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New Indie Alert – Moonflower Polish Review!

Apr11

Provided for Honest Review

Hello all my dearest readers.  I have a really exciting post for you today!  As many of you may know I really enjoy stamping nail art.  The problem I run into though is that finding fun colored stamping polish is a bit difficult.  A lot of good cremes will work but they tend to be mainstream.  But today I have four of the inaugural Rainbow Cremes collection from a new Indie stamping polish brand, Moonflower Polish to show you!

Moonflower Polish is specially formulated to stamping and nail art.  These are not run of the mill creme polishes.  You could use them as creme polishes but you may not get the ease of application that you would get with a polish that is formulated to be used as a nail polish and not a nail art polish.  These are much thicker, super pigmented, may stain (only the Anaranjado has been reported to stain but I recommend using a latex barrier and a good base coat anyway because holy pigment batman!), and may dry with a matte finish.

I am going to save my review for the end because honestly except for one of the polishes my experience was the same for all of them.  You’ll see which one had a different experience.

Moonflower Polish – Gris

Moonflower Polish – Gris

Moonflower Polish – Rosa

Moonflower Polish – Rosa

Moonflower – Violeta

Moonflower Polish – Violeta

Moonflower Polish – Turquesa

Moonflower Polish – Turquesa

Alrighty for my review.  I really like these for stamping.  A little goes a long way on the image so there’s no need to flood your image with a whole ton of this polish.  I suspect that’s because it’s so thick and pigmented.  The opacity is really excellent, much better than I get with other polishes I’ve used in the past.

Only the Turquesa really shows up fantastic over black, the others do show up to varying degrees of vibrancy with the Rosa faring the worst against black.

All of these dried matte and transferred well from the stamper to the nail.  It does dry pretty fast (which I actually found surprising for such a thick polish) so you will want to not let the image sit on the stamper or it won’t transfer.

Also, I was playing around with different plates and stampers.  I think you can see on the Rosa pic a very little of the image didn’t seem to transfer, it simply did not come up off the plate.  I figured it was my choice of plate, plate/stamper combo, or my own stamping skills that caused the issue.

So I started with my clear jelly stamper, I got if off Amazon, it’s a no-name squishy clear stamper.  I got only mediocre transfer from that no matter which plate I used.

Next I tried the same plates with my Creative Shop stamper which worked much better but still without careful attention didn’t get a perfect transfer.  All of the pictures above were done using my Creative Shop Stamper.

Then I dug out of the depths of my stamping drawer my old neglected original Konad stamper.  Lo and behold no matter which plate or how fine the lines on the stamp the konad stamper picked up and transferred -perfectly-.  I do not have any other firm stampers to compare but my conclusion is that you may have easier results if you use a firm stamper particularly with detailed or finely etched designs.

I cannot wait to get some more of these polishes.  I feel like I need to broaden my range of stamping polishes now!  In addition to the Rainbow Cremes she also has the Day & Night duo (Dia and Noche) which are white and black stamping polishes respectively.  I will include all of the stalker links below and as usually you can find me on social media by clicking on the giant buttons to the right!  Until next time my amazing readers may your days be filled with glitter, flakies, and perfectly stamped images!

Moonflower Polish

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Everything’s Coming up Roses – Nail Art

Mar30

Some polishes have been provided for previous review

Hello all my lovely readers!  I’m back again with another nail art post.  I hope that you all are enjoying these as much as I am!

I’ve been getting  a lot of comments and compliments on this one and it’s really very easy to do, I’m sure that anyone can do this too!  Let’s start off with the polishes used:  Bohemian Polish – Here I Go, Alchemy Lacquers – Sea of Snapdragons, Digital Nails – Double Helix, and Pretty & Polished – Thyme and Time Again.

