Saturday, January 31, 2015

Misplaced pictures

Dudes! So I did this manicure like a month ago but then I totally forgot to make a post about it, which is crazy because I quite liked it. But now that I'm in the process of moving from Korea to Okinawa, all my nail polish and stamping supplies are packed up to get shipped. :( So I don't remember all the names of the shades and the stamping plate I used, but I can come back and edit this post later when I finally have all my glorious nail stuff back.
I do know that the glitter on my pinky is one of Etude House's cute new glitters, containing all kinds of shapes like stars, moons, and snowflakes. I sure am going to miss South Korea's fantastic, cheap glitter polishes.





Friday, January 9, 2015

Light purple and copper stamping

A little while back I bought a couple of the Revlon parfumerie polishes, and I really dug them, so I bought several more with my Christmas money. So far of the ones I've tried, Wintermint is my favorite. I got these for the cute bottles more than the scents, but man, Wintermint smells good. The first one I tried was Autumn Spice and I was not a fan of that scent at all. I was happy when it washed off in the shower the next day.
Anyhoo, for this manicure I used Lavender Soap. I was a little bit worried about the scent of this one because I can't stand lavender, but it mostly smells like soap and fabric softener, so I was ok with it. Unfortunately the formula of this polish wasn't that great. It went on really streaky and even after three coats, some areas still weren't totally covered, but I figured the stamping would help to hide it.
Speaking of stamping, I got the Pueen Encore collection with an Amazon gift card gifted to me by my brother. I really like these plates. They came in a lovely little booklet with plastic pages in which to store them. This was my first attempt at doing a multicolor "sticker" or decal stamp. It didn't come out perfectly, and when I topcoated it it got covered in air bubbles. >:/ But I'm hoping to get better at that technique with practice.

Polishes used: Revlon Parfumerie in Lavender Soap, Essie - Penny Talk and China Glaze - Urban Night, and design stamped with Pueen plate SE03A



Friday, January 2, 2015

Purple and gold holo shimmer

I am quite pleased with this manicure. I used another of the three polishes my mom sent me for Christmas, OPI DS Classic. When I put it on my wish list, I thought it was just a gold foil. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it in person and discovered it's actually a semi sheer goldish nude shade with holo sparkle. I noticed it had the same finish as a purple polish I got recently from Etude House, play polish #300 and I knew they'd go well together. I did the design using these funny curved v shape tip stickers from bornprettystore.com and some caviar beads I found at Daiso.



Thursday, January 1, 2015

Knockoff Moyou plate test

Recently I ordered a few of the KO Moyou plates on ebay. When I received them I discovered that you really do get what you pay for. I had to request a refund for one, the copy of Fairytale plate 12, because the cowardly lion's whiskers were just round splotches on his face. So these pictures here aren't meant to be displaying a manicure with which I was happy, it's just to show what results I got from using one of these plates.
The plate I decided to try first was Xiuya02, a copy of Moyou's Fairytale plate 03.
I wanted to use the lightning bolt design, but when I tried it out I was disappointed to find that the image wouldn't pick up. It also dried very fast on the stamper. If you look at this plate closely, the bolts aren't even completely etched in all the way over. I tried multiple times with different polishes, with no luck. Maybe not every plate is made like this, so YMMV. I had the same problem with the circles design to the left of the bolts. Another flaw on this plate are random little pits or specks all over the surface.
Here I've tested a few areas on the plate. I used the Moyou XL squishy stamper and Konad special black. The worst one is the bottom right, one of the dragon's wings. Here's what it's supposed to look like:
On my plate, the fine lines within this design look spotty and not fully etched.

Moving on, I decided that I would have the most luck with the swirly pattern in between the dragon's and horse's faces. It looked the most well etched in the plate, smooth and deeper than the others. However, the darkness of my base color combined with the shimmery metallic I used to stamp make it hard to see the design, so I'm sorry for that.

Polishes used for the final look are Orly Smoked out and Kleancolor Metallic Green. Overall with these plates, don't expect the quality you'd get from a genuine Moyou plate. If there's a plate you really want, save up your money and get the real thing. I don't make a lot of money and don't have a lot to spend on nail stuff, which is why I thought these plates would be a good deal, but they're not nearly as nice as I was hoping they would be.





Christmas nails

I have been slacking the past week or so and have just now gotten around to editing the pictures of my Christmas manicure and writing this post. I used one of the three polishes my mom sent me for Christmas, Zoya Yuna, and a stamping plate I ordered for myself that arrived on the same day. While Yuna is not a very traditional Christmasy looking color, the gray is kind of greenish in some lights, and I think with the abstract floral design, stamped differently on each nail, it kind of looks like wrapping paper.

Polishes used: Zoya Yuna, Kleancolor metallic yellow stamped with image plate QA88 (found on bornprettystore.com). Red flower is from a mix I bought on ebay.