Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate Review

DISCLAIMER: I've been sent this products by Born Pretty Store for my honest review which is exactly what I've given you!

Hi everyone! So a few weeks back Allison from Born Pretty Store contacted me asking if I would like to review some of their products on here which was very exciting for me as I've had this blog for just over a year now and this is the first set of products that have been sent to me! I've read a couple of other reviews and have looked at the site before and what was such a pleasant surprise to me was the price - everything is so reasonably priced! From placing my order to receiving it took just under a month but their delivery times vary based on your location!

So I got to choose 3 stamping plates from their collection and I picked these!

'Charming Spring Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate BORN PRETTY 24 (#17203)'

'Starfish & Shell Theme Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate BORN PRETTY 10 (#16857)'

'Butterfly Nail Art Stamp Template Image Plate BORN PRETTY 22 (#17267)'

So I already had the stamper and scraper (although you can just use an old credit card for the scraping) but I've never used a stamping plate before. I'm not going to lie, it took me a while to realise that you have to remove the blue seal as it's just a protective layer!!! I was wondering for a bit why on earth it wasn't working!

So first I tried out the Spring themed one which is only £1,90! This is I chose this one because I saw the owl on it which I thought look really cute as I'm 'Little Owl' at a Brownie unit so I take any opportunity to get owl themed things!

I then tried out the Starfish and Shell themed one which is £1.27! I picked this one because I really like the mehendi style waves and it will be perfect for those beach days (if the rain ever goes!) 

And saving my favourite until last - the Butterfly themed plate for an absolute steal at £0.63!!!!! I absolutely loved the detail of the butterflies and the patterned flower section is just so pretty! I cannot wait for this winter weather to go so I can start wearing bright summery colours again because this would look perfect!

I will defiantly be using these again because it so simple to do but really gives you nails an extra something! With free shipping and such adorable products I will without a doubt placing an order of my own! If you like any of the plates I chose or there's something else that takes you fancy  you can use my 10% off code on your next order!

Hope you enjoyed this review - let me know what you think! Have you used plates before? Which one is your favourite? Thanks for reading!

World Cup Nail Art - Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire)

Hi everyone! So not too long ago I got an email from Emily over at Nailsxo asking if I wanted to join a World Cup Nail Art competition she was running. Now, I don't really know anything about football and I haven't really done much nail art before but that's never stopped me before! The idea was once you'd been allocated your country you had to create a manicure design that reflected that nation and I was given the Ivory Coast!

Again, I have to admit I knew very little about Ivory Coast so of course I used all my powers, by which I mean Google, to research the country itself as well as the culture so I wanted to share a couple of facts I found out!

Location

The official language spoken on the Ivory Coast is French.

As of 2012, the population stood at 22 million making it the 54th largest population in the world.

Average life expectancy is 57 years old. (It's 80 in the UK!)

And it has many names! 

• Conventional long form: Republic of Cote d'Ivoire
• Conventional short form: Cote d'Ivoire
• Local long form: Republique de Cote d'Ivoire
• Local short form: Cote d'Ivoire
• Formerly known as: Ivory Coast

So bearing that all in mind I set on thinking up a couple of designs that I could create and here is the finished design!

I based the design on my thumb to mimic the coat of arms coloured with the colours of the flag!

On my pinky I tried to mimic the referee kit!

And then on my remaining three nails I went with the slightly easy option of the flag but I think it looks very effective in contrast to the other nails!

So I hope you enjoyed reading this slightly different blog post and I'll keep practicing my nail art and maybe write another post when I improve because my hand wouldn't stop shaking drawing those lines! Thanks for reading!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas (or if you don't celebrate it a great holiday!). I just wanted to write a quick post on a couple of things I got for Christmas but I'm not including everything so if someone I know in 'real life' is reading this and you gave me something that doesn't appear in this post please don't be offended!

Firstly I got a new bottle of Ghost perfume! I wear this perfume pretty much everyday and I love it's scent! I got the bigger sized bottle so hopefully it will last me a lot longer than the last one!

I also got a new hair curler! As you may know I find my hair quite boring and dull sometimes so I thought curling it would spice things up a little! I did have a curler but it was really old and something I got way back in primary school so it was starting to not work as well as it used to.

I received a couple of nail varnishes too to add to my collection (which is all laid out nicely in colour order like a rainbow along my desk now!) including the Revlon Moon Candy one which I can't wait to try out properly and tell you about it!

I found two of these hot chocolates on a spoon things in my stocking! I think I've had one like it before but these ones are different flavours! One is a marshmallow one and the other is a fudge one so I can't wait to give those a try!

Finally, this was something my Dad bought my Mum but I thought I would throw it in here anyway! It's a canvas of a photo from when we visited America at Easter at Yosemite falls and guess who took the picture... yeah that's right me!!!

So again, I hope you all had amazing an Christmas and let me know what your favourite thing you gave or received was! Thanks for reading!

Review of 'NYC Rock Muse Smoky Top Coat' in 'Green Day'

Hi everyone! So I was in my local Superdrug and I just had to walk past the NYC stand and I saw they had these new Rock Muse Smoky Top Coats. Now I'm not sure if they are new, or if my local store has only just got them in? Anyway they kind of looked like the Revlon Moon Candy nail varnish which I really wanted to try it out but they are around £7, but rumour is, Barry M is releasing something very similar to it but hopefully half the price! Anywho, as usual it was only £1.99 so I thought I would give it a go!

