Review - Born Pretty Store stamping plate + stamper

This post contains products that where sent to my for review. The opinions expressed are my own and completely unbiased.

Hi people! Today I will do a review of the stamping plate BP-21 and a nail art stamper, both from Born Pretty Store. My former stamping plates with patterns have been way too small to cover the whole nail plate, due to the length of my nails, so I was very excited to try out this new plate, which has bigger patterns! My former stamper wasn't the best either, it worked but it was pretty small and hard. You can see pictures of the products here below, and check out the review below them.

The stamping plate has the name BP-21 and has the daimeter of 5,5 cm, big enough to hold four different, gorgeous patterns which all can cover my whole nails yay! I've been familiar to the stamping technique for about two years, but lacking products of high quality I haven't done it very often. I can happily say that I will definitely bring out my plates and stamper more frequently from now on! The stamper has the measures 3 x 4 cm which is just the right size in my opinion - big enough for whole-nail patterns but not too big that it is difficult to maneuver. The rubber is incredibly soft and squishy (it is so nice to touch, haha) and picks up the images really well!

I have honestly not a bad word to say about this stamping plate or stamper, they are both great products and I am very happy with them. I first tried them out on some false nails, but here you can see my first try on my real nails. Base coat is a nameless, creamy white from OPI and the polish I used for stamping is Gold Glam from H&M. Despite it being a really sheer polish, the transfer from plate to nail went surprisingly well, and as you can see in my photos the pattern are pretty opaque! When playing around with the false nails (to try out all the patterns) I also tried polishes specifically made for stamping and other "ordinary" polishes from e.g. Kiko, and I had no problems with any of them, so my conclusion is that this stamper works with most polishes. :)

Don't forget to head over to BornPrettyStore.com and check out their huge assortment of nail art products. Use my code EPGK31 for 10% of at your purchase.

BY THE WAY

This will be my last post in a while. Today is actually graduation day for me (this post has been written in advance and scheduled) and leaving school also means handing back my computer and the programs that it holds - e.g. Photoshop, which I use to edit my pictures. Until I buy my own computer, I won't be able to update this blog, and without Photoshop I won't be able to edit my photos in the way I want to either. I hope to be back as soon as possible, but in the meantime I will enjoy this Summer, with music festivals, work and a move to our dear capital of Sweden. If not sooner, you will definitely hear from me in September when university starts! Hugs and thank you all so much for the past nine months xx 

Review - Born Pretty Store water decals

This post contains products that where sent to my for review. The opinions expressed are my own and completely unbiased.

Hi lovelies! Today I will review coconut trees water decals from Born Pretty Store! Water decals are very popular in nail art right now - probably because it is such an easy and fast way to make fantastic nail art! Below you can see the packaging of the decals and keep scrolling down for my review.

So. I am not going to lie, I had real problems with these decals. But that was also completely my own fault, since I didn't read through the instructions on the back of the packaging (note to self: read the damn instructions!). Even though that I've never tried out water decals for nails before, I thought that I knew how to do it. Well, apparently not. This whole process was such a mess. The decals wouldn't come off or did it in pieces, I lost trunks so I had to paint my own (pointer), for some reason the clean-up after the gradient didn't work out so my cuticles are a mess, the black polish I used to make the "ground" was old and layered itself on the nail (most visible on my ring finger) and when I finally got the hang of it (look how pretty ring finger is!) the top coat, of course, completely ruined my pinkie finger nail. In short - basically everything that could go wrong here, did.

But despite all my fails here, I totally recomend these water decals. It was only my lack of skills that messed this up, and after some practise it actually worked really well, as you can see on the ring finger - flawless. You can see a close-up of that very nail below.

Don't forget to use my code EPGK31 for 10% off of your purchase at BornPrettyStore.com.

My absolute best nail.

Textured swirls

Hi lovelies! It's been a while, hasn't it? Since our project week and the finishing of our diploma project (which I wrote about in my last post) I have worked with the very last assignments and presentations of upper secondary school, and I am now finished! It is still more than a week to graduation though, but that time I will spend with my beloved friends that I will soon part ways with...

