Wreath Nails

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As you may have guessed from my last couple of posts, I’ve been waiting all year to pull out all of my christmas themed nail art items; stamping plates, foils, and water decals.

In that bunch are these black wreath water decals that I unfortunately applied a tiny bit crooked, but I still really like it over the gold polish.

The gold glitter really threw my camera for a loop when I tried to take a closeup shot, but it still shows the intricate details of the wreath just fine.

Polishes used:

• Rimmel – Bewitched
• Rimmel – Celebrity Bash
• Essence – On Air
• Born Pretty Store Water Decals

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Black and Gold Bells

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Today’s mani seems really far away from what I normally do, with the big gold studs, but they were sitting in my drawer, and they really spoke out to me today, so I had to include them.

I normally only do a design once per season (or ever), but I’m feeling that I’ll be using the bells image from the stamping plate again this season…

Polishes used:

• Essie – Licorice
• Essence – Fame is the name
• Born Pretty Store stamping plate

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Review: Two Thermal Gel Polishes

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I have always been intrigued with thermal polishes, but I have never really purchased any. They usually come from indie brands, and not a lot of those are made in Denmark (and international shopping fees suck!). I was given the chance to review two thermal gel polishes from Born Pretty Store, and to sweeten the deal even further, the thermal polishes come with a matte gel top coat so now I get to play around with that as well.

Because they come with the matte top coat that is also how I’m showing them here, but trust me – they also look good with a clear top coat.

Review: Stamping guide template

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I am in no way a stamping expert, but I try to improve all the time and do nicer and nicer things with stamping. I was given the opportunity to review a cool ‘gadget’ that takes stamping to the next level.

This stamping guide template from Born Pretty Store allows you to only pick up parts of an image to create cool effects. It comes in four different versions. The one I got looks like this:

You place it on top of your stamping plate after you have scraped the excess polish off.

Holographic laser stickers

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I fall into the trap every. single. time. I see some nail wraps or some stickers that look cool and think, ‘Hey, what an easy way to spruce up a mani when I’m in a hurry’. When will I ever learn that the end result is never what you want it to be?

These holographic laser stickers from Born Pretty Store were no exception.

They were exceptionally thin and hard to work with, and I ended up tearing off corners (and sometimes halves) when I went to remove it from the backing paper. Furthermore, I was unable to apply them evenly, because they stuck to my fingers (or tweezers when I tried to use those), and once even a corner had stuck to the nail, I could not remove them for replacement without tearing them. (Do you see the flecks of gold on my thumb? Yeah, that’s pieces of sticker that I could not for the life of me get off again.) That left me with an uneven application and air bubbles that not even top coat could conceal.

Lastly, the thing with stickers is that – even if you can apply them without being able to see the transparent film – they peel INSALE quick. A couple of hours were all these lasted me, even though I was careful to seal all edges with top coat.

Also, can you see how they lose their color around the edges? Yeah, that happened when I applied the top coat.

I think, I am done with stickers. The end result is just not what you want it to be, and the application is not as easy as hoped.

Review: Stamping Plate Holder

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Today, I want to talk about this stamping plate holder from Born Pretty Store.

It has 24 slots – 8 rectangular ones for big stamping plates, and 16 square slots for round or smaller stamping plates.

The color… eh… let’s just say it’s very pink, and not my color of choice. Also, the tassel is maybe a bit much.. But that’s just me..

I used to store my plates in the little cardboard pouches they came in, but this is a great solution because 1) all my plates are gathered in the same place so I can always see the full selection, and 2) with this one I can actually see which image options I have because the pouches are transparent whereas I used to have to go through every cardboard pouch because I could never remember which image was on which plate, and which plate was in which pouch.

The slots are a tiny bit loose, so the plates slide around a little bit. Considering that it’s sort of a wallet, the back of it is pretty stiff, so it is hard to hold it open. Also, it is not very practical that the openings for the bigger stamping plates are on the inside rather than at the top like they are with the smaller slots, or on the outer side of the pouches, because they actually slide out a little bit when the holder is closed or when you flip the pouches.

The organizer is pretty neat for someone like me who does not have a ton of stamping plates, but I could see it being a problem if you’re a stamping wizard with 300,000,000 stamping plates and only 24 slots.

If the slots for the rectangular plates didn’t have the opening on the inside (and if the color was different) then this would be a definite recommendation from me, but unfortunately, it has some minor flaws that kind of bug me, so it’s more like a 6 out of 10.

You can buy it for $6.99 here – they also have it in yellow now. You can use the discount code BOTX31 for 10% off the entire website.

My luck with clear stampers

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I am just not having much luck with clear stampers! I want them to work so badly, because how smart are they?! I love the idea of being able to see how you are positioning your image.

However, not even on the third attempt at finding a good one have I had any luck.