I've been loving dark, rocky-ish colours on my nails recently so I picked up the black which has green sequins and bits of glitter in, hence the name Green Day! I quite like the rock themed names but I did have a bit of a stuggle finding swatches of it online as googling: Rock, Muse and Green Day, didn't really give me what I was looking for!

I first applied my base coat which is my Barry M one (I found it again!) and I did two coats because I was using black as my base and I really didn't want it to stain my nails.

I then applied my first coat of my base colour. I decided to go for a black, also from the NYC collection, as the smokey top coat although appears dead black in the bottle, but if you apply it straight on your nail it's a very pale and watery black. I think my nails were good to go after one coat of the base colour but

on the odd nail it was a little thin.

I then applied my second coat of the black base colour just to have a really deep black. It seemed to dry pretty quickly and was very glossy which is a huge bonus for me!

I then applied the first coat of the 'Smoky Top Coat' and to be honest I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong - it does look really cool! But it wasn't anything like the Moon Candy ones which is what I thought it would be like but I guess I can't blame them for that as they never advertised it as an alternative to it! It is basically the same as a glitter coat.

I don't think NYC is great for glitter nail varnishes as the spread of large bits of glitter and small bits of glitter isn't very even! But I think this is one of the best ones I have tried just because of how the green really stands out against the black when the light hits it! For this reason, I would definitely recommend you check it out!

I didn't apply a top coat as this polish is labelled as a top coat! I just cleaned up all the stray polish and they were done!

I really like how it turned out even if it wasn't like I expected it to be! I think I might go back and have a look what other colours they do that might be more suitable to wearing any time! As much as I like it I think the effect of green and black is quite Halloweeny for me as I don't usually wear stuff like this! Let me know what you think of this more rocky look - would you try it out? Thanks for reading!

Review of 'Instant Nail Effects Crackle' in 'Black Magic'

Hi everyone! So I thought I would try a new thing out on my nails! I got this crackle effect last Chirstmas but I always thought it looked a bit tacky (I still do if you match it with the wrong colour) so I haven't actually tried it until now. I think you can buy it for £3.99 which is the average price for any effect nail varnish Barry M has.

I have been loving the rockish look lately of mixing black with gold and I really wanted to see if I could apply this to my nails. First I painted my nails gold (which I wrote about HERE) which acted as my base colour. On it's own, I'm not too sure about having full gold nails so I probably wouldn't use it without placing some sort of effect over the top.

I then applied the first coat of the crackle effect whilst the gold was still drying (I'd left it about 5-10 minutes but it was still a little tacky). I wasn't quite sure if I should be applying it with a thin coat or a thick. The first nail I did, I painted a very thin coat on, but then found I needed more polish to cover the whole nail. However, by the time I had got some more on the brush the thin strip had already began to crack. So, my advice would be to make sure you have plenty of varnish on your brush and just paint a slightly thick coat over the top of your chosen base colour.

The cracking started almost instantly and it only took about 1 minute for the whole thing to be done. I continued painting all my nails until my whole hand was done.

I like that the crackle is random so every nail is different, but I found, especially with my pinky, that the crackle had basically split into 4 sections. Personally, I think this works best when there are lots of thin cracks all over the nail.

I then added a top coat to give it a lovely shine as the crackle is kind of matt. I LOVE how my nails look as I think it is quite edgy and something different than just a plain colour. I've received quite a few compliments on my nails this week because of it (including a couple from some guys!). I think it works really well with the gold as a base colour, but you definitely have to be careful what you use as a base colour because obviously some will look great and some will just look plain tacky.

I would recommend this product as I think it livens up your nails and although I haven't tried the other colours (I think I'm right in saying you can also get it in purple, pink, blue, white and gold?) I think that black is probably the best colour to get, as in theory it will go with a wider variety of base colours!

Let me know what you think of the crackle effect! Thank you for reading! (:

Review of 'NYC Quick Dry Nail Polish' in 'Full Metal Jacket'

Hi everyone! I bought this nail varnish when I went through the phase of buying nail varnishes from NYC as they were on a 3 for 2 deal and are only £1.79 each anyway. I had picked it up with the intention of using it at Christmas to jazz up my nails, but I thought I would give it a little test now!

It's a very strong gold metallic colour and I wasn't too sure about wearing it as I think sometimes it looks a little bit tacky when people have gold nails. I don't really like gold anything to be honest - most of my jewellery is silver. I think this dislike of gold has come from seeing pirates in films and cartoons with gold teeth.

I applied my base coat, which some of you may have noticed is not my usual Barry M, but in fact my old Collection one! This is basically because I couldn't find my Barry M one when I was painting my nails (although I've found it since).

I then applied the first coat of colour and was pleasantly surprised! With only one coat my nail was fully covered without the usual streaky appearance that lots of the nail varnishes from NYC seem to have. You could definitely get away with only applying this one coat, but I wanted to apply a second more to protect the nail varnish from chipping!

So the second coat made very little difference to the colour, which is great as it proves you can get away with only applying one coat of colour!

I didn't apply a top coat as I wanted to test out something on top of it which you will be able to read about in a few days time!

I love how well this nail varnish goes on and how your nail colour looks the same as the bottle after one coat, but I'm still not sold on the idea of having purely gold nails. If you like having metallic nails then I would, without a doubt, recommend you get this as it is one of the best ones from the NYC collection. If you have never tried metallic nails then this would the perfect one to try out because even if you don't like it you won't have spent a huge amount on it.

Do you like metallic nails or have you never tried them? Let me know! Keep an eye out for what I tried next with this look and thanks for reading! (: