Nail Polish Play

Category: Nail Art

Unexpected Stamping on a Neon Watermarble!

Hi guys,

Two posts in one day you ask? Well I do have a lot of catching up to do 😀 This is going to be a looong post with the neon watermarble first, a review of sorts for the Born Pretty Store 6 piece watermarble tool/ dotting tool all in one and followed up with some winter themed nail art (hint!). You’re welcome to skip all the text and just get right to the pictures if you like!

I was inspired to do a watermarble with these specific colours by a post I saw on my good friend Parul’s (Precious Pearl Makeup) instagram account – here.

Here’s a look at the watermarble I was talking about:

Part 1 : The watermarble!

This is literally only the second time that I’ve attempted a watermarble so be kind! I was going for that floral petal pattern and I think I’ve somewhat achieved that to some reasonable degree.

Here’s what I used:

The Basics :

Basecoat – Orly Bonder

Sally Hansen – White On to make a white base for my watermarble

Liquid Latex for easy cleanup with everything! (watermarble to stamping)

Glisten & Glow – HK Girl Top Coat

6 pc Nail Art dotting tool/ watermarbeling tool from BornPrettyStore : I was really curious about this tool so picked it up with my own money. Here’s a closer look at the tool and a mini review!

Part 2 : The review!

Mini review of the Born Pretty Store 6 p.c. Nail Art Dotting Tool / Watermarble tool :

So this is a new offering from Born Pretty Store and promises to be an all in one! The product listing says it’s a 6 piece set, but as 2 are already attached to the tool itself, you actually get 8 nibs of different sizes from the largest to the smallest.

The smallest pin is what is being marketed as a watermarble tool. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that it had a tiny pinhead and not a complete pointy end similar to the pure colour watermarble tool. Though this doesn’t seem to affect the actual watermarble as much as I thought it would. You do need to clean the tips after every single drag which can be annoying. This is because polish builds up around that tiny tip and it can lead to a mess if it’s not cleaned. On the other hand, this is true of any tool you use for your watermarble, so it’s not something that’s unique to this tool as such.

Now, if you look at the rest of the fitments, I’m really impressed. It has dotting tool heads of all possible sizes and everything can be accommodated inside the barrel of this tool. It’s very neat and everything is very compact. If I’m going to travel, all I’ll ever need for most kinds of nail art is this tool.

It’s made from good quality materials and all the different pieces fit perfectly. It’s not very finicky to use and it really would’ve been perfect in my book if BPS had only given it a proper needle tip for the watermarble tool. So on the whole I’d give this a 4 out of 5 🙂

You can purchase this tool here, and use my code NPPQ10 to take 10% off on this and any other full priced items on BornPrettyStore!

Now, back to the watermarble itself. All polishes used by me are from NewU. As you may know if you follow me on instagram, these marble like a dream! They’re also very pocket friendly so you don’t need to feel guilty about dropping polish in water! Here are the colours I used:

No. 96 -French Blue

No. 94 -Carmine Pink

No. 95 – Green Apple ( more chartreuse I should say)

No. 119 -Grapefruit

No. 122 -Burgandy Brown (clearly neither burgundy nor brown, but I don’t make the names ha ha! P.s.- Yes, I know it’s ‘Burgundy’, but it’s spelt Burgandy on the bottle)

No. 114 – Mango Tango

Procedure:

The process is quite simple , I applied white nail polish on my nails to make the neon(ish) colours pop. Then I generously coated everything with liquid latex. I seriously wish I could liquid latex everything on my table every time I have to do a watermarble as somehow polish always ends up where it shouldn’t! Then I dropped drops of polish one at a time to make a nice (somewhat) bullseye.

Then leaving the first two rings alone ( they will be dry by now) and starting from the third ring I used my tool to draw a line inwards to make the petal pattern. Then I chose an okay spot and dunked my finger in, waited a few seconds and used a cotton swab to clear up the leftover polish from around my nails. I did not remove the liquid latex barrier immediately. This is because the polish is still wet and you risk damaging the design itself. So I finished another nail and then removed the latex barrier from the earlier nail. I then used my clean up brush and acetone to deal with any stragglers left behind.

This is the finished result:

There’s still room for improvement I know, hopefully I’ll get there soon.

I also did a watermarble design on my right hand, and like before it turned out better on this one!

If only my index nail was not broken 🙁

Random closeup of my right hand thumb, looks sort of like an alien blood orange 😀 :

Part 3 : The design!

Moving on to the next part , I am participating in a couple of challenges on Instagram this month – one is a nail art competition by the stamping company HeHe plates and the other is the “Weekly Nail Art Challenge” (or #wnac2015) hosted by MissBellaTracey (@missbellatracey on instagram), Lacquerstyle (@kgrdnr on instagram) and Simplynailogical. I decided to submit this next design for both prompts as there’s nothing in the rules anywhere saying I can’t 😀

I decided to go with a slightly unusual choice of design and stamped some snowflakes on my super bright watermarble. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d even like the end result,but surprisingly I do.

Here’s what I used to create the stamped design:

Black Stamping Polish – Nail Matinee brand – This is an indie brand from India and you can contact Nisha ( the creator) on Facebook

I did face some minor issues (polish was drying a little too fast) with this particular batch of polish, but I’ve been assured by Nisha that the current batch doesn’t have this issue.

Matte Topcoat – Inglot – I swear by this topcoat as it makes everything perfectly matte in one coat. No fiddling with multiple coats trying to matte your manicure. I bought this from the Inglot showroom in New Delhi so unfortunately I don’t have a link for it online.

Konad White Stamping Polish

XL Gold stamper from FabUrNails

Festive Plate 2 – MoYou London

I randomly picked out snowflakes in black and white stamping polish and placed them on my marbled nails. I then sealed it with glossy topcoat first and waited for everything to dry ( which hardly took any time as I’m a fast dry topcoat addict :D). Why glossy topcoat you ask? Well, matte topcoats (at least the one I have) drag the stamped design, make a mess and ruin your manicure. I have just painstakingly made a watermarbled design! No way am I going to risk making a mess!

Once dry, I added one coat of the matte topcoat to mattify my design. I have heard reviews of matte polish not lasting long but I must disagree. I’ve already had this design on my nail for a week and a half as I type and it’s still as fresh as the day I painted it!

Glossy version first:

Looks good, but I feel like something is missing..

And another glossy one:

Now for the matte magic:

Woah! <3 I personally love the matte look! It’s as if the design became more alive somehow!

Here’s more matteness:

Random closeup of dwarf thumb on my left hand ( when will both hands have perfect length nails 🙁 )

Phew! That was a long post! Kudos if you’ve read this till the end!

What did you think? Matte or glossy? Like the snowflakes on such a crazy bright background? No? Why not? Let me know!

See you next post!

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December 4, 2015
Autumnal Stamping with F.U.N Lacquer ‘Burning Up’

Hey guys,

I uploaded this design on my instagram account a week ago and then my internet connection went down 🙁 so this post is a week late. This is the first of a couple of designs I did for autumn this year. I used Fun Lacquer’s Burning Up as my base as it’s the perfect colour. It’s a multichrome that shifts through copper,orange, gold,pink and I daresay green at a certain angle! It’s basically autumn in a bottle and I reached for it instantly.

Swatches of Burning Up :

Looks like a gorgeous wine coloured satiny beauty in the shade!

Some of that shift is visible in this one:

Sunlight swatch spam, slightly pink with orange highlights in the corners:

Looking more brownish orange in this one :

This last one was taken inside and captures the crazy orange shift I was talking about:

As usual, I wanted to stamp an autumn appropriate design on this beautiful base, but I didn’t want the base to be completely obscured by the print , so I went with a simple double stamped leaf.

Here’s what I used:

Basecoat – Orly Bonder

F.U.N Lacquer – Burning Up

Liquid Latex for easy cleanup with stamping

Konad Black Stamping polish

Maybelline Color Show – No. 008 Bold Gold

Glisten & Glow – HK Girl Top Coat

XL Gold stamper from FabUrNails (Not Pictured)

Plate used:

HeHe 52 from the HeHe brand

The process is pretty simple, I chose a leaf and stamped it in black. Then I picked up the same image in gold and stamped over the black with a partial overlap so the black leaf sort of looks like a shadow.

