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Born Pretty

Review, Stamping, Uncategorised

Born Pretty Plate M73 and White Stamping Polish Review

25th August 2011

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As you may have noticed, or read here before, I never use Special polishes for stamping. This is partly because of the price tag but mostly because I have been lucky enough to find plenty of regular polishes that work well for stamping. You can see my list here, although it needs a bit of updating!

The white I use for stamping from Stargazer isn’t 100% opaque so I wanted to try a special polish to get the extra oomph!

From the Born Pretty Store, I ended up ordering a white stamping polish [here] and the duplicate M73 plate [here].

I’ve written a quick post in the past with my thoughts on the BP plates [here] and everything I said still stands.

The image of the musical notes is not very well ‘carved out’ at all, there is next to no definition so I don’t think I will be using it. But this is clear in the picture on the product page so at least you know with BP that what you see is what you get and they aren’t using pictures that misrepresent their products.

I went ahead and decided to use the white polish with the swirly flower design which is the one I was most excited about and I cannot express how disappointed I was when my mani turned out like this!

My stamper hardly picked up any of the design and I’m inclined to blame it on the plate since my stamper has worked perfectly forever and the polish worked (albeit not that well, but we’ll get on to that later) on the geometric design.

I don’t think this white qualifies as a stamping polish. It’s actually less opaque than the Stargazer White I use currently which you can see stamped here.

Konad Plate: Born Pretty M73
Base Colour: Collection 2000 – Hot Purple
Konad Colour: Born Pretty White Stamping Polish
Top Coat of NYC

So to sum up, I am disappointed with these two prodcuts from Born Pretty. If I was desperate for a white stamping polish this would probably suffice but I don’t think I’ll be using it. I’m going to leave it on my windowsill with the lid off for a few days to see if it works any better then. Also, the bottle is very small. I can’t find exact details anywhere on the site or on the bottle but I would guess it’s about 5ml.
If you are looking for a white polish for stamping, take a look at Marta’s post here. She uses Sally Hansen Whirlwind white and it looks incredible, completely opaque! If anyone knows where to get this and would be willing to send it to me, please get in touch because I need it in my life!

As you can see, I only tried two of the designs from the plate. The scattered square design works great but the flower one isn’t usable. It’s no devastation because I only paid a few dollars for it but still, you expect your designs to come out no matter how much you pay. If the designs don’t work, is it even an image plate or just a slice of metal?

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Pink Wednesday: I Missed You, Half Moons

20th July 2011

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I was scrolling through my archives a few days ago and remembered how much I like half moon manicures. It’s been ages since I did one so I’m rocking the look today for Pink Wednesday.

I used BYS Flirty Sparkle as a base, Collection 2000 Moonlight Shine applied with a brush for the moons and some bullion from Born Pretty Store. All topped off with a coat of NYC Top Coat.

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My Kind of Cool Aid

23rd June 2011

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My Cult Nails order arrived last week and I had to go and pick it up from the sorting office because there was a £13 customs charge to be paid. If you’re in the UK and are thinking of purchasing polish from a country outside the EU, consider yourself warned about these charges. I was hesitant to buy these polishes in the first place because it’s quite unusual (actually, unheard of) for me to spend so much on polish and in the end they worked out at £9.50 each which makes me cringe every time I think about it!

Wow, way to start on a bum-note but don’t get me wrong, I am really, really happy that I decided to bite the bullet and buy these. I went for My Kind of Cool Aid and Iconic from the ‘Inaugural’ Collection and Let Me Fly and Cruisin’ Nude from the ‘A Day At The Races’ Collection. Every single polish applies like a dream and is perfect in two coats.

Konad Plate: Born Pretty M76

Base Colour: Cult Nails – My Kind of Cool Aid

Konad Colour: BYS – Glittering Purple

Top Coat of NYC

Comparison, Review, Uncategorised

Quick Born Pretty Plates Review

6th May 2011

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When I saw that Born Pretty Store were selling Konad replicas for $1.55 each I knew I had to buy a few. I’ve been lusting after M78 and M79 for so long but my budget never seems to stretch to Konad plates these days. So I bought 4 new plates from Born Pretty for about the same price as one genuine Konad plate and I didn’t pay any shipping which is what always puts me off buying Konads.

I got M76, M78, M79 and M57. I already have Konad M57 but I thought I would buy Born Pretty’s version too so that I could compare them and I’m glad I did.

I scanned in all the plates I bought along with M57 so all the images are relative sizes for side-by-side comparison.

I was disappointed with BP’s M57, the designs are so small! It would be a push to get them to cover my ring finger. Compared to Konad’s 15.5x12mm, the all over designs on the Born Pretty plate are only 12.5x10mm (no infographic this time, sorry!)

But. I can’t complain because the image on the product page clearly shows that the designs are quite small. I was so excited when I was buying the plates that I didn’t spend much time checking the pictures!

I’m really pleased with the other three plates. The patterns on M78 and M79 are the same size as the Konads which definitely redeemed the plates in my eyes as these were the ones I was most looking forward to.

The designs are really well cut and good sizes so I think I’m going to be getting a lot of use out of them.

L-R: Konad M57, BP M57, BP M76, BP M78, BP M79.

You can buy these plates here. They’re back to the regular price of $2.99 each now but that’s still a steal compared to Konads and the shipping’s completely free. Just steer clear of M57 unless you have tiny nails!
These products were purchased by me.

Review, Stamping, Swatch, Uncategorised

BK Matte Pureple

21st April 2011

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I have some great news guys! I was one of the winning 25 in the Bundle Monster competition. I want to thank every single one of you that voted for me, I really couldn’t have done it without you. If, like me, you love yourself a bit of internet drama, there was some controversy on Bundle Monster’s facebook page when one of the girls who didn’t place in the top 25 got on her high horse and started complaining about the competition, even going as far as to single out another innocent girl’s entry like a playground bully then continue to talk herself in to a deep hole. I must admit, I did put my two cents in because I just couldn’t sit there and watch her going on like an intolerable toddler.

This polish is another of Born Pretty‘s new matte polishes called Pureple. No, that’s not a typo, it really is pure-ple.

Again, I’m super impressed with this polish. The colour is a pinky lavender soufflé with a lovely frosty finish that I haven’t really seen in matte polishes before. And there’s not a single brush stroke in sight.

I didn’t get a great picture of it with the top coat but I can assure you it looks absolutely gorgeous. ‘Twinkly’ is the word I would use to describe the way it looks with a glossy top coat – somewhere between a glitter and holographic. I just love it.

The design is from Konad Plate M64 stamped with Nails Inc. Victoria and finished with a top coat of NYC.

You can buy the polish here and as I mentioned before, postage is free worldwide so I really recommend you take a look at Born Pretty Store if you’re in need of any nail supplies.

Previously: BK Smoky Grey Black

Dupe?, Stamping, Swatch, Uncategorised

BK Matte Smoky Grey Black

18th April 2011

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Jessica from Born Pretty Store got in contact with me recently to tell me about some new polishes that she had in stock. They’re Matte so I immediately jumped at the chance to review them. I have a long standing love affair with matte nails though I don’t actually own many polishes that are matte, I always just use a matte top coat to get ‘the look’. The name on the bottle is BK, which I’ve never heard of before.

I was pleasantly surprised at the high quality and finish of this polish, especially since it’s such a low price. The brush is narrow and flat which made it really easy to apply the polish neatly. It was opaque in two coats but, as I do with all dark colours, I added another for maximum colour intensity. I love that it’s full of tiny silver flecks which give a great depth to the polish, as opposed to it being a flat old grey.

Manglaze Fuggen Ugly came to mind when I saw this polish on my nails. I don’t own Fuggen Ugly myself but I looked at a few swatches and to my eyes it seems like a really close match.

I added the bluebell design from Konad M54 using GOSH Metallic Purple and finished it off with a top coat of NYC. I definitely prefer this polish matte. The silver speckle is really muted with a glossy top coat.

You can buy this shade from Born Pretty Store here. Shipping is free worldwide! How amazing is that? And all the products are so cheap. I actually just ordered a few of the Konad copies which are only $1.55 each at the moment because I really want to see how they compare to real Konad plates.

I have to add one thing about Born Pretty which is that the website is kind of a nuisance to navigate and can be hard to understand in some places (example) but I think this is just down to some bad translation. For the prices of the stuff, I’m not really going to complain!

Freehand, Review, Uncategorised

Born Pretty Store and my First Freehand Nail Art

27th February 2011

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I received a few items from Born Pretty Store a few weeks ago to review. You’ve already seen some of the Bullion put to use and I’ll cracking out the rest of the amazing nail art supplies in good time. Here are the goodies that I got….

I’ve wanted some of these tiny brushes for ages. I did buy a pack of nail art brushes on eBay but there are very few that are suitably teeny for painting designs like this on your nails and I’m actually using one of them to apply my eyeliner!!

This pack of 4 brushes is perfect for drawing anything you can imagine on your nails. They’re small but easy to grip and each one is a different size so you can use the smallest ones for lining and the larger ones for filling in colours.

I decided to try my hand at roses, which are heavily inspired by (read: copied from) Marina at Forever The Ugly Duckling who does some really cute and imaginative, yet simple, freehand nail art which is what actually inspired me to have a go myself.

I started out drawing the outlines of the flowers then filling them in with the blue. Then I went over the outlines again to emphasise them since the blue kind of covered them over. Then I decided to add the leaves by doing the same thing – outline, colour, outline again!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out and I’ll definitely be doing more freehand nail art in the future if I can come up with any ideas! If that’s something you guys would like to see?

I used:

Brushes from Born Pretty Store

Barry M Berry Ice Cream as a the base colour

Rimmel Black Satin to outline the flowers

Beauty UK Neon Blue to fill the flowers

BYS Fern for the leaves

Top coat of NYC

Disclaimer: The nail art brushes were sent to me by Born Pretty Store for review. Everything you read here is my honest opinion.