Jungle Jaunt - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: In The Jungle

Time for an adventure In The Jungle!

[Foil transfer without topcoat: In The Jungle]

In The Jungle was a dream to apply. I left the glue to dry for ten minutes, and transfer was easy and fast.

[Foil transfer without topcoat: In The Jungle]

The above is how the foil looks without a topcoat over it. It's super shiny and holographic, less plasticky in real life versus the foil in the photo under artificial lighting. If you look at the first photo, it looks less strange under natural lighting.

[Foil transfer with topcoat: In The Jungle]

I applied Blush-amour over it and then Jordana Quick Shine Topcoat over the lot, the same as what I did for All Laced Up. Alas, In The Jungle is a shiny foil that crinkles under Blush-amour. Only the shiny foil parts crinkled, while the maroon and black spots remained smooth. The crinkles actually make the foil look a little more natural to me. I think this turned out beautifully for a rather quick foil transfer job.

If you like what you see, visit Epic Nail for other nail related funtimes! From now until 31st December, you can use our coupon code BLOGPLISHERIFFIC to get free shipping on all orders with a product total of $30 or over.

At Sea - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: Nautical

Look at the rainbow from the stripes! :D  Unfortunately, I think this will be the prettiest photo in this post, oh dear...

[Roll of foil: Nautical]

Anyway, I'm stealing Ev's photo (below) to show the foil in its bottle. The foil looks like it is completely opaque, but that's actually just a white paper rolled up behind the stripes. As you can see in the photo above, the foil is actually white, blue, red and silver stripes with no foil in between the stripes.

[Left to right: I Heart You, Pipe Dream and Nautical]

So you have to choose your base polish wisely as it will show up between the stripes. The only problem is that I don't know if there are any other choices except white. You can see it somewhat in the first picture; the stripes aren't completely opaque. I tried them over a dark base, and nothing was visible except for the white and silver stripes, which both came out looking gray.

Now onwards to the foil on nails!

[Foil transfer: Nautical]

The base polish I'm using here is Orly Au Champagne. I have applied the stripes twice on each nail, except for the accent nail which I have left with just its base polish. I applied Nautical once horizontally, and then on top of that, diagonally for the middle and pinky fingers, vertically for the index finger. Because the stripes tended to tear and crack, I had to reapply glue and carefully try to reapply the stripes in some places, with varying success.

Okay, to be honest, this was a really hard foil to use. Trying to do a foil transfer of thin stripes was absurdly hard, because the stripes are too fragile and thin, crinkling and breaking too easily. It took me two to three hours to do this because I had to keep redoing the foils from scratch, and you can still see the breaks and crinkles in the stripes. I pretty much gave up after this.

The result looked okay, but honestly, it was too much work for me to produce.

Diamond Frills - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: All Laced Up

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

If you have been following this blog, you would know it's foil time! Ev has passed the baton and I'm doing the rest of the swatches for the foils from the Essentials Kit at Epic Nail. The first one I'm doing is called All Laced Up.

[Dramatic lighting of a foil roll: All Laced up]

Now, what I like about the foils from Epic Nail is the way they're stored. I have received foils that are really tightly rolled and foils that are folded up. Those that are too tightly rolled are hard to flatten out to be used and difficult to roll back into place because they lack a cylindrical base. And those that are folded up have crease lines which is a bit of a waste. With these foils rolled in big and loose rolls around a hard cylinder, they pretty much unroll into a nice flat strip, so they're easy to use.

[Roll of foil: All Laced Up]

Okay, look at how shiny All Laced Up is on its own! The holo is amazing!

[LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo]

I thought a good base to go under All Laced Up would be LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo, because of its own super holo sparkliness~

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

Application for All Laced Up was pretty simple. They were a little bit delicate in parts, but transfer wasn't difficult. Ev goes into some detail on how to apply foils here, so I won't rehash that.

I used two thin coats of Blush-amour clear polish over the foil, and then Jordana Quick Shine topcoat (which is also a quick dry) over that. I find that Blush-amour's clear polish doesn't cause crinkles in some shiny foils so I tend to resort to that when I'm using foils. In this case, no crinkles again, which is awesome! I use quick dry over all of it for the extra shiny and also to dry Blush-amour's polish quickly.

[Foil transfer: All Laced Up]

Unfortunately, the holo on the foil was much reduced with the topcoat over it. But you can still see some of the holo in the above pictures, better photographed in the blurry photos as usual.

It's a shame my nails are a little small - cause my hands are small :( - to properly display the lace pattern of the foils, but the foils do look rather gorgeous as is.

Double Hearts - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: I Heart You

For my third foil transfer from the Epic Nail Essentials kit, I decided to change it up a little. I'm not quite sure if I succeeded or not though!

[Hearts on your nails, not in your mouth...]

Rather than doing a full manicure, I went with something a bit more cutesy to go with the heart design in I Heart You. Here's how I did it!

[Base: Revlon Powder Puff (1 coat); Topper: Color Club Pearl-spective, pa AA39]

I had a two-day-old manicure on which was a base of Revlon Powder Puff, a matte white polish with a blue sheen, topped with an iridescent topper (Color Club Pearl-spective) and tipped with flakies (pa AA39).

[Base: Revlon Powder Puff (1 coat); Topper: Color Club Pearl-spective, pa AA39]

I thought the shimmery white would make a great base to show off the deep pink and holo in I Heart You, so that's what I went with~

[Epic Nail: I Heart You]

Here's a shot of I Heart You - a dark pink background with shiny holo hearts. So adorable!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail I Heart You]

I carefully cut out three heart shapes freehand, and then one rectangle for my ring finger. I applied glue all over the nail for all except my pinky, where I did a french tip in glue. Once that was dry, I placed one heart on each of my nails, with a full nail on my ring finger. For my pinky, I used leftover scrap edges and transferred them onto the glue-tacky french tip.

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail I Heart You]

It worked pretty well, not as great as I hoped! The full nail looks great and I'm looking forward to doing a full manicure with this design. The hearts did not transfer as well as I had hoped, simply because when you cut out a specific design, it's hard lifting the transparent plastic away from the transfer as there aren't any free unglued edges to grasp.

I think some great alternatives would be to paint on designs (or even stamp them on!) in glue, somewhat like the french tip I did on my pinky. It's so fun to get creative with nail art and foil transfers are such a great way to get fancy looking patterns on your nails with minimal effort~ ;)

Stay tuned for Jme's reviews of the remaining three designs in this set! If these foils interest you, head on over to Epic Nail to check out what other goodies they have available! Don't forget to use our coupon code BLOGPLISHERIFFIC to get free shipping on all orders with a product total of $30 or over, up to the 31st of December!

Technicolor Trippin - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: Pipe Dream

This awesomely multicoloured foil transfer is Pipe Dream from the Epic Nail Essentials Kit I mentioned last week. Fully metallic nail foils can be a bit of a pain to transfer cleanly, so let's see how I went with it...

[Roll to nail: Epic Nail Pipe Dream]

Pipe Dream and I didn't start out on great terms, unfortunately. The rolls of transfer foil are taped shut with a transparent piece of tape marked "OPEN" with an arrow indicating the direction you should undo it from. This is pretty useful, but in this case, it was a bit of a problem as it stuck TOO strongly to the foil.

[Tape Issues]

When I pulled it off, it stuck so strongly to the top transparent layer (above the patterned transfer) that it detached it from the pattern. However, I didn't lose that much and I could still use the bits around it that remained whole. Still, something to consider!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail Pipe Dream]

Aside from that little kink, application wasn't too difficult for this one! I definitely found it a bit more delicate than Winter Is Coming, but I'm not sure how much of that is down to the initial tape problem loosening the pattern from the transparent plastic layer!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail Pipe Dream]

You can see a bit of patchyness where it didn't transfer properly. Some of that was due to the foil flaking off even before the transfer, and some was because of how curved some of my nails are (my index finger, in particular). Check it out though! It was so super colourful, shiny and eyecatching once applied. The patches are totally not as noticeable in real life.

[With topcoat: Epic Nail Pipe Dream]

I did attempt to test some top coats over these foils, but unfortunately, most of my topcoats are quick dry so they wrinkled the metallic foil like nobody's business. Sometimes I find it looks quite interesting though, so you could try out the crinkly look intentionally, if you like!

House Spark - Epic Nail Foil Transfer: Winter Is Coming

Here's the first of the nail foil transfers from Epic Nail that I will be reviewing! Check out the overview of the Essentials kit that we posted last week for a look at all the designs we'll be trying out. This pattern is called Winter Is Coming, hehe~

[Bling bling]

I thought it looked already looked pretty good in the bottle, but this pattern really came alive on the nail! Let's see how I went with application and such...

[Left to right: Winter Is Coming, In The Jungle, All Laced Up]

In the tube, it's a pixelated diamond pattern - I suppose it brings argyle somewhat to mind, hence the winter reference. As for the catchphrase, it's catchy, what more do you need! ;) Remember, it's easier to cut out little rectangles of foil for each nail BEFORE you start, so you're not struggling with wet tacky nails during!

[Bottle to nail: Revlon Metallic (1 coat)]

Since this was a silver transfer foil and I was going to do a full nail manicure, I used a matching silver foil polish just in case there were any missed patches during the transfer. This is Revlon Metallic, a heavy silver foil polish.

[1 coat: Revlon Metallic]

This is only one coat! Great as a base for nail art, as it applies easily and dries fairly quickly.

[Super exciting: Watching glue dry]

Here's a photo of what it looks like as the foil glue is drying. On my pinky and index, you can see fresher coats of glue where it still has a milky appearance. On my middle finger, you can see that once it dries, the glue turns clear. So be patient, and wait wait wait!

It doesn't take long, but I find that the longer you wait, the better application is, so I tend to wait at least 5 minutes or so even though the glue is clear after about 2-3 minutes. Check our foil tag to see some of our previous manicures using transfer foils!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail Winter Is Coming]

Anyway, after the glue was suitable dry, I carefully placed a rectangle of foil over a nail, working one nail at a time. I then smoothed it out from edge to edge, scraping lightly with my nail to make sure everything was transferred. AND BOY, are the results gorgeous!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail Winter Is Coming]

I had no problem at all getting the transfer foil over the entire nail - remember, apply your glue carefully as where there's glue, there your foil will stick! Conversely, where there isn't glue, you aren't going to get your transfer!

[Foil transfer: Epic Nail Winter Is Coming]

Super super impressed with this design. I especially love the pixellated holo. It's a bit difficult to see the diamond pattern on the nail, but in my opinion, the result is even better! More of a super sparkly futuristic snakeprint!! Totally up my alley, as far as I'm concerned....

Keep an eye out for our posts on the other 5 designs, coming up soon! And don't forget, you can use this coupon code, BLOGPLISHERIFFIC to get free shipping on all orders from Epic Nail with a product total of $30 or over, valid till the 31st of December!