Diagonal stamping with Messy Mansion's Accessories Kit

Good morning :) I blogged about the Accessories Kit 2.0 the other day, and here's a mani I did with it. I started with a simple design: I used the triangular shape of the template, picked up the image and lined up one of the sides of the triangle to the side of my nail. Easypeasy diagonal stamping! ^^ The image that I used is a big one from UberChic Beauty, so I could stamp a different, yet matching design on each nail. You can see the plate in this post. You can win that entire plateset in my UCB giveaway, but don't wait too long with entering, because it'll end later tonight!

Dance Legend Julia with China Glaze Millenium, Messy Mansion Accessories Kit 2.0 and UberChic Beauty plate UC-3-02.

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Dance Legend Pure Manicure (liquid skin protector)

Lately we've been seeing more and more liquid skin protecting products, they're a great invention and Dance Legend also has a version, called Pure Manicure. Time to put it to the test, and I did so with a sponged manicure finished with some stamping with a real stainer. I'll tell you straight away that I LOVE this stuff!

Pure Manicure is a minty green, thin liquid that comes in a 15ml bottle and applies easily. It's a little runny and it has a small brush to help get a precise application. A little goes a long way! It's quite clear on my image where I applied it a bit thicker than needed, but that doesn't matter at all for the peeling effect. You can apply it just around the cuticles, or if you'd use this for watermarble, you can use it all over your fingers. I also used it below my nails here, it wasn't needed for this manicure but especially when I wrap my tips with polish, it's easy to get a bit on your skin there as well.

Pure Manicure dries fast and peels so easily, it comes off in 1 go and I just really enjoy that peeling off! :D On my picture below, you see some tiny bits and pieces of polish on my skin after peeling, but that's all loose and quickly removed with the final cleanup. I have used my peel off basecoat in this way a few times before, but that wasn't really doing it for me. It's stickier, it dries to a clear layer, it's thicker, it doesn't have a handy brush... the real thing just works a lot nicer! I can definitely recommend Dance Legend's Pure Manciure, it's such a nice tool for all kinds of nail art! You can find it in their webshop where it costs $9 (and various other webshops sell it as well).

And here's how that mani looks after applying top coat and doing the cleanup (and photographing with better light, haha!). I started with a light grey polish, sponged on a red & sheer purple polish and finished with the black stamping. Reds can look a bit pink on the first coat, and adding that sheer purple also changed its color, so the result looks a lot more pink with a hint of red on some spots. The sheer purple that I used is Chagall, one of Dance Legend's Top Aquarelle polishes, and I really like how you can build it up a little to create some darker spots as well! I hope you'll like this look, thanks for checking it out and have a great weekend :)

Essence Enter Wonderland sponged with China Glaze Ruby Deer and Dance Legend Chagall, stamped with Konad Black and UberChic Beauty UC3-02.

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

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Messy Mansion plates and Accessories Kit 2.0

Hey guys! It's not just 3 great plates that I'm blogging about today, but also an accessories kit that's simply perfect for all the stamping lovers out there! But first, here's a mani I did with one of the plates, you can see them all and the kit further down :)

The plates come with protective blue foil on the front, and no protective backing, but the plates aren't sharp either. Just like the other Messy Mansion plates that I have, these plates are larger than the average plate, they're 7cm in diameter to be precise! The average round plate is 5.6cm, so they're clearly quite a bit bigger. And as you can see, so are the images!

This is the plate I used for the mani in this post, I took a piece of the fence on the right. That middle image is HUGE, haha! And considering how long some of these images are, they're perfect for really long nails too. I just took a small part of that image, about 1/4 even. I haven't seen a plate with fences before, so unique! I bet it could look lovely if you split a fence in 2 and stamp 'em on 2 nails.

The images on this plate are long and narrow, they'll fit on all my nails except my thumb, there I lack a tiny bit on the sides then. But you can always stamp them horizontally as well of course. Another plate with pretty fences & swirly designs :)

And here's my favorite, a plate that satisfies any need for lace designs, and again suitable for those with really long nails as well. These designs are packed with fine details, but the Messy Mansion plates are of such high quality that you'll get it all on the nail!

