A little of everything

So today I have a manicure, a review and some frankin polish for you. A few weeks ago I ordered some kleancolor nailpolsih off of eBay. I haven't seen it in any store around me and was in love with a few of the colors , ok a more then a few. I got 24 colors for 35 bucks shipped. I was soo excited and in love with the color selection that I was going to order another 24. I decided to wait until I got my order and I am glad I did. I will get to why in a minute. Lets start with my manicure.

Just a simple polish job today as I was feeling a little lazy last night and it was late. The base is kleancolor #14 neon aqua. coated with a glitter polish of my own creation called Static age ( more on that to come) with seche as my top coat.

With the flash it is more true to color.
So this is where I run in to my problem and dislike of kleancolor. I have done my nails multiple times with this stuff and every time I find another reason not to like it. I am in love with the black chunky halo and would wear it all the time but its funky! I used a quick dry oil on it one time, and it turned hazy. the glitter in it lost all color and shine and the black jelly turned into a milky grey color. Very ugly looking,  Strike one! I used another color a week later and it never really set even with seche and a quick dry oil. On top it was dry to the touch but wrinkled and moved even after an hour of dry time. Strike two! Well not wanting to admit that this stuff sucked I tried again last night. I did my nails at about 11 pm last night was in bed by midnight. Everything was looking good. I didn't turn hazy it was dry completely I was in the clear. NOT! By 9 am today it was popping , not chipping here and there no, the entire polish was coming of in one sheet.

By 11 am it was completely off.

I have never run into this problem ever. Not even with the cheapest of polish. It was like it shrunk. It was really hard also. So I am calling it strike 3 and its out!! I would not recommend this product to any one. Its sad to because I love the colors, they are super easy to apply and have great coverage. So I am bumed. What to do with 24 colors of polish that suck?? Maybe I will try again one day just not right now. I am to angry at it.

Now one to some frankin polish!! I love so many of the indie polishes out there and one day I will own a ton but right now I don't own any (sad face) Hubby wont let me buy them until I sell more of my glitter mixes. He says I have to support my own habit. I was just turned on to indie polishes like 3 months ago and have been drooling over some of them since. I have done a bunch of reading on what goes into them and all, thinking that it might be something I would like to get into. So when I got some glitter off of ebay that wasn't quite what I expected I knew just what to do with it.:) I had some glitter wet and wild that I didn't really like so I used it as a base and made something that I did like and would wear.

The first is Static age. A mix of matte black and white squares, hex, bars and random flake in a small halo base. I love this polish for what it is but would love one that didn't have the halo glitter in it. Maybe its time to invest in some glitter base clear so I can do it right, or maybe I should just buy that one I have had my eye on for awhile.

I threw together one last weekend and wore it for a few days and yup you guessed it I LOVE IT!!!

I haven't named it yet :(Its a mix of electric blue, lavender, whit,e and black in a halo glitter base so amazingly pretty in the bottle and on my nails!!

One coat over different polishes. Isn't it pretty??

2 think coats of it over a clear nail. It looks good on its own or as a top coat. It is one of my favorite glitter polishes. I have to say with my very small step into frankin polish land that I do like it and maybe one day would like to do it on a bigger level but for now I am happy just playing with it and using up stuff that I couldn't use for my glitter mixes.

Well there you have it ladies, you got a review a manicure and some frankin polish all in one posting. talk about killing 2 birds with one stone.

OK ladies review time! Tonights review is going to be on stamping plates. I came across cheekys summer collection from last year a few months ago and fell in love! The images are amazing! Monsters, comic phrases, pirates!!! Need I say more a total must have!

