Coral-Reefined with Striping Tape

I wanted to play more with the striping tape I received from Born Pretty. This time I used the silver tape and did accent nails with horizontal stripes down the entire length of the nail. It was very tedious, but totally worth it!

The polish I used is Coral Reef-ined from the Balm's line of "Hot Ticket" nail polish.
I picked it up on Hautelook last month for $5.

I switched up what nails were the accents on each hand.

This was my first Balm nail polish to try and I was really impressed. The formula was great! 2 easy coats and the coverage is perfect and self levels to this. :)

The striping tape did start to lift at the edges after 8 hours or so. I lost a few pieces of tape, they just curled up and came off. (Despite the fact that I had put a layer of Seche Vite over the accent nails) Every couple of hours a new piece of tape would come off, but I just keep going about my business. After 24 hours of wear-time, all of my tape was gone. Either it had curled up and off, or I picked at it and peeled it off. I can't seem to get striping tape to last too long. Does anyone else have similar issues?

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Born Pretty Store - Bullion Beads/Microbeads

I mentioned that I also received the Bullion Beads. They can be found here for $3.33. It comes in a wheel of 12 different colors. The beads are so tiny that they got a little mixed together despite the different compartments. It's a nice array of colors that are available in this wheel. I chose to use the dark teal on the top right of my picture.

 It was a perfect match for Essie School of Hard Rocks. This is 2 coats.

 I applied a generous coat of Seche Vite and then poured the beads over the nail until they covered the entire thing. (Remember the "caviar" debate?)

One solid nail used up a good bit of my beads of that color, so for the rest of the nails I just outline the half moon area with a line of beads.

 It's not a terribly long lasting manicure, but it's cute and a novelty. :)

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Born Pretty Store - Striping Tape - Design & Review

Reviewing another product from the Born Pretty Store. This time it's the Striping Tape you can find here in a pack of 12 different colors for $6.29. I've recently seen a lot of new nail art looks that are featuring striping tape, so I was excited to try it myself. 

I wanted to recreate this look in particular. Her's was much neater and better photographed, but this isn't a contest, right? Enjoy.

I used the gold striping tape from Born Pretty. The polishes I used were Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, China Glaze For Audrey, and Essie Navigate Her.

As far as a review goes.... The tape was very easy to use. Same concept as using Scotch Tape on your nails, but without the pain of having to cut it into tiny strips. I just cut off a small section big enough that it would over lap the edge of my nail. Then I came in close with a pair of cuticle nippers to cut it exactly to the edge. The tape adheres well and lies flat under top coat. I didn't have any trouble until day 2 of my manicure when the topcoat had worn off some and the edges of the tape were exposed and started getting caught on everything.

I also got some Bullion Beads from Born Pretty, that's coming up next!

And you can get 10% off by using my coupon code!

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Born Pretty Store Review - Stamper & Image Plates

The lovely ladies over at the Born Pretty Store offered some products for me to review here. They also offered this 10% off coupon code for any of my followers.

They sent me their Stamper/Scraper pack. It can be found here for $2.03.

 Their plate M71, which is often referred to as the Hello Kitty plate.  

Here for $3.88 as a combo deal with a stamper/scraper.

 Their M66 plate which has 2 XL images which I have yet to fully understand how to use....

Here for $2.32

 They offer many image plates that are exact dupes of Konad images, but for a fraction of the price. They also always offer Free Shipping, no minimum purchase required. So if you are looking to expand your image plate collection for a fraction of the price, go there!

My Konad stamper is on the left, their stamper is on the right. You can see the diameter is almost exactly the same. Born Pretty stamper is just a tad smaller.

It's also a good bit shorter, but I didn't find that it made it difficult to use at all. 

The squishy silicone material that picks up the image, is a good bit firmer than my Konad stamper. That made it difficult to get a good image transfer. The stiffness of it required a lot more pressure than I normally need.

Their scraper is the typical metal piece embedded in plastic. To be honest, I HATE this type of scraper. They are impossible to clean up, and the metal digs into the image plate and leaves damage. :( I tried this one out, and it does the exact same thing, so I immediately switched to my favorite method... An old plastic credit card/gift card.

Here I used their m71 image plate and the Hello Kitty image. I just randomly stamped it multiple times across my nails. My base polish is E.L.F. Neon Pink and I stamped with Konad Black Special Polish. 

 I modeled these after this design done by RebeccaLikesNails.