A England Camelot with Mundo de Uñas Lime and Messy Mansion MM51.

And here's something I'm very excited about, the Accessories Kit 2.0! This cute little tin contains 3 plastic scrapers in 3 different thicknesses, and 2 metal templates. This kit is fantastic, especially for all those fully covered plates, and for all those crazy stamping ideas that you might have but weren't sure how to get onto your nails without a truckload of tape :D I think they might also be handy for other things, like cutting a shape out of dry watermarbles or (homemade) decals. I haven't tried that yet though!

And as you might know, I struggle a bit with plastic scrapers, the sharp metal ones just give the best result for me. But I'm loving the thickest scraper of this set, it works great for me so far! So if you have a hard time getting clean images, trying a different scraper can help, and this kit offers variation in those as well.

Here's a quick test on paper (I haven't even tried them on my nails yet, but I was too excited to share this kit!), I used the largest lace image from plate MM56, and this also shows again how well the Messy Mansion plates work by the way. I cleaned the plate just once in between all these little tests! ♥ The metal templates are thin enough to give no problems whatsoever with picking up the designs, and you use them by scraping the excess polish of your design and placing the template on top of it, then picking up the design with your stamper. I did notice that a soft, squishy stamper works best.

To give you an idea of the size of the templates, the nail shapes vary between 1.3x2.2cm (largest) and 0.65x1.0cm (smallest). In my case, the 2nd most large image is big enough for my thumb already ^^

The Accessories Kit 2.0 is currently sold out (no wonder, it's awesome!!), but you can always fill in your email at the productpage so you get a notification mail when the product is back in stock. Messy Mansion sells all kinds of stamping tools, plates and other products, which you can all find on their website.

What do you think of my black&lime combo? And how about the plates and accessories kit, anything you'd like of that? :) Thanks for looking!


The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

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Random Dance Legend swatches (including black peel off!)

Recently I received another awesome Dance Legend package, and here's a bunch of those polishes already :)

Starting with 2 beautiful cremes, both perfect as nail art bases! This is #03 Olga from the Binary collection, which looks darker and a little more muted green than my pics show. A great color that covered in 2 easy coats, no top coat.

Next we have Enamel Gel Effect #1031, a lovely coffee cream that covered again in 2 easy coats, no top coat. I'm so impressed by the Dance Legend cremes, even these lighter colors cover great and apply wonderfully, without streaks!

This is #03 Olga with 1 coat of #02 Lissome from the Leo Skin collection. Lissome has leopard spot-shaped glitters in gold and black , and irregular shaped and sized glitters in what seems to be 2 shades of gold. I finished with 1 layer of Dance Legend Go Fast top coat (more on that one in a future post). This polish did need some fishing, there's plenty of the leopard spot glitters in the bottle, but with the size of them I didn't expect much else tbh. Some found their way to my nails with the normal application, but I also placed some glitters myself.

Another Leo Skin collection polish, #4 Savage, shown on Glitter Base Black. This polish will give full coverage in a layer or 2, but since the glitters already stand out a bit, I figured it would look better to not have them pile up or any, so I started with a smooth base. Savage is packed with golden glitter, which leans a tad bit to the green side, and has lots of golden leopard spot glitter. Again some glitter found its own way onto the nail, some I fished a little for and placed myself. And finished with 1 layer of Go Fast as well.

I do really like the idea of such an easy leopard mani, but since my nails are quite curvy (some nails more than others), they easily make larger glitters like these stand out. Compare the glitter on the top of my pinkie with the glitter on the bottom left of my ringfinger, one stands out a lot, one is almost fully smooth. So I think these will be better for flatter nails, or really placing them all manually and placing them along with the cruves of the nail (like on my ringfinger), not in the opposite direction.

Next we have 2 polishes of the Eden collection, these are clear layering polishes. However, the silvery/white one can probably give full coverage as you can see above. On those 4 swatches, I used 1 coat on my index/middle, and 2 coats on my ring/pink. Full swatches of them below.

Here's 1 coat of #1 Creation Of Man layered on Enamel Gel Effect #1031, finished with Go Fast top coat. Creation Of Man shows mainly as silvery/white on the nail, but it has a hint of gold in there too. The Eden collection has 10 layering beauties, and they're an easy way to add a little extra to a mani :)

Oh my! This is #6 Forbidden Fruit on the Glitter Base Black, finished with Go Fast. Yes, this collection has some delicious duochromes as well! The main colors in Forbidden Fruit are pink and orange, but you can see a little golden, and even a hint of green and brown in there as well. And what I really like, is that they apply so even! This is the result of 1 coat. Shown on a black base, because that makes such colors stand out most, but this looks fantastic on a lot of other colors too!

And here's a brilliant invention, a black peel off base! Black is probably the most used color for glitters and flakies, it makes colors pop, and it just combines so well with everything sparkly! But oh, the hassle to remove them... We already discovered the peel off basecoat, but why not skip that step and go for a colored version? I like the way you think, Dance Legend!

It can give full coverage in 1 slightly thicker coat, but I'm showing 2 coats of Glitter Base Black here (no top coat), since I found that it peels easier with 2 coats. I did notice it tends to crawl up your tips a little bit, but wrapping the tips solved that easypeasy, just like with any other polish shrinkage. Cleanup is a bit tricky (afterall, this isn't just polish, it feels like a mix of polish with peel off, and the clean up of the latter is a bit tricky as well), but it applies so easily that I didn't really have an issue with that :)

And here's how it peels, showing it here with one of the manis that I showed above, but it works just as well with all glitters that I tried so far. The remains are simply removed with a little remover, and it's not as sticky and glue-y as well, the glue-in-disguise peel off. Lovelovelove it! :D

What's your favorite of this post, and do you prefer smaller posts with swatches, or more swatches in a single post like I did here? Thanks for stopping by and take care!

You can buy Dance Legend in their own webshop and in various other webshops, and you can also find Dance Legend on Facebook and Instagram.


The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

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Catrice for Fall/Winter 2015 - Preview

Yep, it's that time of the year again, Catrice send out the big press release for the upcoming seasons! These items will be in stores near the end of July in the Netherlands and Belgium. Starting with the polish, make-up is further down. All images are clickable for an enlargement. Let me know if you wish to know more of a product :)

Unfortunately I don't know the names of these polishes, prices will be between €2,89 and €2,99.

Roughly translated:
Chocolate is the new black. Soft and subtle tints are winning popularity. This Fall and Winter smoky eyes will be created with warm brown and dark beige colors. The textures are long lasting and offer both matte and pearl effects. The new lipstick colors are intensely dark-prune, berry, Merlot red and eggplant. A beautiful, natural and smooth complexion is the must have base for all make-up styles. New shaping products give the face pretty contours, add depth and create highlights on the areas you want. Dark nail polishes are the trend for the colder months.

• Longlasting Brow Definer €3,39 - Fixing Brow Wax €2,99 - Kohl Kajal €1,99 - Absolute Chocolate Eyeshadow Palette €4,99

• Luxury Lashes Volume Mascara €4,89 - Deluxe Trio Eyeshadow €4,89 - Eye‘Matic Dip Liner Waterproof €3,39

• Absolute Eye Colour Mono Eyeshadow €2,89 - Lash Boost Lash Growth Overnight Serum €4,99

• Velvet Matt Eyeshadow €3,99 - Absolute Eye Colour Mono Eyeshadow €2,89

• Velvet Finish Powder with Hyaluron €4,99 - Sun Glow Mineral Bronzing Powder €4,99 - Liquid Camouflage High Coverage Concealer €3,59 - Illuminating Highlighter Pen €3,99

• Multi Matt Blush €3,99 - Defining Blush €3,59 (according to the PR info, there should be 3 new colors, but I only have the images of 2)

• Even Skin Tone Beautifying Foundation €7,59 - Illusion Make-up €7,59

• Pure Brilliants Colour Lip Balm €4,99 - Glossy Lip Glow €3,99 (color changes depending on the amount of layers and on the pH value of your lips) - Beautifying Lip Smoother €3,59 - Longlasting Lip Pencil €1,99 - *no information* - Ultimate Colour Lip Colour €3,99

• Ultimate Stay Lipstick €4,99

• Shine Appeal Fluid Lipstick €3,99

_________________________

I have to say, the polishes aren't really doing it for me, feels like standard colors that we've often seen before! But the trio eyeshadows and that chocolate palette caught my attention, and so do the multi matt blushes and the pure brilliants lip balm. Curious to see them in stores! How about you, anything that you'd like to see in real life?

