Once upon a time...

... in a land far, far away, there was a young woman named Brittany. And she brought us lots of awesome plates! Yeah, I can't say I'm feeling inspired to write a fairytale right now :P But one of UberChic Beauty's latest plates, the Fairytale plate, did inspire me! The plate is packed with fairytale related images, so let's have a look at it, see if you're getting inspired too :)

clickable for an enlargement

This plate seems to be especially perfect for people that enjoy creating little stories on their nails, or that like skittlette manis, because you really can go nuts with all these images! Although I can appreciate a story or skittlette on someone else's nails, I usually prefer all my nails to be the same, or maybe just an accentnail here and there. (I can get a bit restless and it can feel unnatural if they ain't the same/similar and then I just want to take it all off, I suspect it's my autism that's involved there as well, but I'm slowly getting into more variation :)) Having said that, I can totally see what you could do with this plate! You could obviously start your story with the text on the top left, and use that image next to it with a path leading to a castle, and then fill the rest of your story with dragons and knights, or go for the princess route, with the top right swirly image? And I see plenty images to create a Cinderella story! You could also make a knight's armor look with the full nail image on the right, or go for a royal look with crowns, maybe in deep, matte red with shiny gold. The full nail wings on the bottom left can also be used as fire, or just as a random stripey design.

For this mani I stamped the leaves design in green on my Uber Mat, and colored them in with 4 different greens. I then applied a thin coat of the basecolor over the decals, let them dry, and applied a coat of basecolor to my nails to which I applied the decals. If you apply a decal, there's a chance that you get airbubbles underneath, and if you stick with just the clear top coat on the decal, they'll be visible through that top coat. I might have airbubbles under this mani, but because of that layer of color, they ain't visible. I think it's much more relaxed to apply the decals like that! I do notice that these decals can get a bit wobbly from all the polish, and need a few layers of top coat to give a smooth result - or just a layer of matte top coat. That way it'll look smooth without much coats ánd the design will often stand out more as well!

Essence Exits On Your Right with Konad Green, Essence Brazil Jungle, Catrice Run Forest Run!, China Glaze Gaga For Green and W.I.C. By Herôme Malmö, UberChic Beauty plate UC Fairytale-01 and Dance Legend Top Satin.

Do you like stories on your nails? And what do you think of this plate? Let me know what you think, and do feel free to share your manis in the comments (links are automatically marked as spam, but you can upload an image there)! :) Thanks for looking and have a wonderful weekend!

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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Simply striped (and 2 DRK Nails plates!)

I've done a couple of more creative manis in the past month, with stamping decals and such, but I never get tired of a simple tone-on-tone either! And I had a nice matte polish standing on my desk, untried, so I teamed it up with an A England polish and one of these pretty DRK Nails plates, to create this simple striped mani.

These plates are from the Cobogo line, and the metal part of the plates measures 6x12 cm. I already showed you 2 other DRK Nails plates in this size in a previous post, and shared about more info about them too. Check out that post for more detailed info :) DRK Nails has a bunch of these 6x12 cm plates (besides their XL plates), and matching cases for these rectangular plates, you can find all of that right here!

These 2 Cobogo plates are packed with geometric designs and I think a lot of them will work great as a bold, black stamping on a holo base, or perhaps a gradient? And because of the shapes, they're also nice to take just a part of an image! Like with one of those circular designs, you could use just 1 circle and apply it to the base of your nail, to take a half moon mani to a new level. For today's mani I went for the striped design of the plate below, and stamped it diagonally. And as I'm used to of DRK Nails, the images are engraved really well and stamp great ♥

I started with 2 coats of a matte polish, that looks a lot more turquoise green than my camera picks up. I used to struggle with purples, which this camera doesn't have an issue with, but oh, my beloved teals and greens... :( I just can't get them in the right shade, they're often way too blue! If you have any tips on that, I'd love to hear them, my attempts so far were all in vain!
Aaanyway, yay for easy covering mattes, they make for such a quick base! I added Saint George with the striped image, top coat and here's the finished look:

Essence Macarena Mint with A England Saint George and DRK Nails Cobogo 2.

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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Pastel gradient with DRK Nails

Morning! DRK Nails send me a couple of their plates and for this mani I used one of them. There's 2 in this post, the others will be in upcoming posts, so keep an eye on my blog if you wish to see more of them!

These 2 plates are fully covered with designs that work well on their own, but also flow nicely into the next, so you could combine them any way you see fit! I used the above plate for today's mani, and took an image from the top, so I could easily line it up on all nails.
I have to say, I found it a bit hard to imagine how the designs of that plate would look on the nail, it's unlike anything I've seen before (or can remember right now, heh). That's also why I chose to use it for this mani, and... I think it looks really cool on the nail! Sometimes it can help so much to see an image used, don't you think? In this case, it made me want to do a lot more with this plate :)

The plate below is one that I haven't tried yet, but it has plenty designs that I can better envision on my nails, and I think the way these images are linked together (especially the bottom row), opens up a lot of possibilities. And these also look perfect to stamp diagonally!

