Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polishes

I received my order from Mundo de Uñas on Friday and given the feedback on Instagram today, I don't really have to introduce these, do I? :) I read about these Mexican stamping polishes a while back and they seem to be highly pigmented, even when stamped over a black base. Since they're also quite cheap, I decided to make an order of six colors to decide for myself. 

Am Freitag habe ich meine Mundo de Uñas Bestellung erhalten und ich glaube, ich muss die gar nicht wirklich vorstellen, oder? Sehr gut pigmentierte und beliebte Stampinglacke, die ich nun auch selber testen wollte. Sie kommen aus Mexiko, sind jedoch recht billig, darum habe ich mir mal sechs davon bestellt.

Today I tried Green and Blue, and I'm not disappointed. For my base I used one coat of KIKO - 347 Dark Green. Then I applied some liquid nail tape to protect the skin from the polish (a post on that will follow soon). I think that was a very good idea, since they're so highly pigmented and can stain your skin. I used two images of the MoYou London Hipster plate for the plaid pattern. Karine also gave me the tip to wait a few seconds after picking up the pattern with the stamp. I did that and it worked, but I didn't feel like redoing my nails, so I didn't try it without the waiting time. They only bad thing about these is their smell, which is terrible. Apart from that I'm very happy with my new polishes and I can't wait to stamp the complete rainbow on my nails! <3 

Zuerst habe ich Green und Blue ausprobiert und ich bin sehr begeistert. Als Grundfarbe habe ich eine Schicht KIKO - 347 Dark Green lackiert und dann rund um den Nagel Liquid Nail Tape aufgetragen (dazu folgt dann noch ein separater Post). Da die Lacke sehr stark pigmentiert sind, war das auch eine gute Idee, das sie die Haut verfärben können. Für das Plaid Muster habe ich zwei  Bilder von der MoYou London Hipster Platte benutzt. Karine hat mir ausserdem den Tipp gegeben, den Lack ein paar Sekunden auf dem Stempel antrocknen zu lassen und erst dann auf den Nagel zu drücken. Das hat gut funktioniert, ich habe aber auch nicht die Geduld gehabt, es noch andersherum auszuprobieren. Leider stinken die Lacke sehr, ich finde sie aber trotzdem toll.

I messed up my index finger nail with my top coat, in case you're wondering.

Den Zeigefingernagel habe ich mir übrigens mit dem Top Coat ruiniert.

MoYou London Explorer Plate 26 feat. Zoya - Dree & Essie - Penny Talk

MoYou London had a free shipping offer a few days ago and I decided to take the opportunity to get one of the plates that I've been wanting to buy for a while now. It's number 26 from the Explorer collection with XL images. I combined it with two of my favorite colors at the moment: Zoya - Dree as my base with two coats and Essie - Penny Talk as my stamping color. I used some top coat after Dree but none after Penny Talk to keep the chrome effect, but obviously after a few days of wearing these without top coat, they don't look perfect anymore. 

Vor ein paar Tagen hat MoYou London gratis versendet und ich habe gleich mal die Gelegenheit ergriffen, um mir eine der Schablonen zu kaufen, auf die ich schon länger ein Auge geworfen habe: Nummer 26 aus der Explorer Kollektion mit XL-Motiven. Ausprobiert habe ich sie jetzt mit zwei meiner momentanen Lieblingsfarben: Zoya - Dree als Grundfarbe mit zwei Schichten, dann eine Schicht Top Coat drüber und für das Stamping Essie - Penny Talk. Penny Talk sieht halt generell besser aus ohne Top Coat, aber so nach ein paar Tagen sehen die Nägel leider nicht mehr ganz so perfekt aus. 

Daniel Wellington - Classic Bristol Lady (Rose Gold) (Cooperation)

Right before Christmas I was contacted by Daniel Wellington and asked if I'd like to write about one of their watches. Although this is obviously not nail related, I decided to accept the offer since I fell in love with that one specific model. They send me the Classic Bristol Lady* in Rose Gold to review on my blog. If you're interested in buying your own watch, you will find a promotion code at the end of this post for 15 % off your order.