But we are not here to be sad! Todays manicure is a fun one and I really love these shades together. I did a similar thing about two months ago - patterns with textured polishes over "ordinary" polishes. I think that the effect is so cool and really nice to look at, haha.

The pretty, light blue base is 34 from Glam of Sweden, three thin coats for full coverage. Then I used a small nail art brush and acrylic paint, to outline the swirls. I chose to do them in white before adding the textured polishe because I think that acrylic paint is much easier to maneuver than a textured polishes, that often is pretty thick and chunky. Starting with the pattern in white I had a great template to fill in and also had a chance to do any corrections and make the lines reallt smooth when I went over them again. So, the textured polish is Pool Crush from Isadora - one of my favourite textured polishes. Lovely colour with super gorgeous shimmer and nice consistency. No top coat to keep the textured effect.

Highlight of the week

- Warning! Long post! To read about the nails only, scroll down to below the next image! -

Hi! As I wrote in my latest post, last week was project week in school! In Sweden, you do this project called gymnasiearbetet, or Upper Secondary Diploma Project, during your last year of "high school". The project started in August last year and ended now in May, and we're supposed to devote about 100 hours of work into this project, that we have to pass to be able to graduate. Since I go to the Aestethics program with focus on media I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, as long as I could connect it to my program in any way, which is very easy. Pretty much everything has something aestethic to it, right?

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but Weightless Nails is actually my diploma project. I have run this blog for about eigth months as a school assignment, but it hasn't felt like that at all. I've had so much fun and gotten to know so many new wonderful people! So last week my class and our parallel class had the whole week devoted to our projects and the exhibtion where they would be shown. I basically spent the first three days making clouds of paper that we put up in the ceiling all around the school, haha. Our theme on the exhibition was 'The head in the clouds - the sky is not our limit'. During the Thursday we presented our projects in the big audiotorium, in front of all the media students, which woud be about 80 people. I was pretty nervous but it all went great and I am so pleased that I didn't mess up anything! After everybody had presented their work we opened the exhibition for the rest of the school and the public to come and visit. So the past week has been pretty stressful and longwided but also super fun.

Since the project now is over, the presentation held and the evaluation handed in, Wegithless Nails is also officially done. But don't fear - I will continue updating this blog for a long time ahead, but maybe not as frequently as I have been. Even though I am soon graduating nail art will still be one of my biggest interests and the blog is a great way to document my journey in this fantastic part of the world of arts. There are a lot of things happening the upcoming weeks, so we will simply see how many posts I will have time and energy to make, but I will not be gone forever, I promise you that! 

Okay, enough about school. I guess what y'all really wanted to read about was the nails here, right? ;) These are the nails I wore at the presentation and exhibiton. I wanted something simple but still pretty and sophisticated. The result became a french manicure with mint tips instead of white! This wonderful mint neon polish is Highlight Of My Summer by China Glaze. It was hard to capture the accurate colour in these photos, but I did my best when I edited them. As a base I had one layer of & other stories' Swanskin Beige. All topped with HK Grl Glisten & Glow top coat as usual.

Negative space

Hi lovelies! How are you doing? This week is as previously mentioned the big project week for me in school, (I will tell you all about it in my next post) so I have a pretty stressful time right now. However, look at how gorgeous my nails for today is! This is my first time trying out the negative space design, i.e. leaving some parts of the nail un-polished. The process was pretty messy since I did the mistake and used a peel off base coat, and that kind of came off with the nail vinyls when I removed them... But with nail polish remover and a bit of (read: much) patient, you can fix most mistakes. :)

So what I did here is actually really simple. I used some old, angled nail vinyls that I've had for years, and placed them near the cuticle, which would be the bare spaces. I painted the whole nails black and then continued with two coats of the glitter polish, Mermaid Curves from Wet n Wild. After carefully removing the vinyls I applied two coats of my beloved Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat.

Just look at the glitter here, how amazing?? I love it!

Watermelons

What screams Summer and warm weather more than watermelons? I highly associate this fruit with lazy days out in the sun, what about you? This is actually a recreation of a manicure I did over two years ago, so I thought it was time to try it out again. I remember being very pleased with the result back then, I am proud to say that I have developed my skills a lot since then. You can find the old version on my Instagram, here.

