Born Pretty Review - Nail Art Studs

Hello hello!

I have a fun review today of some Nail Art Studs from Born Pretty Store !

I chose some super cute metallic nail art studs that can be found here and here!

The studs arrived within the expected shipping time, and the wheel contents hadn't shifted.  I like these wheels because they are harder to turn and open than some other wheels I've had, so I don't get a big mess in my nail art drawer or when I go to move a wheel. One of the wheels had mostly larger studs in a variety of shapes and sizes and the other containes a variety of smaller ones.  I did 2 manicures that combine nail art stamping with an accent stud and one manicure with just an accent nail.  I have several more ideas for how to try these, but I thought I would share what I have with you now!

On to the nail art!

The first manicure was using Cheeky XL plate B and some medium sized gold square studs.  The base was Finger Paints Go Van Gogh.  Barielle Mint Ice Cream Cone for the stamp.

The second manicure used an image from XL plate using a base of LA Colors Rain Drops and sponge gradient China Glaze Avalanche and L'Oreal Luminescence.  Stamped using Sally Hansen Chrome Crystal and topped with a large silver coloured square stud.

The last manicure, and what I am currently sporting is 1 coat OPI Off with Her Red and 2 coats Pirate Polish Five by Five (AWESOME polish by an equally awesome brand--I'll be reviewing this very soon) and an accent nail that used one of the tiniest gold dots and a large gold grommet type stud as well as some red rhinestones from my stash. I really like how this addition dresses up the manicure.  It's just plain GOOD to have hot red on my nails but the little added bling makes me feel fancy!

 

I am really enjoying playing with these rhinestones and can't wait to try more!

I want to say thank you to Born Pretty Store for sending me these items to review, and thank all of you for popping by to take a peek!

If you go shopping at Born Pretty Store, remember you can get a 10% discount by entering the coupon code!

What would you do/have you done with studs? Leave a link! I'd love to check it out!  Please no spam.
Happy polishing!
♥
JQ

Born Pretty Nail Art Tape Hex Glitter Review

 

Hooray! I have always been excited at the idea of receiving products for review and in March I was contacted by Born Pretty Store to choose 1 or 2 products that came to less than 10$ to try!  I was really excited to have the opportunity and I and selected  Nail Striping Tape and Hexagon Nail Glitters!! 

Born Pretty advertizes free shipping worldwide, and shipping within 24 hours.  I was told my goodies would be here anywhere between 3-5 weeks.  My order went in on March 12 and I received my parcel on April 3, almost bang on 3 weeks. I live in Canada and they ship from Hong Kong/Singapore, so I was quite happy with that.  Typically, if I get free shipping I am happy with whenever it gets here unless I'll be old and grey.  ;p

I was about halfway back to my house from the mailbox when I busted into the envelope. The items were neatly packaged, and the glitters were sealed, so there wasn't any shrapnel. Not that it wouldn't have been pretty seeing all the colours of glitter burst out into the air and land willy nilly in the snow. (Yes, we still have snow.  A lot of snow.  TOO MUCH SNOW.)

Onwards! 

 Pretty! (Canada penny for size, eh?)

Now for the nail art! I thought a skittle manicure would be appropriate.  That way I could try a few different things.  I got the pink and blue nail tapes so I chose the pink and blue hex glitters to go with them:
 

 My base white is Billie Cosmetics from the Dollar Tree.  

I'm really happy with it!  It was super fun to try the honeycomb hex manicure, even though I obviously need to practice my placement, and I always wanted to try a woven tape manicure.  It took a long time to just do that little section, but I'd love to try an entirely woven accent nail.

I like the way the tape peels off quite easily to be repositioned, but would recommend doing this as little as possible because I think it eventually discolored the tape a little wherever it bent, stretched or overlapped.  I will also have to experiment with different topcoats.  I used Seche Vite on this, and the discoloration became very noticeable on the woven tape.  Again I think this has to do with just how much I messed with it to get it just right. The tape is uniform, shiny and easy to work with, but tweezers are pretty much a must have because it is so fine.  

 

I admit I am most excited to use this tape for masking purposes, as I am not a fan of stickers on my nails, and have a tendency to pick and peel them off no matter how I try to seal them in with topcoat.  I have seen some pretty manicures where the tape was used horizontally on the nail, and I think I might try that, because it is less likely the tape will peel, or that I will pick at it.

The Color Club clear coat I used to adhere the Hex glitter didn't stick them to my nail as strongly as I would have liked.  I think if I do a hex mani again I will just use dots of nail glue and do each one individually, to ensure that I can wear it for a few days or more.  If it's gonna take that much time and effort I want it to stick around.  

