I have been eying Vicky’s Bella Belle Nail Couture polishes
for a while now and finally made my first purchase over her Boxing Day sale (http://www.etsy.com/au/shop/BBNailCouture).
I was particularly drawn to her “In Full Bloom” pastel collection, don’t get me
started on my countless mind wrestles ‘this looks very similar to the butter
London/OPI/Hello Darling/Chi Chi in my helmer, do I really need it?’, note to
self – must do a comparison post. Anyway, it is a beautiful pastel crème collection
and I cannot wait to use it for Aussie Nail Monday nailart challenge when the
nail mail reached my doorstep this morning.
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| Awesome nail mail featuring my 15-month missy's grabby hand |
This week’s challenge is “Polka Dots”. I am hopeless on dotting
– irregular sizes, blobs too thick and form gas bubbles, smudging when topcoat –
so I decided to cheat with the dots/bubble pattern on Messy Mansion’s MM02
plate (https://www.facebook.com/messymansion).
Thumb - “Orange Blossom” is a light peachy-coral crème
Pointer – “Mint Leaf”, is a pale green crème with a dash of Aquamarine
Middle – “Bluebell”, a soft powder blue crème
Ring – “Lavender fields” is lavender crème – looks very
similar to OPI You’re such a Budapest but brighter, bit more purple, and
without the subtle shimmer.
Pinky – “Smell the Roses” is a soft ballerina pink crème
Bella Belle’s formula is easy to apply, a minimum of three
thin coats, an extra coat with Mint Leaf and Bluebell. All of them dried fast
and finish glossy.
I didn’t have my normal stamping gears (still in my second
home), but stepping outside my comfort zone taught me a few new tricks on
stamping:
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| the stamping mess |
1) Prepares a cotton ball saturated with acetone – use it to
clean the stamping plate before and between consecutive stamping, and be sure
to dry the plate with paper towel after. This helps to keep polish spread even
and your pattern clear of dry polish lumps. The cotton ball was still saturated
after all my stamping, and perfect for final plate, stamper and stamper blade
clean-up.
2) Have a roll of sticky tape ready, sticky side up. After
stamping on nail, press your stamper onto the sticky side of the tape, and Voilà~
all the residual polish on the stamper magically struck on the tape – instant fuss-free
stamper clean up! This is much better than using acetone as I used to, acetone requires
time to evaporate and impatient like me often meant the stamper cannot pick up the
pattern because it is still ‘wet’.
3) Lastly, this may not be very convincing because this
stamping polish is on the thin-watery side and not my favorite (Ulta3 black satin,
made in Taiwan) – Do not over flood the pattern with polish prior to scrapping.
This is slightly counter intuitive but because only the necessary amount of
polish is picked up by your stamper, the pattern is less likely to smudge/deform
when apply onto nails with gentle pressure, think jam sandwich.
4) One last note – use a good quick dry clear top coat to
seal and gloss up the final design. My current favorite is definitely Peita’s
Quick! Gloss me up! Fast Dry Top Coat – I think it lives up to its name
perfectly!
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| in door shot - the colours are slightly softer in real life |
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