Hi there 🙂 As it started getting colder and my mood started getting gloomier I really felt like doing a dark mani. I was really in the mood to wear black polish, which is unusual for me. I have nothing against black polish, but it isn’t the first colour I would reach for when I’m indecisive. I was mulling over how I could make black more interesting and knew it was the perfect opportunity to bring out some glitter! Glitter makes everything better, right? Well…it doesn’t make polish removal better, but usually it’s worth it 😉 Let me show you what I came up with.
I started off with a base coat to protect my nails. I painted 2 coats of essence black is back on all of my nails. This black isn’t super opaque, so you do need 2 coats to finish it off. On my ring nail I painted a coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean. Drawing inspiration from the green and blue shift in the glitters and flakies, I decided rather than just use it over all my nails I would do some stamping to compliment it. I used my PUEEN 26 stamping plate with M Polish Pish Plashin’ Around (blue) and Get Lost (green) to stamp on my pinkie and index nails. On my middle nail I added a green and blue rhinestone. I sealed everything in with a coat of Seche Vite.
I was really planning on being lazy and just slapping on some black polish with glitter over it when I sat down to do this mani, but I sure was glad I got a jolt of inspiration from Green Ocean. I loved wearing this mani so much! I also happen to know that Green Ocean is my bestie, Pish Posh Polish‘s, favourite Sinful Colors polish…plus the blue stamping polish was named after her, so I dedicate this one to Pishy! I would love to hear your thoughts on this one in the comments below 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Hi everyone! Today I’m reviewing the bornprettystore clear jelly stamper pictured above. As you can see you receive a stamper and a scraper with your purchase. The clear stampers took the nail art world by storm a while ago and I really wanted to try one out. I had not gotten around to ordering one yet, so I jumped at the chance of reviewing one. I knew it was already on it’s way to me and I was seeing a lot of people posting about problems picking up images with the clear stampers, but I wasn’t sure if the stampers they were struggling with were from bornprettystore as they are stocked elsewhere too. So when I received mine I was both excited and nervous. Before creating my mani, I did a few tests to see how it picks up images. For all the swatches below I used MoYou London black stamping polish. Here are the results:
As you can see the stamper does pick up images well. I didn’t prime it at all since this would cloud the stamping head and defeat the purpose. I did wipe it down with acetone once. This is not recommended for any stamper, but I have had success with this once before with a marshmallow stamper and wanted to see if it made a difference. It didn’t. Although it picks up images well, as with any other stamper it does depend on the plate/polish/stamper combination. I also found that some trial and error worked well. At times I couldn’t pick up an image, but changing my scraping direction and pressure made a difference. It did fail to pick up some images that I was able to pick up with another stamper, but this is pretty standard for any stamper that I’ve worked with. The stamper is 2.8 cm in diameter and is squishy. It is not firm, nor marshmallow, but somewhere in between.
The reason these stampers are so popular is that it can really help you line up your stamping and place your images exactly where you want them. I think my stamping skills are intermediate at best, so this is beneficial to me. I’ve seen pros line up stamping like a boss even without a clear stamper and always been jealous, now I have an ace up my sleeve 😉 Of course a clear stamper like this called for a mani that needed specific placement and I couldn’t think of a better way to showcase this than a double stamped mani. Let me show you what I came up with.
I would really love to hear your thoughts on this mani and the clear stampers in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
I started off with a base coat to protect my nails. I sponged on a gradient using Tip Top Melting Marshmallows (gift) and Rubybox Nailed It! Pretty Minted (
In the set you receive 2 polishes. A silver base colour and a jelly which is designed to go over the silver. I think the concept is pretty much the same as the OPI Color Paints range where a silver is used as a base and you also have a sheer tinted polish to go over it. In my mind the silver is used to help the sheer polish ‘pop’ and also to ensure opacity. I was bouncing around ideas with 