These 2 plates are from the DRK Nails Designer series, which contains a couple of plates in this size, and 2 XL plates (I blogged about one of them last year). The plates come in plastic, with the usual protective blue plastic on the front, and a hard plastic back.

To give you an idea of their size, the metal plate itself measures 6x12 cm, with the white back the whole thing is a bit larger of course. The designs are on average 5.2x10.5 cm. And if you look at DRK Designer 4, you can see 10 images that can be used on their own, even though they're all linked, those are around 2.1x2.1 cm. That'll make those 10 images nice for people with longer nails as well!

I've used a bunch of DRK Nails plates throughout the years and they all work great, and these are no exception. And because the designs are fairly deep, they give you more time to stamp! So if you struggle with transferring the design fast enough, the DRK Nails plates could be a great choice as well :) You can find all their plates in their webshop, and these plates cost $6.50 each.



For this mani I started with a light grey base, then I used Dance Legend's Pure Manicure on my cuticles. I applied 3 stripes of pink/blue/purple directly on a sponge and gently pressed it on the nail, then continuing with the next. Repeat that step, for an easy, soft gradient! The colors stood out a bit more in real life, but next time I'd get colors with a bigger difference, the pink and purple look too similar. Anyway, I continued with some holo stamping, and although LOL turned out to be too sheer for my stamping-liking, I'm loving the result! Doesn't the image look nice? I'm happy that these plates are a part of my collection now! (and yes, I really am getting incredibely spoiled lately! *blush* :))

Essence Enter Wonderland with China Glaze Something Sweet, Kinetic Candy and Sweet Hook, stamped with China Glaze LOL And DRK Nails Designer 3.

What do you think of these plates and my mani? Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend ♥


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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Cheetah nails with Bundle Monster

Bundle Monster kindly send me some items for review, and I already showed you the dual sided tools and their latest plate collection, Shangri-La. I really liked those items, and the items that I'll show today also get my stamp of approval!

I'm starting with these scrapers: they are business card sized, plastic and colorful scrapers, that won't damage your plates. To make sure you won't damage the scraper either, you should clean them with acetone-free remover. The scrapers come in a set of 6 scrapers (yes, you won't run out of scrapers anytime soon with these sets!), and you can choose between 0.5mm and 1mm scrapers. There's 2 colorful sets for each width, so you can choose the designs that you like best! You can find all scraper sets here.
I received 1 scraper of each width, and I'm still not too fond of the thin scrapers, I prefer the more sturdy, thicker scrapers. So I straight away went for that one, and this thicker one works perfect for me :)

The 3D charms are something new for me, I've seen plenty manis that use them, but I just hadn't tried any myself. You can glue them on your nails with a bit of nail glue, or use acrylic or gel to stick them on your nails. The set I received is called 'Happy Hydro Hippies', but Bundle Monster has loads more sets! What I noticed straight away is that the bigger charms aren't fully flat, even the lips fit nicely on my nails because it's curved! I'm sorry for the pink glow on the right photo, I wore a pink shirt and well, these little charms are shiny, haha! You can find all the 3D nail charms here.
It was an easy choice for my mani, of course I couldn't resist that little catface! I started with a black base on 3 nails, and a textured black on the 2 other. I used the thick scraper that I showed above, and 2 Bundle Monster plates with a golden polish, to stamp the leopard print and little paws. Top coat on the print, matte top coat on the paws, glue on the charm and done!

A England Camelot with Essence A Piece of Forever and Bundle Monster plates BM-221 and BM-424, Dance Legend Top Satin, and China Glaze Bump In The Night with a Bundle Monster 3D charm.

Have you tried any 3D charms, and do you like them? Please feel free to share an image in the comments (there's an 'upload image' button in the bottom left corner after selecting the comment field), I'd love to see what you did with 3D charms! Thanks for stopping by and have a purrrrfect day ^^

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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UberChic Beauty Love & Marriage

Hi guys! The last of the 4 UCB single plates that got released recently, is the Love & Marriage plate, and today I have my review of that plate for you. And I used it for a swirly girly mani with pink and glitters!

clickable for an enlargement

This plate truly offers anything Love & Marriage related, from lace and swirly designs to wedding bells and love potion nr. 9. The only thing that I can come up with that's lacking here, is a "will you marry me?" design. Having said that, in most relations it's the guy that proposes, and I have a feeling those guys wouldn't often go for the stamping route to do so =) The plate does offer options to announce your engagement, to have a matching mani for your bachelorette party, and also a bunch of designs that would work beautifully on the big day itself. I think a lot of brides go for a classic French mani? Imagine just a very subtle stamping with a swirly design, or a bit of lace to go with the dress perhaps, or bridesmaids with matching manis? But this plate also offers plenty for wedding guests, or for anyone that simply likes romantic designs of course!

For my mani I started with a matte pink as base, and stamped on the bigger design that matches the weddingdress image, both are near the top left corner of the plate. I then took a silver tip painter and a small dotting tool, and added tiny dots of sparkle to the circle endings of the swirls. No top coat, just a cleanup, I like it just like this :)

Essence Hola, Guapa with Konad White, Essence Silver Sparkle and UberChic Beauty Uc Love & Marriage -01.

You can find all the UberChic Beauty plates on their website, and you can find them on social media like Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for stopping by ♥


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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UberChic Beauty Out Of Africa

I'm continuing my trip around the world with UberChic Beauty's Out Of Africa plate, which is packed with animals, prints and Egyptian designs. Here's a mani I did with it, you can see the plate further down :)

Look at the details in those animal faces! This plate inspired me the most, maybe it's because I was in the mood for some yellow/orange/red and I think those colors match the theme, or maybe it's just because it's yet another plate with wonderful designs. I suspect it's the latter ;) Imagine a sunset gradient and some animals stamped in black, or sand-y colors with one of those Egyptian designs. Now animal prints are nothing new, but with this kinda theme you can't let them out either! And I don't grow tired of a nice leopard print anyway :) I'm especially loving the prints here, and for this mani I went for one of those.
I started with a very light grey base (simply because it's a 2-coater, and dries really fast because it's a matte, so it's a lovely polish to start with!) and randomly sponged on some color. I repeated that until the colors really covered, then I added a thin layer of top coat. Stamping in black and a good layer of my beloved Seche Vite and done!

Essence Enter Wonderland with China Glaze Sunshine Pop, Papaya Punch and Ruby Deer, stamped with Konad Black and UberChic Beauty UC Out Of Africa -01.

Now you've seen almost all of the new plates, only the Love & Marriage one to go! I'll post that one soon too :) What do you think of the 3 plates that I showed so far, which one is your favorite? You can find all the UberChic Beauty plates on their website.


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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Essence for Fall/Winter 2015 - Preview

Morning! Today I have the Essence preview for the coming seasons for you, these products should be available in August. Unfortunately the file with all the information doesn't open well on my pc (I just see a couple of randomly placed images), so I'll just post allll the images without the information. But I think most of these images speak for themselves anyway :) And as always with such images, they're clickable for an enlargement. Enjoy!

There's definitely some polish that I'd like to check out in the store (like the glitter topper, the soap bubble top coat, the right 2 metals, and the 'powdery finish' of those no make-up look polishes), and maybe some lippies. Those kinda eyeshadow palettes always appeal to me, but I'm no star in applying eyeshadow, so I guess I'll just leave them. How about you, what got your attention here?

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Blue roses with Dance Legend Go Fast and Top Satin

Hey all, here's a mani that didn't go as planned, but I'm liking the result nevertheless! I wanted to make a blue watercolor base, but that already went wrong on the first nail. Lesson 1, don't apply the drops of polish straight from the bottle, you might end up with a huge blob instead of a small drop, haha! So instead of a real watercolor base (apply basecolor, then top coat to protect the base, add small drops of color, take a brush with remover and 'paint' it on the drops of color to create a watercolor effect), it looks more like saran wrap meets remover, or something. I'll tell more about this mani and the top coats further down!

I used Go Fast top coat on the basecolor, and after creating the blue effect on top, I used it to seal that in. Then I stamped the black rose design, and used Go Fast again. When that was dry, I used Top Satin to finish the mani.

My thoughts: Go Fast indeed does dry quite fast, and it's a thin top coat, which probably helps with that as well. The application is easy, however, you really have to be careful with nail art! Since it's so thin, it's hard to apply it floating, and that makes it easier to streak or smudge your design a bit. The top coat couldn't really smoothen the slightly bumpy blue base with just 1 coat, but the thin consistency makes it perfect for nail art with a lot of layers that you want to seal in with top coat in between, to keep the finished result thin as well. And as you'll see in a future post, it's also a nice one for stamping decals!

Top Satin does exactly what you'd expect of a matte top coat, after applying a decent layer of Top Satin, it gives a satin matte finish as shown in my pictures. It applies smooth and easy, and if you want just a touch of satin finish, you can apply a really thin coat. I like this finish, and how the top coat allows for some variation with the finished result. I always wear a normal top coat between nail art and matte top coat, to prevent the latter from smudging, and Go Fast & Top Satin made a nice team for that! You can find these top coats in various webshops and of course on the Dance Legend website.

Dance Legend Velvet #655 with OPI I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw, A England Galahad, Essence Forever Mine, Konad Black with UberChic Beauty plate UC1-02 and Dance Legend Top Satin.

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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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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