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.

Flash Nails Masquerade

Flash Nails Masquerade

Here's another fab polish from Flash Nails! This one is a white crelly with neon microglitter......

Flash Nails Masquerade

Masquerade applied perfectly, as I've come to expect from Flash Nails polishes. The formula is nice and fluid, with plenty of glitter in each brushful. I used two coats of Masquerade over a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White (one coat - this is a very dense white polish) and one coat of Seche Vite quick dry topcoat.

Flash Nails Masquerade

I love this - it reminds me of 'hundreds and thousands' on top of a trifle from birthday parties when I was a kid!

Flash Nails Masquerade

Flash Nails Masquerade was sent for review; you can buy the polish from Flash Nails Etsy shop.

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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!

Splatter mani!

Splatter mani with M&S Autograph Ultimate Wear Bordeaux

This is the first time I've done a real splatter mani - I've used the splatter image from Konad plate M21 before but I thought it was time to go for the real thing, super-messy in a true Jackson Pollock style! I did the spattering over a mani that was a couple of days old - M&S Autograph Ultimate Wear Nail Colour in Bordeaux, a lovely deep, rich red. For the spattering I used American Apparel Hassid (black) and Cotton (pale cream); I poured out a little of each onto a milk bottle cap, sucked a bit up into a drinking straw and blew it out over my nails. I did all the cream spattering first, allowed this to dry, then went back over all the nails with black. This was great fun to do, and not anywhere near as messy as I thought it might have been. I painted my cuticles (and entire finger ends) with cuticle oil before I started, and this made clean up really easy.  

I love the results and I'll certainly do this again!

Splatter mani with M&S Autograph Ultimate Wear Bordeaux

Here are a few macro shots to show the splatteriness of my splatter!

Splatter mani with M&S Autograph Ultimate Wear Bordeaux

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star

Lucky Star is another polish from Darling Diva's Madonna collection. It has hot pink square glitters in two sizes, and neon green and black star glitters in a white jelly base.  I layered it over a just off-white polish for this mani - Models Own Pro French Ivory.

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star

This is two thin coats of Darling Diva Lucky Star over two thin coats of Models Own Pro French Ivory. With hindsight I should have used a third coat of the Models Own, as it still looks a bit streaky close up.

Darling Diva Lucky Star was easy to apply and no fishing for glitters required. I used a coat of Gelous and a final coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat to finish the mani - mostly because I wanted to be sure that the corners of the stars didn't stick out on my curvy nails! If your nails are flatter than mine, you'll be fine with just a coat of SV (or your preferred topcoat) for a bit of shine and protection.

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star

I love this polish over the cream coloured base; I also think it would look good over a very pale yellow such as Illamasqua Load, a very pale pink like Butter London Teddy Girl or a buff like OPI My Vampire is Buff. I'll be trying this out again over a couple of these colours in the future. Maybe even over a gradient!

I've been looking at my nails all day today and really loving the effect of this mani in the sunlight ( I was running a 24 mile fell race over some pretty rough ground, so looking at my nails might not have been such a great idea) but there is bit more to the polish than that............ Darling Diva Lucky Star is also glow in the dark (and *glow in UV / black light*)!

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star (Dark)

This picture was taken in the dark; I don't have a black light source but neglelakkmani does - check out her review of this polish with a superb picture taken under UV light!

I received Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star as a sample for my unbiased review; you can buy Darling Diva polishes from their Etsy Shop or from Llarowe or Mei Mei's Signatures - all these sellers ship worldwide. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva polishes and ships within Europe. I bought the Models Own polish I used for undies  from my local Boots a while ago.

The Madonna collection, which also includes the lovely Material Girl I reviewed last week, launches today (Sunday 9 June) on Etsy. You can follow Darling Diva on facebook for news of new colours and restock updates.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily with bold leopard spots (Barry M Nail Art Pens)

Barry M Nail Art Pens

I seldom do nail art, but when the Barry M Nail Art pens were released a few weeks ago, I couldn't resist buying a couple to try! They've been sitting around on my desk ever since, as I've not really thought up an interesting way to use them.