 

I found the glitters to be mostly consistent, with the occasional misshapen one, or chunk where they weren't totally cut.  You can click on any of these images for a bit closer look.  You can see some of the odd shaped glitters in the shot above.  I just tipped out a bit of glitter on the paper to get an idea of  uniformity.  I think for the price I got a great variety of colour that will do just nicely for my needs.  I kinda like the odd shaped ones or half glitters for filling spaces when I am getting close to my cuticle or the tip of my nail.   You can even see one pink weirdo on the tip of my pointer fingernail.  ;p  I think it adds character. 

All in all I was very satisfied with my purchase, and will definitely be looking around the Born Pretty Store for more fun nail candy to try.  I think my next adventure will be flocking powder.  

If you are into nail art like stamping, stickers, foil, tape, glitter or flocking powder this is definitely a cool place to shop. My only other note was that I had to double check pricing on some of the products I was looking at because on the initial listing it looked like I would be paying one stellar price for a set, but once I clicked to get more information I realized I would have to pay per unit.  The pricing was still reasonable though.

If you are thinking about going shopping at Born Pretty Store, please feel free to use this coupon code for a 10% discount!  If 10  or more people use this code we can have a giveaway!

Have you tried an Born Pretty products?  Do you have a favorite nail goody?
If you have any other questions about these products I will be happy to answer them. These items have been provided for honest review by Born Pretty Store, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my opinion of these products with you!

Thanks very much for stopping by. Happy Polishing!

Cheeky Image Plate Review

GUYS. I got some seriously CHEEKY mail a week and a half ago. ;p

I splurged and ordered these fabulous rectangular nail plates from Cheeky.  AND THEY ARE SO BADASS.

I am a Bundle Monster gal.  I have 6 Konad plates from when I first started and the rest are all BM. I LOVE THEM. 

But a good friend and fellow nail head let me in on the fact that you could get these other image plates through amazon.ca  And that they had pretty much a whole plate full of PAISLEY. I got 8 plates. The price has even gone down slightly from when I bought these, but my order averaged to less than 10$/plate, which I think is pretty reasonable.  I did the math, counting all the images over 8 Cheeky plates. There are 563.  In the 3 BM sets there are 440. I also took the average images per BM set.  (140, 150, 150) which is about 146.5.  Then divided the number of images in the Cheeky set by 145.5 to see how many BM sets it is the equivalent to. 3.84.  Anyways.  I'm not a math wiz by any stretch, but that was enough to tell me I got a pretty decent deal. SO. PICTURES.

The packaging was great.  Inside the bubble wrap lined envelope, each plate had a little sleeve of bubble wrap.  I got a cute little card congratulating me.  It's a party!  A nail art party! 

 

They all had that nice protective blue film that just peels away, and a really cool touch is that each plate is backed with pink plastic and it extends beyond the plate, so it gives a really nice finish, while keeping your paws, the table, and the other plates from getting scratched.

Shiney!

 

Another thing I really appreciate is the size of the full nail images.  They are nice and big! Big enough that I can select the area to paint and transfer to the nail. Every full nail image has one concave edge that makes them very versatile;  It eliminates the need to have separate images for french tips, and gives me the option for a moon manicure effect as well.I have decent sized fingernails, and I really dislike trying to double stamp.  It's so hard to get a good seam. 

For reference here is a picture of the large Cheeky images next to a larger BM image and the original BM full nail image:

I also like that a lot of the images have reflections so you can stamp the other paw, or mess around with mirroring.



Not only do they do reflections, but also a few different sizes of the same image.  So you can do that darn pinky finger the same as the others, or give the thumb a big one.  :)

 

 Thanks Cheeky!



I'm a fan!



Here are a few pics of the manicures I have done so far:

 

The very first one was the celtic image.  I absolutely HAD to find out what that looked like.

Base: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk 

Stamp: GOSH Metallic Green.  

Plate: Cheeky D

Top: Seche Vite



Manicure #2 kinda reminded me of circuit boards.
Base: Finger Paints Go Van Gogh
Stamp: Essie Good as Gold
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



 Manicure #3 was subtle. I only got a quick shot in the evening, but irl it looked way prettier.
Base: Sally Hansen CSM: Wet Clay
Stamp: Billie Cosmetics Reign
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



Currently!

Base: Sponge gradient OPI Off With Her Red, CR #89, Billie Cosmetics Orange
Stamp: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
Plate: Cheeky A
  Top: SV


Thank you so much for popping by!  Happy painting!

♥
JQ