*PR Sample

Daniel Wellington is a Swedish company and they sell watches for both women and men. Their watches are clean and elegant and you can choose between the leather or the NATO strap. The straps are interchangeable, which is pretty cool if you like both styles. I felt like the NATO strap doesn't fit my personal style so I decided to go for the dark brown leather strap. They also have different case sizes but not for every watch. Make sure to check the size of your case and compare it to your wrist before you decide on a model. I picked the Classic Bristol Lady where the case size is 36 mm in diameter. This does sound quite bulky and at first I was thinking about choosing the Classy Bristol with 26 mm instead, but I didn't like the Swarovski stones on the index. I feel like the 36 mm is the perfect fit for my wrist (width: 5.5 - 6 cm, circumference: ca. 16.5 cm). You can also pick the case color in either rose gold or silver. I think the rose gold looks pretty awesome combined with white and dark brown leather and I like rose gold in general, so that was an easy choice for me. The price depends on the model you're choosing. The Classic Bristol Lady is sold for $199, worldwide shipping is free when purchasing a watch.  

Obviously I had to match my nails to my new watch. I tried different designs and I liked this one best, although it was a bit difficult to capture on camera. I used two coats of my new white polish Essence - Snow Alert (Mountain Calling LE) as my base color. Then I added the stamping with MoYou London Pro Plate #03 (XL) and Essie - Penny Talk. Even though Penny Talk looks way better without top coat I had to add one, because I didn't have time to take the pictures on the same day.

I've been wearing the Classic Bristol Lady for a week now and it has adjusted perfectly to my wrist. This is my first watch in years and it feels great not having to check my phone all the time. The only drawback for me is the missing second hand. I'm a very punctual person but I still need to have to know the exact time sometimes, for example when catching a train (the Swiss, you know...). Apart from that I'm very happy with this watch. 

Daniel Wellington offers a promotion code to my followers. Enter spektorsnails at checkout to get 15 % off your order. The code is valid until 31.01.2015.

Christmas Plaid Nails feat. Essie - Urban Jungle

Today's nail art was inspired by a beautiful plaid design I saw a few weeks ago on Quiche Girl. She had the awesome idea to use multiple colors in one stamping. I love that she also added blue to the mix which looks amazing, but I left it out to make mine a bit more Christmassy. I also used the same collection from MoYou London, that is the Hipster collection. But instead of #06 I used the XL version #05. As my base color I used two coats of Essie - Urban Jungle. Then for the first round of plaid I used OPI - Christmas Gone Plaid and Cinnamon Sweet together on the same image. Then I used OPI With a Nice Finn-Ish for the golden plaid, which could have been a bit more opaque, but that's okay. For the last step I took a nail art brush and the same red and green colors to add some stripes over the stamping. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Textured Stamping feat. Layla Cosmetics Mirror Effect

I hope you're not tired of textured stamping? Because I still love it! This one was a bit of a different approach, even though it's still the MoYou London Christmas plate #04 that I used for the stamping image. I think it's more of a NYE design than one for Christmas, because there's a lot of silver going on here! As my textured base I used two coats of Manhattan - Give me Sparkle (Visions of Me LE) and as my stamping color I used Layla Cosmetics Mirror Effect - Metal Chrome. So for now I'm off to the usual Christmas trip but I have prepared two more posts to keep you entertained. Also I will obviously be on Instagram where I might show off my nails and cats under the Christmas tree. :) 

Textured Christmas Stamping feat. Dance Legend - Amethyst / Essie - Penny Talk

After my latest Textured Snowflake Stamping I really wanted to do a similar design, but this time using different colors. I chose one of my favorite textured polishes Dance Legend - Amethyst* as my base color for the stamping. Then I used two images of the MoYou London Christmas Collection #04 and Essie - Penny Talk for the Christmas stamping.

*PR Sample

Snowflake Nails - Textured Stamping feat. MoYou London Christmas Collection & KIKO Cosmetics

So while slobbering over the KB Shimmer Christmas collection on Google images a few days ago, I stumbled upon this beautiful Christmas stamping by Marta from ChitChatNails. A bit earlier that week Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did her awesome Rough and Spotted design. I don't think I've ever done a stamping over a textured polish before, but I absolutely love the look and somehow the season seems perfect for that purpose. It seemed like a nice opportunity to finally try the KIKO Cupcake Lacquer that I got last summer. #655 Mint is one of the limited textured polishes from KIKO and what I love about it are those colorful sprinkles mixed into the rough mint formula. I used two coats as my base color for the next step, which is a stamping with the MoYou London Christmas Collection #02. For the blue snowflakes I used KIKO #523 Royal Blue and obviously there is no top coat involved. I also found this textured snowflake stamping by Natalie from Nailz Craze and I love it! Definitely my new favorite way of stamping nail art! 

