NOTD: Neon + Stamping

Hey everyone!

Today's NOTD was something I came by by accident. I knew I wanted to do something neon because I'm obsessed with neons lately (check out my Summer Neon Gradient Tutorial) so I just started painting my nails with the green, but I had this idea to stamp a neon over white to see what it would look like.... this is what I came up with.

For this manicure I used China Glaze Kiwi Cool-ada, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, and China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy to stamp with. I actually really like how this turned out! I used one of the Salon Express stamping plates for the flower design.

What do you think? Are you obsessed with any types of shades lately?

Thanks for reading!

New Salon Express Image Plates!

So, I recently went to CVS and I saw they also had the Salon Express kit. I had heard that different places had different image plates so I decided to buy it and give it a shot, and it DID have different plates!!! Below are pictures from the CVS kit plates as well as a few experiments I did with these images!

I actually like these plates a lot better than the ones from the Rite-Aid set. A lot more designs that I would readily wear or wear on holidays and such. The only one I found hard to apply was the checker board. I tried it a couple of times before just leaving it as you see in the picture above. I think I still need some more practice at the stamping thing but I really love this kit and these plates! I'm planning on buying some more plates online within the next few weeks so stay tuned for that!!

Also, Check out here and here for my other posts about this drugstore stamping kit.

Thanks for reading, until next time!

Salon Express Nail Stamping Kit Experiments!

Yesterday I posted about a nail stamping kit I picked up at Rite Aid called Salon Express. I just wrote up a quick blurb about it because I hadn't had the chance to play with it too much. Well turns out being insomniac is really good for my blogging. I couldn't sleep last night and early this morning so I played around with this kit and did some experiments... This post is about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this kit:

This was the first thing I tried since the little tips insert that came with the kit said to use thick polishes. In my experience, the Insta-Dri are really thick so I used Mint Sprint for the base and Lickety-Split Lime for the stamping. I actually like how it turned out, the only thing is that it smeared when I put on a topcoat. I used a Barielle top coat and it smeared the index and ring fingers. Them I remembered that Seche Vite is best to use to prevent smearing and that's what I did for the rest of the designs:

This was the second thing I tried. I really don't like how this one came out. I found it really hard to get actual circles that weren't faded or oval shaped or something like that. I like the color combination I just need to play around with the dot design some more to get it to look like dots. Colors I used were Dream On from Sinful Colors as the base and Disco Dress from Color Club for the stamping.

After the dot fiasco, I thought of making a multi-color design to see how that would work. So I put down a base of China Glaze White on White and I decided to try to make multicolored butterflies. My index finger is smudged in this... I caught the topcoat bottle as I was taking pictures :(. I really like how this turned out, actually. I used all China Glaze neons: Flip Flop Fantasy, Kiwi Cool-ada, Sun Worshipper, Turned up Turquoise. What I did for this one was I just put a dab of each color on a different section of the butterfly and when I scraped it away, it mixed in a little bit. LOVE how this came out, I just need to work on placing the butterfly better.

And finally, the design I decided to do and keep on my nails. For this I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep for the base and Wet n' Wild Black Creme for the stamping. This is my favorite of the experiments I did today. I apologize for the messy cuticles, its annoying when I have small fingers and the design is gigantic... I cleaned up my cuticles a little but I really wanted to photograph and post this because I love it so much!

Overall, I love this kit. It took a little bit to actually get it to work. Like I mentioned in the original post about this kit, I tried a few different polishes but none of those worked... thick and very pigmented polish is definitely the way to go! Also, one of my tips: the scraper in this kit is useless to me. It doesn't get rid of the excess well enough causing the design to smear when you stamp it on. I decided to use a razor blade instead and that works so much better! Also an obvious point but one that I didn't think of in my sleep deprived state: make sure your base color is DRY before attempting to stamp.

Very happy with this kit! So glad I decided to get it! I hope this was helpful to some of you!

Thanks for reading, until next time!