Reversed stamping with lots of colors!

Heya! Lately I've been spoiled badly with all the plates that I received, but doing those reviews also ment that I didn't get to play as much with each plate as I'd like (not complaining here, don't get me wrong, it's awesome and I feel SO honored that I got those opportunities! :)). Having foster kittens doesn't help either, but my current sweeties are doing great, and stamping decals combine nicely with kittens: I can make them in between and won't have to walk around with wet nails as much! So that's exactly what I did here, I took a plate from a set that I wanted to play more with, Bundle Monster's Shangri-La set, and made decals on my Uber Mat last night while they were sleeping. And today, during another nap, I finished the mani :)

I made decals with a white stamped design and colored them in with a bunch of colors and the dual sides tools I showed recently, but the downside of so much colors is that you can end up with thicker, uneven decals. Then I thought of ridge filler, and that worked great! So instead of using a lot of top coat to even it all out, I glued the decals onto my nails with basecoat, then used just a thin layer of top coat (since I wasn't sure how ridge filler would work directly on the decals, I'll try that out some other time), then ridgefiller, then another thin layer of top coat. Because the decals were already dry, and I used a fast drying top coat, it didn't take much time at all, and the result was a lot smoother and thinner than with a couple coats of top coat!

China Glaze Aquadelic with accentnails of Konad White with Bundle Monster BM-S107 and China Glaze Aquadelic, China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic, HEMA #840, W.I.C. by Herôme Aarhus & Yokohama.

Thanks for stopping by and take care :)

Read More

UberChic Beauty Collection 4

Besides the Uber Mat, which I blogged about in my previous post, UberChic Beauty also released a bunch of new plates! A new collection and 2 loose plates, and today I have my review of the collection for you :)

The plates have the usual UberChic Beauty size, and so do the images. And yes, they have the protective back and blue foil too, I'm sure that didn't come as a surprise! I like the size of the UCB images, when my nails are a bit shorter I can even stamp them sideways as well, offering even more options. I recently updated my stamping plate size comparison, you can see how big these images are on this blogpage. Here are the plates in the 4th collection, all plates are clickable for an enlargement!

These plates really have that UberChic feel to them, don't you agree? I'll tell you straight away, it's yet another lovely set by UCB if you ask me! What I like a lot is that several images can be combined beautifully, because they're based on the same design, as the bottom right images show well. Or the loose flowers in the middle, that match the full nail image in the middle right. And that full nail image left of 'Indie ♥' reminds me a lot of an image of UCB plate UC 1-03 (the image on the middle of the right row), I think they'll match well to get a design stamped on normal and in the opposite way!

The 2nd plate offers more of that typical UCB mix, floral, swirly, some really fine lined flowers, some geometric designs... That rose near the middle almost looks fiery! The image above that is the one that I used for today's nails, love it! If you looked closely and are wondering, the bottom left image in the corner has a little bit blue foil residue on it, nothing a little remover won't fix! I just noticed it later on :) And speaking of that image, I think those thick lines can create a nice balance between the stamping and a 'heavier' base, like a glitter or holo (instead of a more neutral, calm creme). With such thicker images it's easier to not have the base overpower the stamping.

The last plate of this collection has a lot of designs that straight away jumped out to me, from the fine lines and the wider, more swirly lines (both around the middle), to the flowers with matching small flowers, and of course the wobbly net design and the one below those thicker lines (2nd row from the left, 2nd from the bottom). Such images like the last one can be tricky to get even on all nails, and I can be way too much of a perfectionist for such things. But with the reversed stamping, it's so much easier!


These nails were done with that same technique, I applied a thin layer of top coat to the Uber Mat, stamped the design in black and took a bunch of holos from the good old OMG collection, and colored the design with a pointy dotting tool. So easy, yet with a lot of effect! The grey nails were done with a matte polish, but it didn't dry as matte as I'd like, so I added some extra matte top coat.

Catrice Pebble Beach with Dance Legend Top Satin, accentnails of A England Camelot with Konad Black and UberChic Beauty plate UC4-02, with China Glaze LOL, DV8, BFF, QT, IDK and TTYL.

And here's how that looks in the sun :)

I guess it's clear that I'm getting the hang of the reversed stamping, I'm starting to enjoy it more and more! ^^ What are your thoughts on this mani, and UberChic Beauty's Collection 4? I'll show the 2 new loose plates soon too if you're interested in seeing those. You can find all the UCB products on their website, but you can also find them on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for stopping by and take care ♥


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

Read More

Femme Fatale Cosmetics - The Mad Tea-Party Collection *pic heavy*

Femme Fatale Cosmetics is launching a new collection, for which the presale will start tomorrow (August 1st) and will run till the 5th. These beauties arrived just in time and I rushed to get the swatches done, so you can see them before the presale starts! As Femme Fatale Cosmetics says:

"The Mad Tea-Party Collection is based upon a chapter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The contrast between muted and vibrant colours with variety of finishes reflects the soberness and eccentricity (respectively) found within the characters in this chapter."

