Nella Milano – Evergreen

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own. Contains Affiliate links

Its Nella Milano time again.  Goodness, I’m sure its not just me, but the weeks seem to be flying by!  I have a fab green sahde to share with you today, say HELLO! to Evergreen. This one is from the Four Seasons collection.

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Formula on this was excellent.  I am really impressed.  What you see here are two coats over a base of Nailtiques 2 ad topped with Nails Inc Kansington Top Coat (both purchased by me).  The green is really unusual in that it is quite dark and not the bright grass green you often get with other shades.  In fact, I have little like it in the BIG stash!

On the website you can search by collection, there are eight sets and one set of top and base coat www.nellamilano.com.  You can also visit the brand on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook to keep up to date with releases and current shades.  The price point is £8.95.  But this week, Evergreen should be on offer for £4.95, so if you like the look of this, this is the week to take the plunge and buy!

Let me know what you think in the comments!  What are you favourite green shades?

Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own. Contains Affiliate links

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Born Pretty Stamping Plate BP-L020

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

I’ve been sent some lovely Born Pretty Plates to play with and I have a couple of looks I am going to share with you this week.  First up is this look using BP-L020 a plate filled with lovely lacy designs.  I was quite taken with this plate and I wasn’t sure where to start.  But in the end I plumped for the lace pattern at the bottom left of the image.

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I used a base of Barry M Gelly Lychee to provide a nude base so that it wouldn’t detract too much from the stamping.  I then stamped over the top, using WnW Black Creme that I keep in my stamping stash, before sealing it all in with my Nails Inc Kensington Top Coat.  I did managed to smear my thumb nail and so just dropped in a little bit more stamping because I was running out of time to get this finished.

I love how classy and clean this looks, I think anyone would be able to carry off this design and colour way.  It provides interest without being too in your face.  The quality of the stamp plate is great, the designs are smaller than those you would find on a MoYou XL plate, but bigger than those on the regular plate.  They are a good size for my nails.  I also used my Creative Stamper which I find works really well with the BP plates and delivers a crisp image onto the nail.

Born Pretty have provided me with a 10% off code for all my readers, so if you like the look of this, or any of the next few products I have to shared with you, please feel free to use it. The code is ULG10.  There are lots and lots of lovely things available via the store. Let me know what you get in the comments!
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

Born Pretty Plate 55 with silver stamping

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

I wanted to quickly share this other Born Pretty Stamping plate I was kindly sent for review.  I’ve become slightly obsessed with these geometric/tribal designs for nails.  Firstly, they don’t need to be lined up in any particular way and secondly they are just awesome.  In fact, this plate is BP-55 and is called Awesome Petal Design plate and you can check it out on the BP website here.

I used the silver metallic stamping polish also sent to me for review (we’ve seen that here as well).  My previous experience of the plate and the polish holds up here again.  But to be clear – the plate is well etched and comes with a clear blue film.  Remove the film before use.  I always clean my plates with a quick sweep of acetone on a cotton pad (make sure its a good quality one or it will shed) and then consider them ready to go.

As for the stamping, I’ve been using my Creative Stamper a lot.  Its very easy to use and I find it gives great clear definition of the design when you transfer onto the nail.  Always important with the more delicate designs.  Do not use acetone on it or it will melt.  I remove unwanted polish with a wide roll of sticky tape.

The silver stamping polish is easy to work with and doesn’t dry too quickly.  This means if you have a big-ish design (like above) you can get two nails (usually my little finger and one other) done at the same time.  So that knocks a couple of minutes right off there.

If you are wondering what base colour I used, I was wearing Tapage by Chanel (bought by myself), something bright and bold now that we’ve had some sunny weather.  I think the silver works well over the top of this.

Born Pretty have provided me with a 10% off code for all my readers, so if you like the look of this, or any of the next few products I have to shared with you, please feel free to use it. The code is ULG10.  Let me know what you get in the comments!

Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

OMG Nail Strips

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

I was really pleased that OMG Nail Strips reached out to me to test out their Nail Strips.  I’ve tried a few in my time and I’ve not been much of a fan as they always make my nail feel fat or make my nails feel tight.  And the inability to scratch properly also drove me crazy.

I picked out a couple of designs from their impressive range and I’ll show you how I got on below.  Now if you visit my blog regularly, then you know I tend to show my images in a slide show.  But I think on this occasion, I won’t do that, so that it is easier for you to follow my experiences of application.

So to get started, I removed all my nail polish and then read the application instructions on the website. I then took my selected nail strips out of the the plastic cover they came in and this is how they looked.

Here you can see the instructions on the back of the packet – quite straight forward.

When you open up the packet, you get two strips of seven nail strips. There are two of each size and they come in a variety of sizes from 10mm to 17.5mm. There is a clear plastic layer over the nail strip to protect it which you need to remove before application.

I just love this design, so I figured you’d like to see a close up too! Now I don’t have any pics of the actually application, mainly because I was too busy getting them on my nails and it was a really quick process! They are flexible and if you do make a mistake you could gently pull them off for repositioning. I was pleased to find this out. They are also hard to crease, something else that I was happy about!

You cut the selected nail strip free from the rest, remove the clear top cover and then peel off the backing. I didn’t remove the entire backing because the strips are quite long and I wanted to retain the unused portion for using. So I peeled the backing partially off and the rounded end towards your cuticle and pressed down. Then I cut off the majority of the excess and used a soft hoof stick, pressing it around the edges and smoothing up towards my free nail edge. Once I was happy with my smoothing I used a glass nail file in downward motions to remove the excess. And then ta-dah! This was my first nail!

After doing all 10 nails, this is what I had left – quite a bit which I could use for accent nails or pieces of nail art. If my nails were longer then clearly I would have used more of the strip. It can accommodate nails up to 3cm in length!

Here are my completed nails prior to top coat. You can see a bit of crinkling and I did a bit more smoothing down with my hoof stick. I paid special attention to the edges and the free nail edge.

This is with top coat. I think they are much improved with a bit of top coat, as they are real polish, they settle down and those tiny imperfections get smoothed over. It feels like real nails polish. I know they ARE real polish, but the feeling is equivalent to if I had painted them myself.

I was really surprised at how quick and easy application was. I would say that it took no longer than base, two polish coats and top coat.

If you want to try these for yourself, do visit the website OMG Nail Strips. The ones I chose can be found here.  I have another design that I hope to share with you soon.

Shipping is free no matter where you live and all strips cost $7.99 and there are so many designs to choose from. If you are after some really eye catching nails or after some themed designs, then I recommend that you check these out.

*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.

Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails