Midnight Bloom - Born Pretty plate BP-X52, Chameleon Pearl stamping polish BPU06 The Milky Way

I couldn't resist trying out the butterfly-themed Born Pretty plate BP-X52 again...

[Night Garden]

...with another duochrome stamping polish! Look at all the different colours!

[Born Pretty stamping plate BP-X52]

Once again, this is plate BP-X52 which has lots of gorgeous butterfly designs. I previously used the design on the bottom left. This time I'm using the one on the top left.

[Born Pretty Chameleon Pearl Stamping Polish BPU06 The Milky Way]

The duochrome stamping polish I am testing today is also from Born Pretty. This one is called Chameleon Pearl Stamping Polish in BPU06 The Milky Way. At first glance it looks like a reddish bronze shimmer, but it's full of a purple-green colour shift shimmer.

[Bottle to nail: Born Pretty Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU06 The Milky Way;
Base: Milani Spellbound; Plate: Born Pretty BP-X52]

Being a bit silly, I decided to stamp over Milani Spellbound, a black jelly with red microglitter. For some reason, I forgot (even after choosing this shade for review!) that it would stamp purple-green rather than bronzey-green.

[Plate to nail: Born Pretty BP-X52; Base: Milani Spellbound;
Stamping: Born Pretty Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU06 The Milky Way]

So instead, we get a lovely mish-mash of purple-green and red microglitter peeking through. Quite an interesting colour combination! Formula-wise, this was a lot thinner and you need a gentle hand with scraping when stamping.

[Base: Milani Spellbound; Plate: Born Pretty BP-X52;
Stamping: Born Pretty Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU06 The Milky Way]

The fine designs on the butterfly wings picked up beautifully, but was possibly not overly obvious on the base shade that I had picked.

[Base: Milani Spellbound; Plate: Born Pretty BP-X52;
Stamping: Born Pretty Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU06 The Milky Way]

It was pretty cool though, to see all the different colour shifts in different lighting. I'd love to test this stamping polish out on different base colours!

You can find the butterfly floral plate here, and the chameleon stamping polish here at Born Pretty! As usual, our code above can be used for a little extra boost when shopping~

Red Packets - Lacquistry Rediculous, Hit the Bottle Spun Gold, Born Pretty L025

I'm back with my nail polish supplies now, so it's time for a Chinese New Year themed manicure! Can you believe it, that after going through all the things I have, I don't have a dog themed stamping plate or a dog decal or dog anything. How can that be? I love dogs! And now on the year of the dog, I have no dog themes for my nails.  Well, I'll correct that after this and go on a buying spree. :D

But for now, I had to go for another plan.

[Ang Pow]

So here we have it, my Chinese New Year themed manicure! How does it look?

[Lacquistry's Rediculous]

So I start with my base nail polish, which is Lacquistry's Rediculous, a shiny red foil-like nail polish.

[Born Pretty's stamping plate L025]

I stamped over it using Hit the Bottle's Spun Gold, which is a pale gold stamping polish, and Born Pretty's stamping plate L025. I used the round pattern in the center of the pink square above. I figured if I paired the pattern with red and gold, colours which are commonly seen during Chinese New Year, it would work as my CNY mani.

[Base: Lacquistry Rediculous
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Spun Gold and Born Pretty L025]

I didn't want every stamping pattern to look identical on my nails and since the pattern was significantly larger than each of my nails, I have placed them in slightly different positions around each nail to give the whole thing some variety.

As always, I love Hit the Bottle's chrome stamping polishes. Spun Gold stamps beautifully and looks gorgeous against the shiny deep red from Rediculous. I already had a cashier ask to see my nails and recognised the Chinese New Year theme, which had me chuffed. :D

Butterfly Garden - Born Pretty stamping plate BP-X52, Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU02 Galactic Center

I've got a double review for you today, with some awesome stamping goodies courtesy of the folks at Born Pretty.

[Shifty goodness]

Oooh yeah, check that out! That is one amazing duochrome stamping polish! But before I get into that, let me introduce the plate that I'll be using today.

[Born Pretty Stamping Plate BP-X52]

This is Born Pretty stamping plate BP-X52, which as you can guess is butterfly-themed. So many lovely intricate patterns to choose from. As usual, it comes in a cardboard sleeve with a protective blue film (removed in this photo) to prevent scratches during delivery.

[Born Pretty Chameleon Stamping Polish BPU02 Galactic Center]

.. and the star is this gorgeous polish - Born Pretty Chameleon stamping polish in BPU02 Galactic Center. Galactic Center, as you can see, is a duochrome foil that shifts from golden green to blue. So does it work?

[Base: Inglot AMC 544; Stamping: Born Pretty BPU02 Galactic Center, BP-X52]

You betcha it does! This is definitely an image heavy post as I had so many nice photos to choose from. Apologies for the slight blurriness, but the duochrome shift was best in these photos.

[Plate to nail: Born Pretty Stamping Plate BP-X52;
Base: Inglot AMC 544; Stamping: Born Pretty BPU02 Galactic Center]

As you can tell, I stamped over a dark base shade. In this case, I used Inglot AMC 544, a black jelly polish with hidden blue shimemr which I may review at another time. No issues at all using the plate and the stamping polish - the entire pattern picked up beautifully and I was even able to stamp 2 nails with each swipe.

[Bottle to nail: Born Pretty BPU02 Galactic Center;
Base: Inglot AMC 544; Plate: Born Pretty stamping plate BP-X52]

I just love how different this polish looks under different lighting and at different angles. If you're interested in checking it out, there are another 2 duochrome shades in this series! The stamping plate is also great quality and value as usual, so take a look here!

As usual, feel free to use our code above for a little bit of a discount when you shop at Born Pretty!

Purple Sun - Color Combos CMT307

As mentioned in the previous post by EV, the lunar new year begins this week! I'm currently on vacation and don't have access to my usual stash of nail polishes and tools so there's no themed manicure from me this week.

I did manage to lay my greedy hands on a new nail polish.

[Color Combos CMT307]

This is Color Combos' CMT307, a mid purple-gray nail polish with an abundance of gold flecks. The gold flecks are much more visible in person than in the photos. You can see a bit better that it's gold in the second photo.

[Color Combos CMT307]

CMT307 applies smoothly and achieves full opacity in about 3 coats. It is dense with gold flecks too and looks really pretty. But the downside is it does have a little bit of a strong smell. But I'm glad I've something pretty to wear right now in any case!

Plum Prosperity - BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower stamping plate, Red Stamping Polish

Guess what...! The lunar new year begins on Friday this week!

[Happy happy joy joy]

I decided to go in theme with this super bright and cheery combination here~

[BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate]

This gorgeous pattern comes from a plate I received for review from BeautyBigBang. This one is BeautyBigBang10, which is the Rose Flower Stamping Plate (J6401TM-4A). As usual, it comes with a protective blue film...

[BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate]

...which you remove to see all these lovely floral patterns. I already mentioned, but I love how large each design is. I easily was able to stamp two nails each time!

[BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate]

Using the Red Nail Stamping Polish which I reviewed last week, I stamped each design on paper so you can have a look at how well it works! The patchy bits in the rose designs in the top row is all me - I was not generous enough with the polish.

[BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate]

It was such a toss-up between the plum blossoms or cherry blossoms - but I ended up with the plum! I was also super tempted to do the rose design for another special day this week (yes, Valentines!). These designs would also look great with leadlighting or reverse stamping decals. 

[Stamp to nail: BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate]

So here's what it looks like on the nail! I used a yellow creme base, and stamped over with the plum blossom design and the red nail stamping polish. 

[Stamping: BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate, Red stamping polish]

I really like how the contrasting colours turned out! Also, the designs are so crisp!

[Stamping: BeautyBigBang10 Rose Flower Stamping Plate, Red stamping polish]

Overall I've been really impressed with the products I've tested from BeautyBigBang, so if you're interested in trying them out, you can find this plate here.

Our code above will also give you an additional little discount when you shop there! Happy Shopping!

Pretty in Blueple - Sally Hansen Hat's Off to Hue, Color Combos CBL117

Today we have a mani which is a result of me just wanting to hide chips on the original nail polish I had on my nails, haha!

[Base: Color Combos CBL117
Tips: Sally Hansen Hat's Off to Hue] 

The base nail polish is Color Combos' CBL117, a light purple creme polish. I wore CBL117 for several days before it started chipping at the tips, so I decided to cover up the chips in a lazy way. :P

I used tape on my nails, leaving the tips of my nails uncovered in an asymmetrical way and going in different directions. I just wanted something a little bit more quirky. Then I painted over with Sally Hansen's Hat's Off to Hue, which is a light blue creme polish. At the parts where there were chips, I placed the nail polish brush on the edges of the chips for awhile, letting the chipped polish soften a little so that Hat's Off to Hue would fill in the gaps of CBL117 in a smoother way. I think it's worked pretty well here! It's not perfect, you can see where the edges of CBL117 has started to chip or lift at the edges near my skin, oops, but I can't cover up that part without covering up everything, haha.

Red Snow - BeautyBigBang Red Stamping polish, BeautyBigBang05 Winter Tartan plate, Color Club Pretty in Platinum

We are powering through these reviews for BeautyBigBang! I've been quite happy so far with the products I've tested. Let's keep going and see how the next one goes.

[BeautyBigBang Red Stamping Polish]

For today's review, I have a bottle of Red Nail Stamping Polish (J6415TM-6A) to show you. This polish comes in a black and gold cardboard box with a handy cutout in the front so you can tell what colour it is. You get a total of 9ml of polish, so plenty to play with!

[BeautyBigBang05]

I have already reviewed stamping plate BeautyBigBang05 in my last post, so this time I'm going to pick out a pattern from this Christmas-themed plate to try out in a full manicure.

[Plate to nail: BeautyBigBang05; Base: Color Club Pretty in Platinum;
Stamping: BeautyBigBang Red stamping polish]

Here's what I picked! This is the design in the middle of the bottom row, which is a tesselated snowflake design. I chose this one because it was past Christmas by the time I got this, so I wanted something festive, but not too obvious!

[Base: Color Club Pretty in Platinum;
Stamping: BeautyBigBang Red stamping polish, BeautyBigBang05]

I started with a pearly white base, Color Club Pretty in Platinum (previously reviewed here, gosh, over 5 years ago!). I wanted something faintly snowy, that would show a nice contrast against the red stamping.

[Bottle to nail: BeautyBigBang Red stamping polish;
Base: Color Club Pretty in Platinum; Stamping plate: BeautyBigBang05]

I have to say, I am so happy with this stamping polish! It's such a bright true red, and was really easy to apply to the plate and scrape. The pattern also transferred beautifully.

[Base: Color Club Pretty in Platinum;
Stamping: BeautyBigBang Red stamping polish, BeautyBigBang05]

In addition, the pattern is a very generous size so I even managed to stamp more than one nail at a time by making sure I filled the whole design out when applying polish and scraping.

I'm so pleased with this mani. It was really fuss-free and both the stamping polish and plate worked together beautifully. I'm definitely looking forward to trying out more from BeautyBigBang. You can find this red stamping polish here and the stamping plate here, and as usual, you can use our 10% off code above when shopping at BeautyBigBang. =)

Sweater Weather - BeautyBigBang05 Winter Tartan Nail stamping plate J3141TM-5A

In addition to the fancy polish holder I reviewed last time, we also received some stamping plates for review from BeautyBigBang.

[BeautyBigBang stamping plates]

They arrived beautifully packaged in a protective cardboard sleeve, which was in a plastic resealable bag for added protection.

[BeautyBigBang stamping plates]

I really love the colourful designs on these sleeves. In addition to the front design, the back has a hand schematic to show you the sequence of steps needed for stamping. Definitely a handy guide for beginners to stamping!

[Stamping plate: BeautyBigBang05]

The one I'm reviewing today is BeautyBigBang05 - a Christmas/winter themed plate. You can find this as item J3141TM-5A Winter Tartan Nail Stamping Plate. As usual, the plate comes with a protective blue film to prevent scratches. Just peel that off before use and you have a fresh shiny plate to play with.

[Stamping plate: BeautyBigBang05]

Here's a nice clear view of the different patterns once the blue protective film is removed. Up the top left we have what I like to think of as a Christmas sweater pattern with snowflakes and christmas trees. The next one along is similar, but now featuring sleighs and a cosy house design in addition. The top right is a sweater knit patttern, followed by a tartan/plaid design on the bottom left. The middle is a tesselated snowflake pattern, while the bottom right is another sweater design with tiny hearts and snowflakes. Phew!

[Stamping on paper: BeautyBigBang05]

When I first saw the designs, I was a bit unsure, because the details were so fine! But check out these stamp tests I did on paper. I wasn't particularly careful, just did my stamping as normal, but I had absolutely no problem at all with any of the designs. The hard part is choosing which to use!

[Stamping on paper: BeautyBigBang05]

Here's the biggest test - those tiny tiny hearts in the bottom right pattern. See how well they picked up, and how even the stamping is. I am impressed!

Overall, I'm really happy with this plate and can't wait to show you the designs on a manicure, so stay tuned for that! You can find this plate here, and as usual, you can use our 10% off code above when shopping at BeautyBigBang. =)