Thursday, August 30, 2012

Starry Earth A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle & Sultan's Daughter

Today I have two glitter polishes from Starry Earth. These retail for 8.00 each and can be purchased HERE. 


First up is Sultan's Daughter. This is a glitter polish in a sheer blue base with shimmer. The glitter is pale blue and aqua hex glitter and is part of the Princess Collection. This polish was kind of gloopy. I found it overly thick and a little bit of a pain to deal with. That being said, its a GORGEOUS colour and not TOO gloopy or hard to deal with that I warn against it. It is pretty enough with a fast enough dry time to make me willing to over look the thick consistency.



Here is is swatched over one coat of black followed by two coats of Mermaid Elixir & 70% Chance Of Rain both by the same brand. So this is four total coats of polish. Black, 2 coats of either Mermaid Elixir (on the right) or 70% Chance Of Rain and then one coat of Sultan's Daughter.



Next up is A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle.  This one is a clear base packed with yellow and gold hex glitter. It was a better formula than the last one and applies rather smoothly. The base is thick, but not too thick. Its just the right suspension to hold the glitter and allow for easy application. Below is two coats of A Most Peculiar Mademoiselle and of Sultan's Daughter over white.




Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Bundle Monster Plates - 2012 Collection

So I was very lucky to get a set of Bundle Monster plates in the mail yesterday to review for the company. I have been asked by readers which plates I recommend and my answer has always been that I had never tried any of them (other than an essence stamping kit that was a nightmare!). So to get to try out the bundle monster set is FANTASTIC!!! Let me start by saying I am a stamping virgin. I have ZERO idea what I am really doing. So these are my experiences as a newbie!!


To start with they came to me packed very well in bubble wrap inside a bubble mailer. There was ZERO chance these were getting damaged along the way!!


Make sure to peel off the blue plastic on each plate! And be warned - they are REALLY REALLY on there!! It took some effort to get them off.



The back has a paper backing to make the edges less sharp. Do NOT peel this off!!


This is in no way a complaint at all, but I was SHOCKED at the size of the plates. I am not sure what I expected. But these are TINY!! The plates are really really small. They are more than big enough to do the job, and they take up almost NO room. So while it was a happy surprise. Here are pictures with a Julep bottle just to show you the size.




The other thing to note on the packaging is that there are ZERO instructions ANYWHERE on them. This might not be an issue to the more experienced stampers but it really was a disappointment for me. Now there are instructions on the website, so its not like they do not supply them at all, but if I had been given these as a gift from a friend they might just very well sit and not get used at all as I have no clue at all how to use them!


Taken from the Bundle Monster website:

**INSTRUCTIONS FOR NAIL STAMPING: 1. Apply polish on image plate design. 2. Using the scraper, scrape off the excessive nail polish. 3. Stamp the image in rolling motion. 4. Stamp design on nail smoothly. Done ! ***NOTE: Before use, peel off the tight, protective, blue plastic on top of each plate. All image designs featured in this set are authentically created and designed in-house by Bundle Monster EXCUSIVELY. Each design is protected by copyright laws.***

Now another thing to note if you are brand new to stamping is that the scraper and the stamp are NOT included in the set. So once more, if you are inexperienced I can see you reading the instructions, buying the set and then realizing when you got it, that you were unable to use it.





Thankfully, look what I was gifted last year:


Now I wish I had some idea if there was a quality difference between stamps and scrapers or if every stamp was created equal. I have no idea what the answers to those questions are. But I have something, so I am excited to make this work! Now in this box set (this is the 2012 collection) there are 25 stamps and the set retails for 21.99. Considering Konad plates are about 7 or 8.00 a piece, price wise these are completely non comparable.

Each plate comes with 6 designs making a total of 150 stamps you get. None of these images are repeats from previous sets so if you have other sets, these will still be ALL new designs. The plates are:



























 Now I spent a few hours today playing with these plates and learned a few valuable lessons:

  • you need a THICK polish for these. If you use a very thin one the scraper will scrape it all out of the grooves and it wont work
  • you have to be careful to get the image right in the centre of the stamp so it matches up real well to the nail
  • do not try practicing on a nail wheel. It is NOT the same thing at all 
  • there IS a learning curve. I got much better at it on my 30th try than my first try, but I am still not quite there yet!
I will show you pictures of my results in a day or two, but I really have to master the art of stamping first. This is a judgement on ME, certainly not the product. I am however confident that in a day or two I will be showing off my new stamped nails! 

EDIT - The lovely Gina of soguesswhat11 YouTube Channel forwarded me her video tutorial of how to nail stamp! I must say I feel much more prepared now to reattempt this tomorrow!! I am going to link you to one of her videos but check them all out! Its such a great helpful channel.

A Trip Back To Winners Pays Off!

If you remember the other week I showed you my Latitude Femme wedges I managed to snag at Winners for a mere 25.00. I told you there were lots of others I was looking at but was going to wait and see what was left after a few more markdowns. I went back and found two more pairs. These MRkt Jemma wedges in orange retail for 179.99. I happened to snag them for NINE DOLLARS!! And just in case that was not insane enough of a deal, it was a friends and family weekend at Winners and I happened to get 20% off my purchase. So these were 7.20!!






These Modern Vintage Lucy wedges retail for 249.99. They were priced at 12.00. With my 20% off I paid a total 9.60 for them!!







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