Here’s the finished look:

In sunlight:

I leave you with this :

So what do you think?

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December 4, 2015
Fashion Friday – Adele in Jenny Packham for “Adele at the BBC”

Hey Guys,

I know it’s been ages since I last posted! I haven’t stopped doing nail art, just finding it difficult to keep up with regular posting. Good news is I have a nice pile of unposted designs to get crackin’ 🙂

Today is one of my first fashion inspired nail art looks. Adele is back after a long hiatus with a spankin’ new album and I’m super excited. Have had the album on loop since the time it dropped. I’m obviously a die hard fan! The minute I saw her dress from the “Adele at the BBC” event, I knew I wanted to recreate that on my nails! It’s from the Autumn-Winter 2015 Jenny Packham Collection.

Technically today is Saturday, but no one ever heard of Fashion Saturday, haha! Besides I posted these on Instagram yesterday,so I think it still counts 😀

There’s a pictorial too outlining the steps on how to achieve the look. Here’s the finished manicure :

I mattified the design as I thought it went with the look of the dress.

The michele replica watches are known for their elegant designs and attention to detail, offering you a sophisticated style at a more accessible price.

Here’s what you need to create this mani :

Basecoat – Orly Bonder

Revlon Parfumerie – Balsam Fir

Liquid Latex for easy cleanup with stamping

Chambor – No. 446. It’s a gold foil polish I got as a free gift so I don’t have a link for you!

F.U.N Lacquer – King ( King of bling that is!)

Glisten & Glow – HK Girl Top Coat

Inglot – Matte Top Coat

Plate Used : Fairytale 5 from HeHe plates “Fairytale Collection”

Stamper – New Jumbo stamper from FabUrNails ( psst…review coming soon)

I also used the new sable double sided liner and striper brush from FabUrNails . I love the sparkly elements – the crystals, the reflective etching on the caps, excellent brush on the whole :

Here’s a pictorial with all the steps :

Steps:

Step 1 : Start with 2 coats of Revlon Balsam Fir.
Step 2 : Apply Liquid Latex to protect your cuticles and make it easier to cleanup after stamping.
Step 3 : Apply a gold foil stamping polish like so. I used Chambor No. 446. Plate used : Fairytale 5 from ‪HeHe plates.‬
Step 4 through Step 6 : Pick up the image on your stamper and clean up the excess using scotch tape.
Step 7 : Stamp the design on the nail like so.
Step 8 : Use a thin detail brush and a flakie glitter polish and layer over the stamped design. I used F.U.N Lacquer King. It’s so crazy bling! It’s loaded with sterling silver flakies and gold micro holographic glitter AND spectraflair! It sparkles like no one’s business when mattified!
Step 9 : Add one coat of a quick dry glossy topcoat. I used my absolute favourite Glisten & Glow HKGirl topcoat.
Step 10 (Not Pictured) : Add one coat of matte topcoat to matte the design. I used Inglot matte topcoat.

Now let the blitz of pictures start, I have a ton of them to share as I simply couldn’t limit them to one or two. Here’s the matte version first :

Taken outside in natural light :

I recently picked up some cute midi rings from H&M India. Just couldn’t resist clicking a pic with them too!

Taken outside in fading sunlight:

Now for the glossy look :

Natural light:

A closer look at the foil effect flakie glitter bling that is King! I just had to dab on a tiny amount using the detail side from the 2 sided brush from FabUrNails. I think the bling really amped up the mani.

With flash taken outside:

So what do you think? Which version do you prefer? Shiny or Matte?

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November 22, 2015
Aztec Tribal Stamping Decals with MoYou London Explorer 26
Hello!

I had some time over the weekend so decided to get my hands dirty with stamping decals. I love stamping decals, they befuddle people 😀 Many times it has you wondering “How on earth did she do that?!”. Though I love them, I’m a little lazy when it comes to making the decals. These decals were originally intended for my mother. I went ahead and made extra and decided to use them.

Since I was making decals, I decided to make them as colourful as possible and settled on an Aztec/Tribal print from one of my MoYou plates – Explorer 26. This is probably my favourite collection out of all the ones that MoYou London has released! Such beautiful prints from all over the world!