Then I used China Glaze For Audrey and their m66 plate and the Cherry Blossom image. I stamped with Konad Special White Polish. I guess the benefit of having an XL image is that you can pick up different portions of the image for each nail, to change it up a bit. Or if you have extra long nails, then the image will cover the whole nail. But how do you pick up the whole XL image? My stamper isn't big enough to fit the whole thing.... I guess they make XL stampers somewhere?

Thank you to Born Pretty for providing these elements for review.

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Born Pretty Sticker Stencils

Born Pretty sent me some of their nail art sticker stencils to try out. These are a fantastic option for someone who has been frustrated by stamping & free hand methods.


You simply peel off one the stencils.


Then place it wherever you want on your already polished nail. You need to wait until your base is mostly dry. The stickers are re-positionable, so no worries if you don't get it quite right at first.


Apply polish to the design. Sticker stencils have a big advantage over stamping because you can use whatever polish you want!


Immediately peel off the stencil, add a layer of top coat and you're all done! Fastest, most foolproof nail art ever!!


At just $4.18 for 10 different designs, this set form Born Pretty is a terrific deal. I've used a similar product from smARTNAILS; they are much more expensive but offer a wider variety and the ability to choose only designs that you really like. Your choice as to which company better suits your needs. Born pretty does offer a ton of nail art options though. You can see other products I've tried from their store here & here.


I used Finger Paints Yellow Bikini for the base & Essie Chinchilly for the design. You can enter to win half of my Bron Pretty Sticker Stencil set in my current giveaway!


Thanks for reading!
April

Disclosure: I was provided a product sample by American Apparel. This in no way affects my opinions of the product. For more information read my Disclosure Policy.

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Hello Kitty Funky French Nail Art thanks to Born Pretty

Here is another item that was sent to me for review from Born Pretty. It's their nail stamping image plate, M71, stamper & scraper.
Here is the mani I did.....How freaking cute is this!?!?1 You know what....I might actually leave this on all day! Yep, that's a record for me, lol.

Here is what I received. The stamper, scraper and the image plate

Most image plates have a very thin film that you might not even see. Just make sure to remove it.

and here is my nail stamping set-up, lol. I've taken control of one of our TV trays, can you tell. It works perfect though for stamping. Then I always make sure to have 100% acetone, my green coaster, for the cotton ball/pad soaked in acetone, image plate, stamper, scraper, and polishes I plan on using. Oh and after I took this pic, I decided to not use the Konad polish in white, but instead used black.

Grandpa, the pup, well 16 years young, we adopted a few months ago, just had to watch, lol.

Before I started stamping, I applied 2 coats my base coat of Brand 10, color #415, Pinky Promise

Now on to stamping. I used the flower image on the plate first, and used China Glaze Millenium for them. Then I used the cute Hello Kitty image, and Konad polish in black for that :)

Finally I did my black tips with Sinful's Black on Black and added a tiny rhinestone to her bow :)



I LOVE this!! What do you guys think???

Also don't forget, if you plan on ordering from Born Pretty, don't forget to use my code: CHLOEK31 to receive 10% off.

More about → Hello Kitty Funky French Nail Art thanks to Born Pretty

Kelier Black Crack Polish from Born Pretty

So Jessica from http://bornprettystore.com/, which btw, has some other amazing nail art items, sent me the Kelier Black Crackle Polish for me to review.
I will say that I had to play with it for a few minutes, to discover the best way to use this Crack polish, and here is what I learned. In order to get the effect I preferred, I needed my base coat to dry 100%. When it was, I applied a pretty thick coat of the Black Crack polish, and waited. Now unlike others I've tried, this one did take a smidge longer for the cracks to appear, but once they did, i loved it! Then I also learned that if you plan on using a top coat, WAIT. The Crack polish needs to be 100% dried. If it is not, when you apply it, it sort of fills in the cracks, and just looks like a plain old black polish.

Here was my final mani....Now I know this look isn't for everyone, but I'm a fan :P

The pic below is where I was playing in the beginning. My ring finger, 3rd finger, was the one that I let my base dry completely, and applied a thick coat of Crack polish over top, and also waited for the Crack Polish to dry 100%.

My pointer, middle & pinky, I also applied dry, but applied a VERY thin coat of Crack polish. This caused TONS of itty bitty cracks, which did look cool, but I preferred the fewer tad bigger cracks. Then you can kind of see how when I applied my top coat while the Crack polish was still semi wet, that some of the cracks vanished, and filled in. It was weird.

If you are interested in ordering from Born Pretty, use my code, CHLOEK31, and get 10% off from now till March 31st, 2011,

More about → Kelier Black Crack Polish from Born Pretty