Bornprettystore Tribal Water Decals Review!

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have this mani using tribal water decals from bornprettystore.com to share with you! These were SO easy to use (definitely saying something for me since I am usually terrible with full nail decals of any sort) and I even did a live demo on my Youtube channel to show you how they work! If you'd like to see the live demo of these, click below!

Before I get into how I did the mani, let me show you how these little guys come packaged: 

Item number 21576

 They come inside a little plastic package with a cardboard surround to help prevent them from bending. You simply remove the film packaging, cardboard and plastic front of the decals and you're left with just the sheet of decals themselves. You'll want some scissors so that you can cut them out to fit your nails better, and a container of room temperature water similar to this:

To complete this mani, I first started with a base coat to protect my natural nail - I use Nail Magic. Once my base coat was dry, I cut out around the decals I wanted to use to make them fit better to the size of my nail. Using tweezers, I dipped one into my water and held it there for about 15-20 seconds until it started lifting off of the paper backing. I took the paper backing off and placed the decal onto my nail and sort of smoothed it around until I had it where I wanted it. The nice thing about decals like this is that you can continue to manipulate them until they dry. I started the smoothing from the middle of my nail and outwards towards the tip and cuticle so that I could remove any bubbles. Then I molded the excess around the tip to the shape of my nail. After it was mostly dry, I started cleaning up the excess with pure acetone and my cleanup brush to make sure it was nice and neat. I added Indigo Bananas LiLoo (Lithium Loo) on my other nails. Then I top coated with Seche Vite. Here's the final result:

 Interested in picking these up? You can find them HERE! If you've been toying with the idea of trying some full nail water decals from bornprettystore, I can definitely recommend these. I was thrilled with their performance, especially because I am terrible at free handing tribal prints! Don't forget to use my code, PPPQ10 for 10% off your order of originally priced items. :) 

What do you think of this mani? Do you like tribal prints? 

Thanks for reading! 

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**bornprettystore sent me this item free of charge in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. I was not compensated.**

Bestie Twin Nails with Acidicice! And story time!

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have a bestie twin nail collaboration to share with you, along with a little bit of story time. There's kind of a long story that goes into this collab so let's jump right in!

Here's a little backstory for you - Acidicice and I met in a blogger group and were randomly paired together to do a guest post on one another's blogs. I think she was actually originally supposed to be paired with someone else who couldn't do it at the time so we were reassigned to one another. Funny how the universe brings certain people into your life, isn't it? Anyway, we did our guest posts but kept chatting on Facebook and realized that we had SO MUCH in common. We have become fast friends, dear friends, bosom buddies, mom friends, and more. I share so much with her and literally the only negative to our friendship is that we live in different hemispheres - yep. I live in the United States and my darling friend lives across the world in South Africa. :(

Over the last 6 months or so, we have chatted a lot about the differences in our countries - one of them being her lack of access to a lot of wonderful nail things. Indies, cheap nail cleanup brushes and liquid latex from Amazon, etc, etc, etc. I knew that she was REALLY missing out on so many things so I started putting together a small box of nail goodies for her. Well, that ballooned out of control and what started as a handful of items actually wound up being barely able to fit into a medium flat rate box from USPS. When time came that I wanted to ship it - I found out the sad truth, that I wouldn't be able to afford to send it due to the cost of shipping and the crappiness of the postal service and customs department in South Africa. How was I going to send this box of goodies to my BFF?! 

Enter a long time friend of Acidicice's that now lives in the States! Her mother was flying from South Africa to visit in the States so I was able to send "The Box" to the friend, who's sweet mother packed it into her luggage and brought it back safely to South Africa. It MADE IT! Safe and sound - nothing broken, everything in tact. Acidicice was able to go the very next day to pick it up and we did a video call so I could watch her open everything. She cried, I cried. It was such a special moment - knowing that a piece of my life went all the way across the world - the people that were involved in making sure that it made it restored my faith in all that is right with the world. 

So we decided to do a twin mani so she could use her goodies that I have similarities to or dupes of. Check it out! Here's mine: 

I used Delush Polish 50 Shades of Yay as my base on the index and middle fingers and Indigo Bananas Phlogiston Paradise on my ring and pinkie. I then went back and stamped using M Polish Dancing In The Streets and Fresh Perspective and a handful of different stamping plates. 

Check hers out:

She used a different Delush Polish from the same collection - A Peony For Your Thoughts and Zoya Belinda and also stamped with M Polish Dancing In The Streets and Fresh Perspective. I love how they are similar images but still different than mine! Make sure you go check hers out on her blog! 

So that's my story time about our twin manis - this was possibly the most special moment in my nail life since I've joined this community. It was very special to be able to share those polishes and that moment with her. I hope to actually be able to meet her and see her beautiful nails in person one day. 

Thanks for reading! 

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Neon Gradient Tribal Nails!

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have some nail art to share with you. I did this sort of neon, tribal nail art using some polishes from Indigo Bananas and was really happy with how it came out. More importantly I was THRILLED with how my photos came out with my camera. I'm getting better!

Image credit: Google Images

Okay, on to the nails! I started with a base of Orly White Tips for my gradient nails - actually funny little tidbit is that my middle finger had a gradient on it as well and I got all the way to top coating it and starting on my other hand and messed it up. Rather than re-doing it, I just threw some Zoya Dahlia on it. Fixed! 

Anyway, so once my white base was dry, I applied liquid latex around my nails to protect them from all the excess polish from the gradient. I put my polish on a latex free sponge starting with Phlogiston Paradise, then Zinc Industries, and finally Neon, the 10th Element and rolling it on my nails. I did about 3 passes with the sponge, each time reloading the polish so my sponge didn't dry out. Once I had achieved the opacity I was looking for, I peeled off my latex and started hand painting tribal doodles on my nails with black acrylic paint and striping brush. I waited for the black to dry, and topped everything with Seche Vite. 

Here's some mani pic spam!

What do you think of this mani? What's your favorite nail art to do over a gradient? 

Thanks for reading! 

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Born Pretty Store Dragonfly/Butterfly Stamping Plate Review!

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have another review for Born Pretty Store, this time for another stamping plate. This is my final item to review this go around! This plate is one of many small round stamping plates available from Born Pretty Store and I really enjoyed using this one! Keep reading after the break to see what I did with it!

BP-74 from bornprettystore.com

So, first thoughts, I loved the look of this plate! It has some really cute butterfly images which take up most of the plate, but then they also included some little dragonflies! My first instinct was to use the butterflies and maybe do some leadlighting but I decided to step out of my comfort zone and use the dragonflies. I decided I was going to do some negative space along with it to give it a little more uniqueness. So I started with a base of Rhubidium Rhod by Indigo Bananas in a half moon mani. Once it was dry, I used Hottie by M Polish to stamp the dragonflies. I cleaned up the negative space area with my clean up brush so that there wasn't any stray dragonflies there. Hehe.  I top coated everything with Seche Vite at first but it was so glossy, it was hard to see the stamping so I added a matte top coat and I loved it! 

Final thoughts on this plate - I really liked the variety of butterflies which would be good for a number of stamping techniques but I also liked that they included the dragonflies for a little something extra. The image picked up easily for me on the first or second try which is pretty standard for me. The images transferred to my nails completely as well.

If you'd like to get this plate you can find it HERE. Don't forget that you can use my code PPPQ10 for 10% off your order of originally priced items.

What do you think of this mani? Which images would you use from this plate?

Thanks for reading!

**This product was provided to me free of charge in exchange for my honest review. All opinions in this post are my own.** 

Want to see more? Follow me on Instagram for more nail art and swatches!