Here’s all the polishes I used:

BarryM – Elderberry & Almond , They ship to India vis UPS, Shipping is expensive yes, but when you’re a nail polish addict, it’s all part of your obsession 😀 , and you get your BarryM’s in 3 days flat! All the way from the UK, beat that!

OPI Is Mai Tai Crooked? & That’s Hula-rious from the Spring 2015 Hawaii Collection. I bought these when I was on holiday in Russia, so I’m putting links to Amazon here.

Innisfree Eco Basecoat and No.6 – the cheerful yellow that is nameless because Innisfree gives numbers, how sad 🙁 Both were purchased from the Innisfree store and so I don’t have an online link for you, sorry!

HK Girl Topcoat from Glisten & Glow purchased from www.color4nails.com

Konad Black Stamping polish

I used 5 XL Gold stampers from FabUrNails. These are awesome to make decals on! The cap holder is sturdy and sits well.

Here’s a behind the scenes look:

Here’s the steps I used to make my decals:
1. Pick up the image on your stamper with black stamping polish.
2. Use a dotting tool or a toothpick and all the colours you want, and fill colour in the individual details. You need not be very neat as the black stamping polish camouflages most of the overlaps.
3. Wait for everything to dry and cover the entire decal with white polish. I did this so that the colours would pop more.
4. Once the decal is dry, peel it off the stamper. How do you know if your decal is dry? Well, it shouldn’t stick to the stamping head and should ‘pop’ right off. If it’s pulling when you try to peel, it’s clearly not ready and you risk tearing your decal.
5. Use a pair of nail scissors and cut the decal into a size that will fit on your nail leaving a little bit extra to wrap under the free edge of your nail. This sort of ‘caps’ the nail and makes your manicure last longer.
6. Now apply polish on your nail and wait for it to be almost completely dry. When it’s very very lightly tacky, place your decal over your nail and press down gently to get it to stick to your nail. Press down gently or you’ll end up smudging your nail or tearing the decal or both.
7. Wrap the tiny amount of extra decal under the free edge of your nail and smooth out by pressing or using the back of your nail art brush like a rolling pin.
8. Apply topcoat and wait for it to dry. Once it’s dry, clean up the mess around your cuticles with a clean up brush and polish remover. That’s it!
Here’s the finished result:

That’s part of my front yard in the background 🙂

Some more pictures!

Here’s my thumb too :

I leave you with this macro taken in the sun, what do you think?

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September 8, 2015
Textured Stamping : Stay Quirky “Legendary Bloom” & Uberchic 3.3

Hey guys,

I have a polish from an upcoming Indian brand – Stay Quirky, today. This brand currently only sells through http://purplle.com/shop and the delivery is super fast! I got my polish 2 days after placing my order! They were running a huge 50% off introductory sale so I was fortunate to get my hands on a few colours for a bargain 😀 . There is still a limited 25% discount going on, so you can still get these at a discounted price.

Stay Quirky have a wide range of finishes and colour choices – textured,duochromes,satins,gel finish etc. . Each polish has a name and a number. Though for some reason, none of the bottles have the name mentioned anywhere. In some cases, even the number is only printed on the underside of the bottle along with the expiration date.This is a huge bummer for me as I am someone who remembers the name of a polish more than the number. I’ve said this of Innisfree polishes too, they only have a number instead of a name ( the names are sometimes printed in Korean, but seeing as I don’t know Korean, it’s pointless).A number seems so clinical and impersonal, whereas a name evokes an image in your mind. Ok, rant over! let’s get to the polish!

This one is No.825 Legendary Bloom. It’s from the “Jersey Effect” line of polishes, which are basically textured polishes. These textured polishes have sprinkles in complimentary colours and look really soft and feminine (soft despite being textured :D) on the nails. This one is a lovely pastel mint green with indigo and yellow sprinkles. Completely opaque in 2 simple coats, I didn’t need base or topcoat. It also dried fairly fast. No need to run around trying hard not to smudge your nails while doing a task.

Here are some swatches:

They look almost like a yoghurt smoothie/ice-cream on the nails!

It’s been raining here, so the light is a little dimmer than what I’m used to. Here’s a closeup:

This colour is so pretty on it’s own! I also liked the textured effect. It’s not too textured for me, it has the right amount of grittiness.

