MoYou Nails product review

This is a bit of a first-ever for me... stamping designs that don't cover the whole nail! I was asked if I'd like to review a few products from the MoYou Nails collection, including one of their stamping polishes of my choice, and I jumped at the opportunity, since my default white stamping polish (Sally Hansen InstaDri in Whirlwind White) is almost used up and I'm not sure where I'd find another bottle!

I received MoYou Special Stamping polish in White, MoYou Stamper and plastic scraper and image plates 105 and 106 to try out. 106 is a set of french tips. I've been intrigued by these for years, but a little scared, and I've had a few unsuccessful attempts with tip images that came with other sets of plates. So a little nervous to try this out, I selected this floral image.... 

This was rather easy to place - maybe because of my current nail shape and I loved the effect! The base mani is Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm, an old shade that is my favourite navy blue ever. 

I found the white stamping polish dense and opaque, without being thick at all - so it spread perfectly over the plate and was easily removed by the plastic scraper. The stamper I was sent was a *bit* squishy; I've not had great success with full-on-squishy stampers I've tried, and always end up going back to my old Konad stamper, which is really too small for my nails. But this one works great and I'm really happy with it. I roughed up the surface a bit with an emery board before I started, but I found the stamper picked up the image perfectly from the plate and transferred it very easily to my nails. My nails are not the easiest to stamp on, because I have quite a high c-curve, but this stamper handles that very well. 

Great so far - I'm very impressed by the polish, the stamper and the quality of the plate. I was a bit too hasty putting topcoat over my design and ended up with micro-streaks that show up in the pictures (but didn't in real life). 

The second plate was 105, a selection of individual heart images. I decided to test these out over a textured polish (Binky London Crystal Pink) and create a skittle design. My favourite image on the plate is the grafitti style heart in the middle; I used this on my index finger for a full image, off centre on my ring finger and multiple times on my middle finger to create a random whole nail graffiti pattern. Then I chose a different heart for my little finger. I love how this turned out and the application of the stamped images to the textured polish was a breeze.  

So I'm giving a big thumbs up for the stamper, the plastic scraper is fine (although I always find an old plastic card perfectly adequate for this job) and comes as a bundle with the stamper anyway, the plates are good quality and stamp very well (and gave me the chance to try designs I'd probably not have chosen otherwise, as I tend to always go for full nail images) and the white stamping polish seems great.... before I decide if I want to make it my default white stamping and nail art polish I wanted to try a couple of other things though... 

Full nail stamped design with a plate from my collection - the polish handled perfectly! I wanted a soft effect for this mani, so it has a layer of white jelly (Sally Hansen Polar Bare) over the stamping. The grey is Barry M Gelly in Almond.

And lastly - is it opaque enough for dots?  I think so - these dots over a dark chocolate brown (Megan Miller Ganache) certainly pass muster by my standards. So I'd definitely recommend MoYou's white polish for stamping and other nail art!

 The MoYou products (Stamper and Scraper, White Special Stamping Polish and image plates 105 and 106) in this post were provided for honest review.These are all available to purchase at the MoYou website. The Binky London textured polish was a review sample (see this post for my review of this polish). Everything else I used in these designs is from my own collection and was purchased by me.

Barry M - new gelly shade OLIVE with a bit of stamping.....

Barry M Olive with Essie Sew Psyched

The finished mani... Barry M Olive stamped with Essie Sew Psyched using MoYou Pro XL plate 05. I was really pleased with how this turned out!

The new Barry M Gelly Nail Paint shades include three pale neutrals, which are in that range of colours that I can't seem to resist - so when I realised these were a three-for-two offer at Superdrug I couldn't help myself. I bought Olive, Coconut (off white) and Almond (pale taupe).

Here's Olive:

Barry M Olive

I think the colour is fab and I'd say the formula is OK but not amazing, I used three coats here because it still looked a bit streaky after two. I like the colour enough for it to be worth the bit of extra effort with the application. It's quite a unique colour - I'm not sure I've got anything quite like it in my stash!

And here are some more pictures of the stamping. I've not tried Essie Sew Psyched for stamping before but it works brilliantly - and it's a lovely colour match for Barry M Olive! Some of my pictures are taken in bright sunlight and this really makes the green in Sew Psyched stand out!

Barry M Olive with Essie Sew Psyched

I purchased Barry M Olive from Superdrug last week - Essie Sew Psyched has been around in my collection for years but I think it's still a current shade.

Race Day Nails.... Highland Fling 26 April 2014

Rescue Beauty Lounge A Lonely House / SpaRitual Running With Wolves

This post is a bit of sentimental self indulgence, sorry. Last Saturday I ran the Highland Fling, an ultramarathon starting in Milngave, Glasgow and following the first 53 miles of the West Highland Way out to Tyndrum in the Highlands (coincidentally the best chippy in Scotland is in Tyndrum, imo). I had a fantastic day and this is what I wore on my nails. I left this on most of the week to remind me of a wonderful day.....

... and I'll look back at this post when I want to think about the day.

The polishes are RBL A Lonely House (which is new, lovely and the name is kind of fitting for running in the wilderness) and SpaRitual Running With Wolves, a polish I've worn for *luck* on long races before! 