First, I bought this one which only seemed to pick up parts of the images half of the times.

Then, I bought this one for my mom for christmas, but she didn’t have much luck with this one either – she says it didn’t pick up anything at all.

When I was given the chance to review this one, I thought: “Okay, last chance.”

Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out to be the stamper that salvaged all clear stampers for me. It picked up some of the bigger images okay-ish half of the times, but smaller images and thinner lines was a no go. I mean, I have a silicone stamper and a regular stamper that works just fine for me, so I know it’s not my technique that’s wrong.

I tried using it with several different stamping plates – both from Born Pretty Store and two other companies, but it was all the same.

Given that this is my third unsuccesful attempt at finding a clear stamper – and the fact that all three have come from Born Pretty Store – I do not have much confidence in their clear stampers, and I will be looking towards other companies when I am buying stampers in the future.

Silver and Marble

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After some practice, I’ve really grown to love water decals. I didn’t find them too easy to use at first, but now that I’ve gotten good at using them, I love how quickly they can spruce up a manicure for a very little cost.

For this manicure, I used this sheet from Born Pretty Store, and I guarantee that you will see more manis with this sheet, because there are so many images, and I really love the simplicity of the images.

I messed around with making diy decals on my nail art mat and attempted doing marble nails this way, but I still think I prefer

The hype with nail art mats

Products sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

Lately, it seems that silicone nail art mats are all the rage in the nail art community. I have been torn as to how to feel about the mats. On one side, I find it super cool, but on the other side, I find it to be a glorified baking mat.

I was given the opportunity to review Born Pretty Store’s small silicone stamping mat which is 21×15 cm. The big one is 28×15 cm, if you feel like you need the extra space.

The mat has a 3 cm ruler, two circles (one clear and one black), 5 clear rounded rectangles and 5 black rectangles. The mat comes rolled up in a tube that you can use for storing, which is super neat and space saving.

The mat allows you to test nail polish colors over black or clear, make diy decals, use with stamping, use as work surface to protect your table etc.

The mat is easy to clean with nail polish remover, and it doesn’t stain from the polish, even though I tried with dark colors and smeared it all over.

I like using it beneath my stamping plates where I usually use a piece of paper, because when you scrape the plate, some polish scrapes off to the work surface.

I use it to test nail powders over black and white without having to do it on the nails. Even the nail powders, which usually gets EVERYWHERE, easily sticks to the cotton pad with nail polish remover, and there were no particles left after a couple of swipes. I use it to test images from stamping plates and for quickly discarding stamping images where I didn’t get a complete, crisp transfer.

I want to try to use it for making diy decals as well, because it seems like it will be much easier than using a plastic bag.

The silicone makes sure that the mat sticks to the table and doesn’t slide anywhere.

I am glad that I got a chance to try it. I can imagine that once I get more used to having it, I will find more uses for it and thus use it more. Already, it saves me several pieces of paper (/paper towels) each week, which is more sustainable in the long run.

For the low price of $5,99 it is worth having for sustainability alone – anything else you can think of using it for is just an added bonus.

Use the code BOTX31 for 10% off the entire website.

Holographic Foil Nails

Product sent for review

This review has kinda been in the pipeline for a long time. I received these sheets of holographic foils, which I thought looked super awesome! You get 16 different kinds of foils for under $2 – granted, the sheets are not that big, but it’s a nice option if you have trouble deciding on a design.

The reason why this has been long underway, is that the website says that you can apply it over nail polish, and it will stick just fine. I tried that, and it. did. not. work. I was prepared to give this a very negative review, but then – by chance – I saw a YouTube tutorial on how to apply foil where they used nail foil glue. Once I bought a bottle of that, I was able to get it to transfer.

The sheets where folded in half, meaning that the transferable parts stuck together, and when I went to peel them from each other, some parts of the design didn’t come off. That was kinda annoying since that meant I couldn’t get a crisp design.

When I actually tried out the foils, I discovered I needn’t have bothered getting annoyed about that, because it was nearly impossible to transfer the design perfectly anyway. I was left with this distressed look instead. I don’t know how I feel about that, maybe it was because I was expecting something else?

Well, doing the same design on both hands when you have 16 different to choose from was boring, so I did another one on my right hand. This stuck even more together and thus the result was even more distressed, and I don’t really like this design.

Overall, I have mixed feelings. First, why wasn’t I informed that I needed to buy nail foil glue? It could have saved me the additional shipping time. Second, the packaging was not optimal because the sheets stuck together. Third, the transfer wasn’t as crisp as expected, but if you go into this wanting a distressed look, then you’ll like this. Fourth and final, this is under $2 so what can you really expect? This could work nicely as an accent nail, maybe?

Use the discount code BOTX31 for 10 % off the entire website.