I also did not use any basecoat or topcoat as it’s simply not required. Textured polishes hold well on nails without a basecoat and considering this is a light pastel, I’m not expecting any staining on my nails (which is the only reason you’d want a basecoat with a textured polish).

I wanted to try a stamped design on these nails. I’ve done stamping on a textured base before and was really pleased with the result.So I broke out my Uber Chic Beauty plates. Here’s what I used:

Base Colour – No.825 Legendary Bloom from Stay Quirky

Stamping Plate – Plate 3 from Set 3. You can find it here.

Stamping Polish – Konad Blue

Stamper – Gold XL Stamper & Scraper from FabUrNails.

Liquid Latex from Amazon for easy cleanup

Flatbrush from Claire’s Nailart Brush Kit for easy cleanup

All I did for this design was to apply the latex around my cuticles and then stamp the design. I didn’t need to use any topcoat at all. One of the simplest manicures I’ve ever done 🙂

A closer look:

From a different angle:

Macro time!

So what do you think? I’ve still got this design on my nails as I type and the stamped design is intact. No chipping at all!
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August 10, 2015
Watermarble success with OPI Color Paints!

Hello!

This post has been pending for sometime now.I did these nails a while back and thought it was time I wrote a post about it already 😀 . Watermarble nails were something that I was convinced were beyond me.I had countless failures and was about to give up on them. Then I read somewhere about how the OPI color paints collection is perfect for watermarbles.

Anyway, one sunday evening, I thought I should give it a go and this was what I came up with:

Needless to say that these are some of the easiest polishes to watermarble with! The polish is so well behaved, it stays fluid enough for you to drag your designs easily. It spreads really well over water and you don’t have to do anything at all! I created my designs over a white base and topped off with HK Girl topcoat.

Seeing as this is my first attempt, I tried a new design on every nail 🙂

Here are the results in natural light:

I used all the polishes from the Color Paints collection. I got these from ebay here.

As you can see, nothing matches, but I love it nonetheless!

The colours are so bright! My camera is freaking out from all the brightness 😀 These colours together remind me of those fruit sundaes full of colourful syrups..

These are my favourites . I tried to recreate the flower on my other thumb, but ended up with something that looks like a cross between a peach and apple sauce:

So what do you think?

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August 5, 2015
Illusion Stamping Nail Art with MoYou London Illusion 5

Hello!

Today I’ve got one of the new MoYou London Illusion Plates! The stamping world has gone crazy with most recent releases featuring illusion prints of one form or the other. MoYou London jumped on the bandwagon a little late ( Hello B Loves Plates!) but they’ve come out with spanking irresistable designs!

Anyway, as usual, here’s the plate:

This is plate number 5 from the Illusion Collection.

I love everything about this plate, right from the swirly eye-boggling designs to the Pin Up girl – Elle.

Here’s the stuff I used for my design:

Basecoat – Orly Bonder

Glisten & Glow – HK Girl Top Coat

So Lacque Glossy Nail Enamel from Bourjois – 06 Adora-Bleu

White Stamping Polish – Konad White

Liquid Latex for easy cleanup with stamping

FabUrNails XL gold stamper set

A.S.P Manicure Saver Cotton Claw for cleaning the stamping plate

Procedure:

1. Start off with basecoat and paint two thin coats of the blue polish ( Adora-Bleu).

2. Apply two thin coats of liquid latex around your cuticles. This is to protect your skin from the polish while stamping and makes it much easier to clean up. I use two coats because the latex film becomes thick enough to pull off in one clean sweep. One thin coat tends to tear halfway around the nail.This dries super fast (<1 min) so don’t dawdle while painting it on your skin.

3. Using the white stamping polish, pick up the pattern and stamp on the nail. Once you’ve stamped all the nails, use tweezers to pull of the latex barrier.

4. Some minor cleanup can be done with a flat brush.

5. Topcoat to seal your design. That’s it!

The finished look:

In the sun. The colour looks a little bleached cause it was so bright when I clicked these!

Here’s a macro :

That’s it for this post! What did you think of this design? I’m tempted to try something with holographic polish next.