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Purple on taupe

Morning! Here's a mani from the vault, with an image that stamped crisp but went a bit runny from the top coat. The result is almost like it's handpainted with a wider brush or something, don't you agree? That wasn't my intention, but I don't mind it here either :)

Perfect Touch #27 Utaupia with Mundo de Uñas Fantasy and Messy Mansion plate MM48.

Purple and taupe combine very well if you ask me, I've done such combos before but then usually with darker polishes. But it works in this lighter & brighter mix too :) You can see the plate that I used for this mani in this post. Thanks for looking and have a wonderful weekend! ♥

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Negative space with Bundle Monster Time Machine

I recently received 2 of the Time Machine plates from Bundle Monster, and I went for a type of nail art that I haven't done before: negative space! I'm still undecided about the negative space nails, sometimes I think they look nice, other times not so much. Either way, it is something different than my usual stuff, that's for sure =) How about you, do you like the peep through nails?

And here are 2 plates of the Bundle Monster Time Machine set! The set has 6 plates, all filled with things you could see when using a time machine: from classic cars and a steam locomotive, celtic prints and casette tapes, all the way to the more recent 'keep calm and ..' and moustaches! The plates have matching names as well, they're called Party like 1869, Hipster Qualifications, Pop Culture Addict, Outer Space Cadet, Gilded Revolution and Prehistoria. There are plenty full nail images, but as you can see on the plates that I received, these are also great for people that like to fully create their own designs from little bits of images.

The plates all have the XL designs (1.5x2.2cm, as you can see on my comparison), and come with a sturdy rubber back and protective blue foil on the front. Needless to say -we're talking about Bundle Monster here afterall- the plates are of excellent quality. The entire plateset is part of the prize of my Bundle Monster giveaway, don't forget to enter :) You can click the images below for an enlargement.

I'm loving the bottom left image, as a whole or maybe just a stripe of it? And I think her arms will make for a nice mani too! Imagine one of those as a smaller stripe on the side of your nails. And if you want comic nails, her skirt will do the trick!

Easy mode galaxy nails, with that bigger image! Stamp it in white on your galaxy-colored sponged nails, perhaps color in some planets... The top right image can be lovely for reverse stamping (where you color in those areas), but it works nice for a messy, double stamped striped mani too ;) For today's mani I used the top left image.


This mani was easy, although I found out that stamping on your bare nails and then using top coat, easily smudges the design. So I redid them with some basecoat underneath (yeah, I'm often a basecoat slacker!), which worked well. My Konad Black was nearly empty, and Camelot was slightly too sheer, but I'm happy to say that adding some metal balls and a little Camelot to the Konad, solved that issue!

A England Camelot with BornPrettyStore studs, and basecoat stamped with Konad Black and Bundle Monster BM-XL134.

You can find Bundle Monster on the following social media: Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - Instagram - Google+ - Youtube.

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

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Subtle sparkling doublestamping!

Hi guys! Here's a mani from the vault, while I'm still cheering on my nails to quickly reach this length again :) I used Captive Goddess as one of the stamping polishes, which is one of the 4 polishes you can win in my A England giveaway!

I started the mani by stamping the first color, and switched the image on each nail (normal and upside down). Then I went over it in the same way with the purple stamping, but then again in the opposite direction of each nail. The blue flash of the bottom stamping and the subtle sparkles give this combo just that little bit extra! The plate is one of the BornPrettyStore plates, which I showed you recently. Don't forget, you get 10% off your BPS order with code ABJ61 :)

China Glaze Sweet Hook with A England Captive Goddess, A England Lady Of The Lake and BornPrettyStore plate BP-L015.

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