I was on my way to order them when hubby stepped in and said no! 25 bucks is to much for your nails, FYI he is cheap too :). So I did what any girl would have done, you guessed it I pouted and cried and said I wouldnt buy any more plates. Well it didn't get me any where he still said no. So alas I was very sad, I mean they are awesom! Who wouldn't be sad? So in my online adventures I came across a set on amazon, gotta love them right? well it was only 13 plates but was only 10 bucks with shipping so I snuck them in. http://www.amazon.com/Cheeky-Nailart-Stamping-Manicure-Accessories/dp/B0088MC1C2/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1364958687&sr=8-18&keywords=cheeky+plates
After a few weeks they came and I was in love, but the monsters were missing and I really like monsters, like alot! Let the online adventures begin I had to find the rest and I did! My fav little spot to order plates is from Aliexpress! Its a wholesale place from china and has tons and tons of sellers and stuff. I love this place for my nail art supplies. I found dups of these plates a set of 12 that was 8 bucks shipped. I got mine from
http://www.amazon.com/Cheeky-Nailart-Stamping-Manicure-Accessories/dp/B0088MC1C2/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1364958687&sr=8-18&keywords=cheeky+plates
psst they are on sale right now for 6.79 shipped.
I know what you are thinking, at this point you spent 18$ and don't have all the plates why not spend just a few bucks more and you would have had them all, and my answer to this is.... You are right!! But I could get away with a 10$ order one week and an 8$ order another, and now I can do this review about the dupes for any one that cares. See people there is always an upside to life :)  So before I get on with my review here is a warning for you.... I am new to this. My photos are taken with my Iphone and have not been edited. I am not using my computer that has all the software to do that so these pics are kinda, how do you say not so good but they do work. I also have ordered some supplies to do this kinda thing better like swatches and stuff. I was just soo excited to start my blog that I said what the hey, just do it! So with all that said on to the review!


So after playing with both sets of plates I have to tell you that I am pleased with both of them. The quality of the dupes is actually pretty good. The main differences between the plates is cheekys are round, have a backing and the full nail images are a hair larger. The dupes are octogon in shape and have no backing. Here are the plates that you get from aliexpress link provided above

And of course the plates from amazon.

There are very few duplicate images. But I tested them to compare quality. I used plates D1,D2 and D3 from the dupes and CH54 and Ch55 from cheeky for this review.

Lets get started. Nail polish is sooo much fun! As you can see I do not have any Konad paints or even any High dollar polishes just your cheap every day wet and wild and sinful colors one of them is even my own creation. I have found a little trick in my stamping endevors. If you place some paint in the image scrap wait a few seconds and do it again it makes the paint more pigmented and gives you a darker image. I will be doing a tutorial on this at a later date. So stay tuned for that.

Comparing the plates side by side you can see that the full nail image of the dupe is just a tad smaller but are the same. I have bought dupes in the past that have thick lines and make for detail being lost not so for the most part here.

I tested the dupe plate first.

dont mind my nails I need to redo them in a bad way.

As you can see it gives a nice clear image.


Now for cheeky.

I found that with this image it came out better on the dupe the lines are thinner and it gave a clearer image. I used sinful colors black to stamp all images.


Dupe plate

cheeky plate

As you can see for this image the cheeky plate has more definition and the lines of the dress are more visible there is a shoe that is like this also. So for the smaller images cheeky might be better on a few but not many.

I stamped a bunch of the images on some fake nails and paper  just to give you more of an idea and to compare and let you make up your own mind.

The rings are almost the same no real big diff. Now on to the shoe that I mentioned earlier.

The cheeky shoe has much more detail and is a bit smaller but over all the dupe isn't horrible.

The top image is the dupe and the bottom is the cheeky I dont know why it wont rotate. looks like I got some learning to do. But as you can see they are the same.

Again top images are the dupes and bottoms are cheeky pretty dang close if you ask me.

I have to say for 8 bucks the dupes are a great investment for any nail plate collector. Or for any one that wants to start out and not spend a fortune on plates. The quality is great for .66 a piece. Over all I am very very happy with them. But there are some down sides not many but a few. The major one in shipping time. I think it took about 3 weeks to get the dupes from china, and maybe 8 days for my cheeky ones from amazon. A few of the smaller images have lost the detail the cheeky ones have. And last, and it dosn,t bother me but I know some people cant stand it. Is that there is no backing on the dupe plates.  I would have to give the dupes a 9 out of 10.

As stated I purchesed these plates they were not givin to me to review I just did it to help add info to the community and because I wanted to play with my plates.