Same polishes now as then, but different tools and nail shape. This wonderful textured coral is Itty, Bitty & Gritty from China Glaze (it is just perfect in a watermelon-mani, right? Actually looks like the real pulp). Just one coat needed for full coverage, and after that dried I painted my tips with the light green Twiggie from Color Club. Using a small nail art brush, I did the darker stripes with China Glaze Running In Circles. The white line is done with acrylic paint and a striping brush, and the cores are made with the tiniest end of my dotting tools and black acrylic paint. I chose to not use any top coat to keep the texture as rough as possible.

Dorothy Who?

Hi everybody, guess what? This week is project week for me and my class mates, when we put up our exhibition and present our Diploma Project, gymnasiearbetet in Swedish. But more about that later this week!

The polish I will show you today is one of my all-time favourites. It is so so pretty and I just keep staring at my fingertips all day whenever I'm wearing it, lol. Some time back I used to keep a list over nail polishes I wanted (I stopped 'cause it started to get too long, I pretty much want all polishes nowadays so...) and Dorothy Who? from China Glaze was one of them. I already had Ruby Pumps, the famous, classic glitter polish that basically is Dorothy Who?'s red twin, they are even from the same collection - Wizard of Ooh Ahz from 2009. (You can see my candy cane manicure using Ruby Pumps here.) About two years ago, I got this polish as a birthday gift from my friend Lilly, a gift I of course was super happy for. :)

Dorothy Who? consists of a bright blue, kind of-jelly base, but is still very opaque for a jelly. The glitter is mostly blue but in certain angles, and especially in the bottle, you can also spot some silver glitter, which adds to the depth this polish creates on the nail. Good coverage, here is three coats with one layer of HK Girl Glisten & Glow top coat. Absolutely stunning!

X in 3D

Hi lovelies! I had a pretty clear plan with where I was going with this design, but it didn't really work out as I planned and here I am with a manicure I don't know if I like or not. It is very different from what I've done before, and needed some time to get used to. What do you guys think?

Anyway, I started out with the greyish white My Boyfriend Scales Walls from OPI, great base for nail art since it isn't as bright as an ordinary white. After a quick layer of top coat, I placed stripes of tape in a cross on each nail, and then did a saran wrap with Depend 250 on the remaining nail surface that wasn't covered by the tape. The last step was outlining the white cross with black acrylic paint and a striping brush. I had planned on thin, similar lines on all sides, but messed up some of them so that they got a lot thicker than the others. Trying to fix it, I did the same thing on all nails, which in the end became this 3D-design you see here.

Rainbow

I just have to start this post with saying how much I love this manicure. Love love love! It is so colourful and fun and lovely and pretty. Rainbow gradient with black and white glitter, what could go wrong, really? This is definitely my favourite design in a long time, and that just proves that something can be really simple but still amazing.

I started out with a white base, OPI Alpine Snow more precisely. Using a make up sponge, I made a vertical gradient of two polishes a nail, going from red on my pointer to end with blue on the pinky. The red polish is from Depend and its number has unfortunately been worn away from the bottle. The orange is Lake Orange from & other stories, yellow is Kiko 279, green is Color Club Twiggie and the blue is 34 from Glam of Sweden.

All nails are topped with one thin coat of Clearly Spotted from Maybelline New York, my absolute favourite glitter topper. Lastly, one coat of HK Girl Glisten & Glow top coat.

Make Them Boys Go Loco

Hi lovelies, how are you doing? Personally I've had a fever and a terrible sore on my upper lip this weekend, so I don't feel on top of the world. Fortunately I put on this amazing polish that made my mood go up a bit. :)

So this is Make Them Boys Go Loco from Wet n Wild (I don't think I'll ever get comfortable with that brand name). How pretty? The polish consists of red hexagon and micro glitter in a black sheer, jelly base. Due to the thin formula I also wear one coat of an ordinary black polish here. The glitter pay-off was great, this is only one coat and I didn't even have to make any effort to spread out the glitter evenly, which often can be the case with glitter polishes like this one. I highly recomend this polish to everyone!

Just had to add a close-up so you can see how absolutely gorgeous this polish really is in the right lightning!