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June 10, 2015
KBShimmer Spring Holos and Sheer Lace

Hi there!

It’s been a long week and I’ve been plenty busy. I recently picked up a few of the KBShimmer spring polishes and I didn’t want to do another regular “swatch and review” for 2 reasons – These have been out since February and I think hardcore nail polish addicts/fans/crazies have already stalked every possible online resource to get a dekko at them.The second reason is I don’t think I’m cut out for swatching yet – The same exact handpose with the same exact lighting and the same exact everything- very stressful if you’re the one who has to do everything! Having a fulltime job and a hobby that also feels like a fulltime job is not easy.

Anyway, I decided I would swatch and review these by adding a little simple nail art ( read – stamping, ha ha) so it would give me something to look forward to as well. There are a LOT of pictures in this post; I tried really hard to limit them but I guess I got carried away.

I used a new stamping plate from Born Pretty Store for stamping the lace designs. Ironically, even though Born Pretty Store are really famous in the nail art world, this is my first purchase from the website. It took about a month to reach me and they offer only tracked shipping to India (Even though internationally , they offer free shipping).The tracked service costs $3, which is not much, and you will most definitely get your parcel – which is priceless if you’ve suffered from as many “lost” packages as I have.

I really like this plate. Some of the designs on here are there in other brands as well, but there are still quite a few unique designs on it that make it worth the buy.I am a total sucker for anything lace and this one was in my cart within the blink of an eye.The images are very nicely etched, and the pickup is excellent. The plates come with a regular white plastic backing and a blue protective film. They do not come with a sleeve/case.However, faux leather cases are available for these if you’re interested.

As usual, I used FabUrNails XL gold stamper set for stamping.Here’s a look at the plate :

Even as I write this post, I observed that the design mockup on the born pretty store website for this plate has changed! The product code remains the same, though the images have definitely been changed. Here’s a look at the current listing:

Here’s a better look at the old one (which I have) :

Aaaand I found yet another version of the same plate! (This is so freaky)

Alright, before we get completely sidetracked by the case of the changing designs, let’s get back to business at hand.

I paired the lace prints with the new KBShimmer spring holographic polishes cause these are two of my favourite things – holo polish and lace! Everything is covered with KBShimmer’s ‘Clearly on Top’ topcoat.

Diamond Strength Basecoat – Sally Hansen

Clearly On Top Quick Dry Topcoat – KBShimmer

The 4 spring holographics are :

Blue-d Lines

Ins And Sprouts

Thistle Be The Day

Blush Money

For the lace accent, I used one coat of a sheer baby pink stamped over it with white stamping polish. Here’s what I used:

Sheer Baby Pink – Essence ‘Sweet as Candy‘

White Stamping Polish – Konad White

First up – ‘Blue-d Lines‘. This is a beautiful jewel toned Aquamarine colour. Applies smooth like butter and is opaque in 2 easy coats. If you have a heavy hand, you can probably get away with just one coat. It’s a linear holographic that shines intensely in the sun and even under fluorescent lighting. The distraction factor on all these holos is pretty high,ha ha!

Now for the pic spam!

In the shade:

It looks like a metallic blue in the shade with a slight hint of the holographic effect.

Magic in the sun :

See how insane the holographic effect is!

A close up :

Next up is ‘Ins And Sprouts‘. This is also a jewel toned Peridot shade. Applies smooth and dries fast, has a crazy holographic shine even in the shade! In all the swatches that I saw online, this colour loked more golden than green. It is most defnitely green and not golden. Must have been a trick of lighting that led me to believe it was more gold than green.

Here’s what it looks like in the shade :

It’s a stunning colour! The formula is perfect too with a pretty good drying time. I apologize if I’m repeating myself, but these are really that awesome!

Magical holo craziness in the sun:

See how insanely holographic it is! It’s also definitely green. I think this is the one out of the lot that has the most pronounced holographic effect, which is perfectly fine as it suits it a lot.

The lace is feeling ignored. I love how delicate and feminine the negative space lace is looking!

One final look at Ins and Sprouts:

Now we have my favourite from the collection – ‘Thistle be the day‘. It’s a beautiful Amethyst shade and is SO flattering on my nails! I was really sad when it was time to take it off. Great formula, beautiful colour and an above par drying time- the perfect recipe!