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

A really simple but wonderfully effective spring or summer polish! R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti  is a white crelly base with glitter in yellow dots, light blue squares, bright red hexes and some oversized neon yellow hexes. I love this - it makes me think of some of Cath Kidston's dot designs!

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

Application was very easy, there's tons of glitter in this polish and the consistency of the base is just about perfect so that you pick up the right amount of glitter on the brush every time. I used three very thin coats so I could build up the effect I wanted with glitter at various depths.

Instead of using a thick topcoat such as Gelous to smooth the glitter, I used a coat of Sally Hansen Polar Bare. Polar Bare is a very sheer white jelly polish - I was given this bottle a while ago and at first I thought I'd never find a use for it. However it turned out to be brilliant for turning any glitter mani into a 'jelly sandwich' and for toning down over-blingy glitters!

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

I bought Tutti Frutti from R&R Lacquers Etsy shop; amazingly this was in the 'reject' bin of colours that didn't make it into their new Spring collection. So sadly this is a one off. There are lots of other super looking shades in the Spring Collection though; I'm eagerly awaiting my pick in the mail :)

Postscript:

I added a bit of stamping to this mani - white-on-white using Sally Hansen Instr-Dri Whirlwind White and MoYou Pro plate XL 05. I love how this turned out!

More hipster nailart (MoYou Hipster collection plates 1 and 2)

MoYou Hipster Collection - images from plates 1 and 2

Hmm, so those brown nails from yesterday were just the perfect base for another hipster-themed mani! Here they are before the stamping just as a reminder...

Flash Nails Princess over OPI & Apple Pie

 It was Flash Nails Princess over OPI & Apple Pie, here's a link to the post if you want to see more pictures or read more about the glitter (Flash Nails is one of the newer UK Indie Brands).

Then I stamped over it using a selection of the images on the MoYou Hipster collection plates 1 and 2. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White and American Apparel in Hassid for the stamping - these are my HG white and black stamping polishes. I have a different selection of images from these plates on my right hand, but I totally fail at taking photos with my left hand, so no pictures of those, sorry!

MoYou Hipster Collection - images from plates 1 and 2

An InLinkz Link-up

Hipster Mani - with MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

Long title for this post, lol! MoYou released some fab new 'Hipster' plates last week so when mine arrived I dived straight in with a hipster style mani! I went for a beige, blue and red combination, with a bit of check! The plates have some great designs and all those I tried stamped perfectly.

I painted most of my nails with Essie Case Study; the accents are M&S Autograph Bordeaux and RBL Cuprum. I chose the accent colours because they were the nearest I had to the glitters in R&R Lacquers Steve. All the stamping is Barry M Lychee. I added R&R Lacquers Steve (from R&R's current collection 'Assemble') to my check stamped nails. Steve has matte dark red and blue hexes in a clear base along with white squares and small gold and holographic glitter. This is just one coat - application is very easy and the formula is smooth. I also added a single blue glitter to the red accent nail on each hand. For the blue accent nails, I added double dots with Essie Case Study and Barry M Lychee.

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

Here's a closer shot of the check stamp and the glitters in Steve!

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

I purchased Hipster plates 1 and 2 from MoYou's website; I purchased the fabulous Smash from R&R Lacquers Assemble collection recently and Rebecca and Rachel very kindly sent me sample sizes of the rest of the collection for review :) R&R Lacquers are available from their Etsy Shop; follow their facebook page for details of upcoming colours (there are some spring colours in the pipeline I have my eye on!). All the other polishes I used here are from my collection and were purchased by me at some point in the past.

Models Own Blue Glint with ILNP Birefringence (MoYou Sailor plate 07)

Models Own Blue Glint stamped with ILNP Birefringence using MoYou Sailor plate 7

Models Own Blue Glint is one of their new Hypergel colours. It's a super-bright, teal-leaning blue and a shade I absolutely love! Here it is on it's own - I wore it like this for a couple of days before I added the stamping. This is two coats of Blue Glint with Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

Models Own Blue Glint

For the stamping I used ILNP Birefringence, which is a teal to purple duochrome, and one of the swirly patterns on MoYou's Sailor collection plate 7 (XL images). I'm SO impressed with MoYou plates; such a good range of interesting patterns and the XL plates are perfect for longer nails. When I first started stamping there were Konad and Bundle Monster plates, and although there were some nice designs, stamping was something I saved for when I had short nails mostly. No need for that now!

Models Own Blue Glint stamped with ILNP Birefringence using MoYou Sailor plate 7

Birefringence stamps quite easily and I like the abstract effect. I like the duochrome shifting effect - my nails go from a monochrome teal pattern to teal and purple as the light changes. Come to think of it, I have a running top that it is teal with a darker teal pattern on it - this mani would go really well with that.......might wear it tomorrow!

Models Own Blue Glint stamped with ILNP Birefringence using MoYou Sailor plate 7

I purchased Models Own Blue Glint from my local Superdrug (I did get some Hypergels to review but not this one) and I got ILNP Birefringence from a friend. You can buy ILNP polishes direct from their website or from Etsy; they ship internationally.