 To start I had to get my base on.  I used Bohemian Polish – Here I go as my base.  It’s a perfect sky blue crelly polish.  I did three coats plus topcoat here:

Bohemian Polish – Here I Go

Bohemian Polish – Here I Go

To do the finished look the next thing I did was stamp on some white dots.  I absolutely could have used a tiny dotting tool or a toothpick to make the white dots.  But, I was feeling a little lazy so I did the stamping.  My stamping actually didn’t come out perfect because some of my dots had no middle but I didn’t dislike the effect so I left it.  Just keeping it real folks, from a distance you really can’t tell it’s just in these up close pictures that it’s super apparent.

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Glossy

The next step was the roses!  Using a large dotting tool I made big dots using Alchemy Lacquers – Sea of Snapdragons.  I didn’t worry about them being perfectly round because I knew it wasn’t going to be just dots.  You don’t have to be too precise with this nail art which is great for newbie nail artists!

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Glossy

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Glossy

After I made the big dots and before it dried I used a toothpick to swirl/smoosh Digital Nails – Double Helix on top of the dots.  Then with the toothpick I went back and added a little more Sea of Snapdragons to finish the effect.  Last but not least using a little brush I brushed on some leaves around my finished roses with Pretty & Polished – Thyme and Time Again.

Clearly I did start with a nice glossy topcoat.  But, then I got to thinking to myself, “how would this look matte?!”  I asked a couple of my buddies and everyone seemed interested to see what it would look like so I snagged my matte topcoat.

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Matte

I personally much preferred the matte version!  I feel like it allowed the design to be the star and it didn’t compete with the high gloss!  Both ways were pretty but man oh man that matte version is just one of my favorite things ever!

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Matte

Everything is Coming Up Roses – Matte

There you have it!  Everything is coming up roses here.  I was super pleased with the result.  I really have been enjoying doing a lot of nail art lately.  Even with my little stamping mishap resulting in tiny rings instead of dots I did not get discouraged.  Nail art should be fun and you should be happy with both the process and end result so I try not to let myself sweat the small stuff!

As always, dear reader, you can find me on social media using the big buttons to the right of my page.  Until next time may your days be filled with glitter and flakies!

St. Patrick’s Day Nail Art

Mar13

Some products received for honest review

Top o’ the afternoon to you, my fantabulous readers!  In the past I was sent some polishes from Alchemy Lacquers to review and I did, here and here.  I always meant to go back later and do some nail art with them but life being what it is I didn’t get around to it.  No time like the present, right?  So this year I used them to create my St. Patrick’s Day themed nail art!

To start I needed to create the artistic part.  I’m not super fantastic with freehand nail art, but I like to try my hand at it now and then.  However, I do not trust myself to freehand directly on my nails.  So what’s a girl to do?  Why make decals of course!

I used my silicone mat to create two decals.  To make a decal you start with a layer of clear polish that you allow to dry completely.  Then you can stamp or paint your design onto that polish.  Allow the art to dry then paint it over with another layer of clear polish or topcoat and allow to dry completely.  Once it’s dry it should lift away easily.  I then trimmed out my design with scissors.

The nail art I chose to do was a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I used the Infinity Collection from Alchemy Lacquers to create the rainbow.  I thought it turned out super cute and I 100% admit to being delightedly tickled with how well it came out.

Then I used last year’s St. Patrick’s Day limited edition (sorry it’s not available now, but, at least if you love it you can start searching for it on the secondary market!) from Alchemy Nails – Liquid Luck as my base.

St. Patrick’s Day Nail Art

First I used Vynails Celtic Knot vinyl decals on all but my ring fingers.  Then I applied the painted decals I made to the ring fingers of each hand to finish the look.

I’m pretty pleased with the result.  Let me know what you think down below.  Oh and because I can never resist the flakies:

Bonus Macro Shot

Now, you can still get Vynails nail vinyl decals and stencils and you can still get the Alchemy Lacquers Infinity collection.  So, I will include stalker links below!  As always, you can find me on Social Media and Bloglovin’ (so you don’t miss any of my ramblings!) by pushing the giant pink buttons to the right!  Until next time my dearest readers may your days be filled with Glitter and Flakies!

Alchemy Lacquers

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Vynails

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Water Marbled Butterfly Wings

Mar8

Nothing to Disclose

Hello all my gorgeous readers!  I did some nail art over the weekend and I have been just so mesmerized by the result that I haven’t even been able to bring myself to write it up for you.  That’s because I kept stopping to stare at my nails.  This mani probably ranks up there in one of my favorite that I’ve -ever- done.  I hope that you will enjoy it!  To be fair, while it’s not an impossible bit of nail art people who are new to nail art may find it a bit more challenging because today (or this past weekend, whatever…) we water marble!  In true Relly fashion though, at every step I thought, “oh I love this…but what if I added this?!”  Then, I did it.  The result was much better than I anticipated.

Let’s start off with what you need for water marbling.  You’ll need 2 or more polishes (creme polishes work best, but, some jellies and holographic polishes will also work well but you’ll want to avoid polishes with glitter or flakies), white nail polish, a small cup with filtered room-temperature water, an orange stick or water marbling tool, q-tips, cuticle barrier of your choice (tape, liquid latex, vinyl cuticle shields, etc.), and base and topcoats.

I started with five polishes from the Bohemian Polish Washed Out 2.0 collection.  When I want something Springy, bright, cheerful, and great for nail art I usually reach for these:

Bohemian Polish – Washed out 2.0

First you will prep your nails.  Apply basecoat and then a layer of white polish.  I only did one coat and I didn’t worry about it being a perfect finish, it’s going to be covered up after all:

Step 1

Next, apply your cuticle barrier.  I used Digital Nails – Questionable Browser History which is a liquid latex product, but you can easily use tape or those handy vinyl cuticle barriers (that are latex-free!) that I’ve seen around.  If you’re using liquid latex you’ll definitely want to go a ways up your finger, you’ll see later I didn’t go quite high enough!

Step 2

Then, you’re going to create a bullseye in your cup of water by dripping one drop of nail polish color into the water alternating with each color until it forms a bullseye.  It should look something like this:

Step 3

Using an orange stick, tooth pick, water marble tool, or other pointy thin tool carefully drag it through the colors until you create a pattern that pleases you.  I kept this one pretty simple:

Step 4

Next aim your fingernail at a slight angle toward the part of the pattern you would like to be on your nail then dunk your nail gently into the nail polish pattern.  Using a cotton swab gently collect the excess polish from around your finger so that it doesn’t get transferred to your nail.  Gently remove your finger from the water.  Take care not to move too quickly and work at a bit of an angle to avoid bubbles as much as possible.

Step 5

Now, you can totally see why you need that cuticle barrier!  Cleaning that up would be a right mess! Gently remove your cuticle barrier and clean up any stray areas with acetone and a clean up brush that you couldn’t protect with the barrier and apply topcoat.  Floating the topcoat will help avoid smears.

Step 6

Now…this is where most people would be like, “YAY, a successful water marble!  Let’s stop here.”  I am clearly not most people because what I said is, “Oh, let’s add flakies!”  So I did.  I added a generous layer of Digital Nails – Hyperbole which gave the whole look a shifty iridescent quality.  It’s subtle but when it catches the light it’s lovely!

Water Marble Design topped with Digital Nails – Hyperbole

Again, I said to myself, “what else can I do?!” so I stamped butterfly wings using Vivid Lacquer – VL002 over top:

Final Look

Final Look

Final Look

Ahhh, and then I was finally satisfied.  This turned out so cheerful, happy, and pretty that I could have been more pleased.  This is probably the most successful water marble I’ve done.  They take practice and patience but the result is so great that it’s worth it!

You can find Bohemian Polish, Vivid Lacquer, and Digital Nails at the stalker links below.  As usual, I’d love to hear from you!  This is definitely a win in my book.  I hope you really like it as well!  Don’t forget you can find me on social media by using the big pink buttons to the right!  Until next time I hope your days are filled with glitter and flakies!

Bohemian Polish

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Digital Nails:

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Vivid Lacquer:

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