photos), which is easy to remove. Under the film, the designs are very accurate and well-engraved, thus providing a high quality of stamping.

Each plate has also a paper back to protect the fingers and hands from cuts. The edges of the plates are not sharp. And I took a photo of the card again - it's a "nail artist license" as well : ) Now I'm a licensed stamper, hehe : )

And one more VERY POSITIVE feature of the Cheeky plates I wanted to mention - the size of the images! Finally the designers of stamping plates realised that there are women who wear longer nails than nubbins, and that they want to stamp them, too.. The size of Cheeky Beauty plates is approx. 15x20mm, which is larger comparing to, let's say Konad and Bundle Monster. 

And now it's time to move from 'theory' to 'practice' : ) 

Before I show you some designs I made with Cheeky plates, I should say that I was fascinated by the outstanding quality of the plates and their user-friendliness. It's so easy and pleasant to work with them, that even if you are not a stamping pro, I'm sure that you'll get a nice result. Okay, now to my manis with Cheeky plates: 

1. Andreia #75 (2 coats) stamped with CH46 and Manhattan Melting Cobalt

2. OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons (2 coats) stamped with CH52 and Konad Black stamping polish

3. Essie Knockout Pout (2 coats) stamped with CH44 and OPI Pink Flamenco

What do you think, girls? Do you own Cheeky plates? Or planning to get them maybe? :)

*The stamping plates were kindly provided by Cheeky Beauty PR team for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the products. 

Pasha

Moin, today I'm showing something special. Special for me, because I normally don't wear such colours. But as I was looking at the swatches of Zoya Pasha on the web, I was thinking how nice it looks, and then Pasha went to my wish list. I never really hoped to get it, but Carolina was so kind to send it to me in a swap : ) For a long time I didn't have courage to try it, but I couldn't just keep watching at it forever, so here are the swatches:

Pasha is a coffee-with-milk cool-shaded polish with a silver shimmer (frost, if you want), and I just cannot describe it any other way.. Somewhere between beige and taupe?

The main stress should be made on the words "cool-shaded". Exactly because of that it doesn't create 'lobster hands' effect on me, but if you have warm skin tone, you won't have to worry at all : ) I did worry. In vain, as it turned out.

For Pasha to look nice on your nails they have to be without ridges - this polish tends to highlight them. Secondly, you will need a top coat in order to smooth the shimmer streaks. On the photos there are barely any - that's only because of the top coat. Otherwise, the application is typical Zoya - smooth and nice, 2 fast drying coats. 

Otherwise, Zoya Pasha was the only case when my bf, being asked if he likes it on my nails, said explicitly: "No". Maybe it was weird for him to see such a colour on me, don't know. Me, on the contrary.. I liked Pasha more than I expected : ) Do you?

Gals Stamping Plates ~ Preview

Hello there to all the stamping lovers : ) I have some good news!

You surely know Cheeky Beauty and their amazing stamping plates, right? So, this time, the sister brand of Cheeky Beauty - Gals Cosmetics - is launching two amazing sets of stamping plates!

"Princess Set": is available here for $12.99 (yes, all 25 plates!!)

"Fairy Set": is available here for 15.99$

What I like is the size of the plates (the full nail images will be as big as Cheeky's Vibrant Collection) and the cool patterns they have. Can't wait to get my hands on them! : )

Bloom-A-Loom

Hellow! : )

No worries, I'm still alive, just pretty busy.. During the last weeks I've travelled so many km within Germany, that Deutsche Bahn has to grant me BahnCard 150 1st Class+ or something like that. Fuf. 

Anyways, I never gave up painting my nails, neither blogging, so here I am with a new post. Today's post is in a way a tribute to one polish I like very much - Essence Bloom-A-Loom, as well as the whole collection it stems from, Blossoms Etc LE. I bought all five, and it was the only time that I bought am entire collection. Actually, I already showed Bloom-A-Loom stamped, and within a duo-manicure, but now it's gonna shine alone : )   

Essence Bloom-A-Loom is a very simple lavender creme, with a hidden shimmer which is only (and barely) visible in the bottle. The polish is opaque, but thick, I had to be careful to layer the 2d coat carefully. Otherwise it's nice. But of course not unique. 

There's nothing much to add, besides that I like this polish. So I just let the photos speak for themselves : )

Eternal Optimist

I perfectly remember that sunny spring day - yes, old swatches again - when I felt like wearing something bright or neon, but because of a damn meeting in the ministry the most I could "afford" on my nails is a muted nude. So I chose Essie Eternal Optimist, which I personally refer to the category of "nude but not nude" polishes. 

What is special about this polish, is more the name than the colour. Although under "Eternal Optimist" I would more envisage some crazy pink neon shade, I still like it because this is exactly how my friends call me, lol. 

The colour, on the contrary, is not very optimistic - it's a beige-pink nude creme, and not the easiest one to work with. If you are lucky, you'll get away with 2 coats, if not - 3.

Moments when I like the colour of Eternal Optimist the most is when it occurs to be under the cold day light. Then it shows the drop of its purple undertone, which is so flattering for my skin tone: 

After a long day, when I was finally home, I decided at least to make some stamping to spoil the calmness of the colour. Here it is, done with Catrice Plum Play With Me, as far as I remember. 

Unfortunately, it turned out too subtle too, and so not matching my demand for intense colours. Well, maybe that's why I'm posting it now - when I took the pics, I didn't like this mani. Now I do. Eh, time changes everything : )