I'm a great fan of animal prints, so eventually I decided to try out the pens on a big-scale leopard design, which I copied from a leopard print cardigan of mine. I wasn't too sure this would work out, so I did my experimentation over an existing mani that was several days old - one of my all time favourites, Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily.

Here are a couple of pictures of RBL Aqua Lily on its own...... Aqua Lily is a vibrant teal. I'd describe it as a blue leaning teal; it reminds me of the colour of the sea on some of my favourite beaches in the Hebridean Isles. It has a subtle shimmer of pink running through it too.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily

On to the nail art pens, these are surprisingly easy to use. They have a very fine tip, and once you've got the polish (or whatever it is) flowing after the intial priming (you need to pump them up and down on a piece of paper until the pigment flows before using for the first time) the colour flows very smoothly and it's pretty much like drawing on your nails with a felt pen. MUCH easier than using a brush, as you don't have to worry about reloading the brush and the polish drying out as you work. I tried out a few simple line and dot designs first, and the pens are great for fine work. Also, if you mess up, it's easy to remove the design as you work; either scrape the bits where you've gone wrong off with another nail, or scrub the whole lot off with a nailbrush and hot soapy water!

For this design I drew on the white centres of the spots first, on all my nails, then went back and added the black.

I was really pleased with the way this turned out. Although it was only intended as an experiment, I ended up wearing it for several days, and I only removed it when I had a meeting at work that I thought it was rather unsuitable for.

Barry M Nail Art Pens

I bought the Barry M Nail Art Pens from my local Superdrug. Alternatively, they are available online at Barry M's website. I bought Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily from Rescue Beauty Lounge; this is a very popular colour and sold out very quickly, although again RBL often reinstate retired colours so if this is a colour you like it's worth keeping an eye out for an RBL 'Bring it Back' release. Aqua Lily has already been re-released like this in 2012.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity is a mix of medium sized lavender hex glitters, smaller magenta hex glitters, light green square glitters and tiny darker green hex glitters, all mixed up a sheer white base with a sprinkling of iridescent glitter too! The result is complex, springy and very feminine! It reminds me of pretty summer dresses and traditional english china! Serendipity means a pleasant surprise, and the way these colours work together in this gorgeous polish is certainly that!

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

The glitter in this polish is quite dense and generous, so for my mani I used three coats of Serendipity over a single coat of a very sheer white (Boots No7 Snowflake) as I wanted to keep the finish smooth but avoid visible nail line. I'm not sure I really needed the undies, and I wouldn't bother on shorter nails at all. I used a coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite to smooth and finish the mani. Here are a few pictures from different angles to show the glitters on the nail.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

And a couple of macro shots for a bit more detail - you can really see how the iridescent glitters catch the light here

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Lovely! I couldn't help but think about floral china when I looked at my nails, so I thought I'd try layering Serendipity over a light creamy colour to pull the base a bit warmer. I used Barry M Gelly Nail Paint in Lychee as my base; this  is a light, biscuity nude with no hint of pink.

 Barry M Gelly in Lychee

Then I added two light coats of Serendipity...........

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

I love how this turned out! As with the Serendipity mani above, I used a coat of Gelous to smooth out the glitter and a thick coat of Seche Vite to finish everything off. The base of Serendipity is smooth and translucent enough just to lighten the base without causing any streaking or blobbing of the white. You can see how even the pigment is in this closer shot. The yellow / transparent glitters you can see here are the iridescent glitters where the light is hitting them an a different angle to what usually produces the blue-green flash you get from these.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

I'll definitely try this out again with a different pastel colour for the base - I think a pale yellow would look especially good (I love yellow and purple together) or may a very light green or lilac. Darling Diva Serendipity is quite a versatile polish!

Finally, since I'd started a *porcelain* theme, I couldn't leave this without adding a matt topcoat!

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

Darling Diva Serendipity was sent to me as a sample for review. I also reviewed Darling Diva Grumpy Bear, and Dirty Deeds.

You can buy Darling Diva polishes from Darling Diva Polish's Etsy Shop, Llarowe and Mei Mei's Signatures; all these sellers ship internationally. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva and ships within Europe.