Here it is in the shade :

Sun, Camera and Action!

The holographic effect on this one is also very good. Gosh! they’re all so good, what more can I say?!

Now, for the last one, I decided to switch things up a bit – a black sheer lace accent instead of the white cause I felt black was better than white for this particular shade – ‘Blush Money‘.

Here’s what I used to create the black lace accents:

DIY Black Tint

Fairy Dust – China Glaze

Black stamping polish -Konad

Rhinestones – MoYou London

DIY Black Tint:

Step 1 : Take an empty polish bottle and half fill it with generic clear polish. You can use topcoat too, but I don’t think that would work well for layering, so I’d stick with clear polish.Topcoat is different from regular clear polish. If you apply any polish on top of topcoat, it can peel off – I’ve experienced this in my glory days when I thought I could use topcoat as basecoat!

Step 2 : Add a few drops (around 2-3) of black polish and 2 mixing balls and shake well. Start with a little bit of the black polish as you want to achieve the right opacity for your tint. Too little is not a problem- you can always add more black polish. Too much is annoying cause you’ll have to use up more clear polish to dilute it to the right colour.

That’s it! Your black tint is now ready!

I used 2 coats of the sheer black tint over my basecoat. Then I added one coat of Fairy Dust and then stamped over it with black lace. Topcoat and you’re done.

Blush money is based on the Pantone 2015 colour – Strawberry Ice. It’s a beautiful peach-rose mashup and is slightly different from the other holos in this line. This one has a subtle gold shimmer that runs throughout the polish and is visible on the nail. Also, the holographic effect on this is more scattered than linear. I used 3 very thin coats in the pictures below, and you will definitely need at least 2 coats for this one. The formula is great, just like the other ones and the colour is very pretty too.

Here’s the finished look in the shade :

Looks almost neon doesn’t it?

A closer look at the fairy dusted lace :

A closer look at the scattered holo effect in Blush Money :

Hints of sunlight:

Under the sun :

The last one!

For my final thoughts, I’m really impressed with these KBShimmer holos! I know her crellies are pretty much perfect, but these holos are not far behind. They are very easy to work with. Apply really smooth and need at most 2 coats to become completely opaque. A third coat does not change the colour, you get the same colour regardless of the number of coats you apply.

Here’s all 4 looks :

This entire exercise took about a week and a half as I couldn’t bring myself to remove my polish to swatch the next shade immediately. I wore each of these for roughly 2.5 days each, except for the last one which I had on for 3 days. I didn’t experience an chipping or ‘tiredness’ in my mani. Admittedly, 5 days would’ve been better to test that,but who has the time!

Anyway, If there’s only one polish you want to buy, my recommendation is ‘Thistle be the day’. It’s a perfect pale pinkish purple and it’s safe to wear at work too! If you do wish to purchase the BPS lace plate, you can use my discount code NPPQ10 for 10% off on your purchase.

This has been one hell of a long post! Thanks for sticking around till the end!

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May 7, 2015
“Mind Blowing” Stamping!

Hey there!

So, I’ve been meaning to write this for quite a while now but life got in the way. Today I’m writing about this amazing indie stamping plate company – B Loves Plates! I first came to know of this brand sometime around August last year (they were launched in March 2014) and I was wracking my brains trying to figure out a way to get my hands on them without actually having to visit Poland.

Yes, the creator of these beautiful plates – Anna, is from Gliwice, Poland. For those of you who follow Football, Lukas Podolski – the German footballer is from the same place! Ok! Back to the topic – stamping plates. So Anna opened up her Etsy Store for international customers in February this year and enabled PayPal a short while later, which is how I was able to get my hands on these. She ships the plates via registered post that comes with a tracking number and is actually trackable till your doorstep ( trust me, in India this is a huge deal!) For those of you who live in Poland, she’s got her own website that’s here.

Each plate retails for $15 and shipping till India was a little over $7. She’s released 3 plates so far and there’s a fourth on the way. You do get a discount if you buy all 3 as a set ( $43 for a set of 3).