Plaid Nails / MoYou London Hipster Collection #05

It's time for some more plaid nails! I'm really happy with my MoYou London Hipster plate #05 and I could wear plaid nails for the rest of my life really. I decided to use H&M - Get A Rose 4 Me as my base color. It's just perfect for autumn! Then I did the stamping with Essie - Angora Cardi. Since the plate doesn't have simple lines, I free-handed them with a nail art brush and OPI - Skyfall. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

MoYou London Kaleidoscope #04 feat. Essie - Fiji

I found the perfect color match: Essie - Fiji and H&M - Get A Rose 4 Me. I'm pretty sure the last one isn't available in stores anymore, but they might have a new one these days. I combined those two with my new MoYou London Kaleidoscope plate #04 which I think is really adorable. I used three coats of Fiji and then stamped with Get A Rose 4 Me. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Plaid Nails / MoYou London Hipster Collection #05 / Essie

As you might have seen on my Instagram, I finally decided to get two new stamping plates from MoYou London. The first one I've tried is the #05 from their Hipster Collection, which has 12 XL plaid stamping patterns to choose from. I'm a big fan of plaid nails, so I obviously had to get these, sooner or later! I also love the quality of the MoYou London plates, their packaging and this time they shipped very fast. I decided to get some of my Essie autumn colors out of my stash and used Sand Tropez as my base color. For the perfect coverage I needed three coats and this is what you see in the first two pictures below. Then I created the first layer of plaid with Smokin' Hot and at this point I took another picture since I really loved that simple look. I wasn't sure about doing more layers at first, but I felt like experimenting a bit and added another one with Angora Cardi. Because its formula is more on the fluid side, it didn't look to good, so I decided to go over it with a nail art brush. And because I still felt like something was missing I added two black lines for each nail with the nail art brush and Licorice. My last coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri smudged a little bit of those black lines, but I still like it a lot. I'm thinking of so many different color combinations for plaid nails right now, their just perfect for autumn! 

Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art Nails - MoYou London Pro Collection #10

I was a bit disappointed about the size of my MoYou London plates from the Pro Collection #10 because they are really small for my thumb nails (my fault though, I didn't read the description!). So I thought the best way to use these images would be a skittle manicure, so that I could design every nail in a different way. Roy Lichtenstein / Pop Art is a great way of doing skittle nails, since everything is colorful anyway. I prepared some nail polish decals using three of the stamping images and then colored them with acrylic paint. On my thumb and pinky nails I made a simple polka dot design with Flormar - 400 and Essie - Really Red. I'm not too happy with both of the speech bubbles because my black polish (H&M - Manhunter) really isn't the best choice for stamping. I guess I'm once again on the hunt for a new opaque black! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Silver Snowflakes with MoYou London Christmas Collection 02

Another design stamped with the MoYou London Christmas Collection plate #02 before Christmas is over! I used one coat of H&M - Manhunter and then stamped some snowflakes on top with a silver chrome nail polish. On top is one coat of Essie - Matte About You. 

MoYou London: Christmas Collection 04

I tried my festive stamping plate from the MoYou London Christmas Collection with the number 04 and I'm really happy with this plate! So many possibilities! But I started with a very simple color combination: first two coats of Flormar - 400 and then the stamping with Sally Hansen - So-nata Problem, which is not the greatest stamping color but it works for me. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. You can find plates and other nail art stuff from MoYou London here.

MoYou London: Pro Plate Collection 03 (XL)

I had some time for nail art, yay! Even if it is just for stamping, but I was so excited about my new MoYou London plates that I just had to try one of them right away. In case you didn't hear about it already, MoYou London is THE new stamping plate seller, they have the most amazing images, including full image plates and they have great prices compared to other sellers. I bought four plates, two of them from their festive collection which I intend to save for December (haha, as if...). Then I got two from their Pro Plate collection and sadly I didn't realize that one of them doesn't have XL images. So the images on this one are too small, especially for my thumb nails. Keep this in mind when you're ordering from them: it is always written which size the images are, you just have to read it ;) Alright, so the plate that I used first is 03 XL Images from their Pro Plate Collection and I think this one is a lovely pattern! I used two coats of Zoya - Dree as my base color and then stamped the images with Sally Hansen - Night Watch. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss Top Coat, which I'm testing at the moment. The plate has a great quality from what I can tell, the smudged parts on some of my nails are due to my scraper which needs to be replaced. Did you order something from MoYou London yet?