To me this looks like a typical FFC collection, lots of finishes and various colors, often combined into a single polish. Intricate and pretty, and with plenty variety to offer something for most people. Here's a quick look, check out the full swatches further down :)

Let me start by saying that my swatches are all with topcoat, I used a thin topcoat for my swatches, yet most only needed a single layer. A few could do with a second layer. Now let's look at the polishes!

Starting with a very unique polish: Infamous Riddle. Of course almost all polish is unique, but FFC is a brand that often really makes you think 'wow, so unique!', haha! Like many in this collection, this polish had that effect on me too, I haven't seen anything like it before! It's an olivegreen polish, with a hint of gold, and a strong, coppery/pink duochrome. Bonuspoints for looking so smooooth ^^ This covered in 2 easy coats.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Infamous Riddle

The base of Up Above The World You Fly is a dusty lavender, with a very strong blue duochrome that leans a little green. Those colors always look nice together! The polish is packed with very fine silver glitters, which did make it a little gritty, so this one took 2 coats for full coverage, and 2 layers of topcoat.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Up Above The World You Fly

My pics of Always Tea-Time aren't showing it as I would've liked, I swatched it really early this morning and the light wasn't optimal yet (unfortunately I didn't have enough time to wait for better light). This was again 2 coats for full coverage, and it's a combo of a taupe base packed with bright magenta pink glitters in various sizes. There's a subtle shimmer in the back as well, as the macroshot shows best. I really like the combo of taupe and bright pink or purple, so it's nice to see them combined into a polish like this!

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Always Tea-Time

Let's continue with March Hare, an golden-brown base (which varies a little from a lighter to a deep, darker color, depending on the angle) with green flash, that makes it look a little olive at times as well. It also has lotsa holographic glitters in different sizes! It looks a little like the larger glitters are sitting on top of the polish, but that's mainly the pics. Having said that, I guess it doesn't come as a surprise that I doubled on topcoat here, and the polish itself also needed 2 coats.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics March Hare

Shown here is -you guessed it- 2 coats of Wonderland, which is a blue base (leans a little muted and a little teal) with a strong magenta pink shimmer - which unfortunately doesn't show well here, this is not the first time I struggle with that beautiful pink/purple shimmer in a Femme Fatale polish! It also has little flakies, I'm pretty sure it's the red to green ones, but because of everything that's going on in the polish, it's a bit hard to see.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Wonderland

Time for a thermal! This is Two Days Wrong, and the colorchange on my nails during the application fooled me a little, I went for 3 thicker coats but 3 thin should be fine too. It's a light pink (warm) to bright purple (cold) thermal, filled with flakies that came out easily (FFC sure knows how to pack a lot in a polish while keeping it easy to get it all onto the nail!). On the following photos you can see the transition and the cold look.

Sometimes flakies can be really visible on top of a light polish, like you can see little bits of plastic instead of pretty flakies, if that makes sense? Not with this one! it almost looks like the flakies change color too, and they combine perfect with both the pink and the purple.

This is 3 coats of Twinkle, Twinkle, and it sure does match the name, it's very sparkly! This is a blue base with a strong purple shimmer, and packed with the same size and shape glitters, but then in various colors. I think it's purple, light purple and turquoise. It shows a little blue on my pics, the blue base made it harder to pick up the rich purple at the same time :)

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Twinkle, Twinkle

Last, but -oh wow!- certainly not least, Mad As A Hatter. It took 3 coats to give this result, and I can't get over how pretty this is! I'd say this is a dark teal jelly base, with lots of red to green flakies and a red shimmer. Because of the base I used 3 coats, to cover the tips a bit more, but I bet this would work wonders when layered as well.

Femme Fatale Cosmetics Mad As A Hatter

There they are, all 8 polishes of the The Mad Tea-Party collection. The last polish is clearly the winner for me, but I can appreciate all of these creations, because they're done so well! They have a nice application & coverage, and FFC can really make me forget that I'm maybe not always loving some colors on my nails, because their polishes are just so beautiful and unique! They are often a challenge for me and my camera, and having said that: yes, a lot of these are even better in real life :)

If you want to get your hands on any (or all) of these beauties, make sure to order them in time! The presale runs from August 1-5 and they're likely to be available from webshops like Shiro Cosmetics, Color4Nails, Beautometry, Rainbow Connection, Beauty So Fly and Dope Nails. Or just look on the Femme Fatale Cosmetics website! What's your favorite of this collection? 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.

Read More

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.

Read More