The reason why I love her plates so much is they are, like the namesake of one of them, truly Mind Blowing! These designs are like something you’ve probably seen in your dreams, except that now you can see them on your nails, and the etching on these is top notch! Not a single failure! The images pickup on the first attempt itself and are flawless!

I picked up two of her plates – “B0.1 Geometry is Perfect” and “B0.3 Mind Blown“. You can take a look here:

See what I meant about these images being crazy(in a good way)!

Some basic info – These plates were mailed in a bubblewrap envelope and were in a plastic sleeve. They do not have a hard plastic backing like MoYou London or Born Pretty Store stamping plates – think FabUrNails style.The edges are rounded and blunt, you will not get cut by them. Images are 1.6 cm by 2 cm which is quite enough for those with long nails. The images are sized so that those with shorter nails can also use the images without it looking like the design has been cropped too small.

I used my FabUrNails squishy stamper to pick up the images. Another thing to keep in mind is the style you use to pick up the image. I first started my stamping journey with the Konad firm stamper, so I got used to rolling the stamper to pick up the image. Even today, I find it a little odd to press down and pick up an image. I’m subconsciously scared that I’ll “squash” the image with too much pressure. Turns out, it is easier to work with these kinds of images by rolling rather than pressing down the stamper.

I created two manicures using these plates. Here’s what I used:

Diamond Strength Basecoat – Sally Hansen

Clearly On Top Quick Dry Topcoat – KBShimmer

Blackout – Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear

White Stamping Polish – Konad

I used B0.1 Geometry is Perfect for my first manicure:

Black & White picture for a Black & White mani!

Here’s another with a pretty rose for a background:

This is what it looks like in colour:

My next manicure features some holographic stamping using Color Club “Harp On It”. This is a fantastic silver holographic that’s opaque enough for stamping. I was gifted this and bought it off Amazon. Unfortunately, they do not ship to India, so good luck finding a polish mule!

I used B0.3 Mind Blown for stamping the swirly optical illusion design and Blackout – Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear for my base colour.

I had to take some pictures indoor with flash cause the sun was not bright enough for the full on 100 Watt Holo effect to come through.

Here’s a daylight shot:

Indoors with flash:

Here’s the last one :

This is what I’m talking about. The image looks like it’s alive! How amazing is that!

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April 19, 2015
Rainbows & Sparkles : Holographic Polish

Hey there!

Today is Sunday! The exclamation is because it’s perfect! It rained here last night and there’s a mellow breeze blowing in my garden with birds chirping. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember that this is a new side to Delhi, which is normally very very polluted and noisy. Anyway, before I digress further, let’s get back on point – Holographic polishes! When did you first get to know of one? When did you get your first holo polish?

As for me, I’m new to the world of nail polish, so I’d have to say that I first came to know of the existence of holographic polish sometime in January last year ( I know! How late was I to the holo bandwagon!). I got my first holo polish through a giveaway hosted by Foxy Paws Polish – a Danish indie brand.

Since then, I’ve remedied the situation and got myself quite a few holo polishes. I know that there are a lot of bloggers out there who think that holographic polishes are overrated. That’s only cause they’ve had them for so long,they cease to appreciate it! I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get tired of them! The plus is, I live in India where we get plenty of sunlight all year round, so If you catch me driving around with my eyes glued to my nails, don’t be surprised.

Today, I’ve used a beautiful coppery holographic polish from KBShimmer. I love KBShimmer! Beautiful range, perfect crellies and not a fault to be found in pretty much any polish they’ve released till date.

Here’s what you’d need to create this look:

Diamond Strength Basecoat – Sally Hansen

Clearly On Top Quick Dry Topcoat – KBShimmer

Run! It’s the Coppers! – KBShimmer

Black stamping polish -Konad

I used the DRK Nails Designer XL 1 for stamping the image. Here’s a look at this beautiful plate!

The possibilities with this plate are limitless! There’s so many elements that we can play with here!

This is what I narrowed down on finally, It’s an Islamic Architecture inspired lattice pattern. These can be seen in many of the old heritage buildings constructed by the Mughals in India (e.g. : The Taj Mahal):

And, here’s the finished look in the shade :

Let the holo craziness begin:

A closer look at the holographic finish is a blurry shot:

I leave you with this last one :

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April 12, 2015