China Glaze Strawberry Fields with Born Pretty water decal

Hi everybody!
I actually have a nail art manicure to show you with this post! Whoo! I loved this one so so much! I loved the polish, I loved the accent art, I loved the water decal from the Born Pretty Store that I used. After my first experience with water transfer decals, I was much more confident going in with this one and it turned out great!

The polish I used for this is China Glaze Strawberry Fields. I adore this pink. On it's own, the base is probably a pretty hot pink but the generous amount of gold shimmer (not hidden) in this polish actually seems to warm it up and tone it down at the same time. You can't see it in my pictures but when I hold my hand at an angle and look at my nails with a sort of tangential view, the pink becomes brighter. I love shades that do that!

On my middle finger, I did a gradient from the tip with Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Golden-I over a quatrefoil stencil from Twinkled T. This was my first time using a stencil and my stencil work could have been a little bit better.

The ring finger decal is the other star of the show! This is a nail art product I received from the Born Pretty Store for review and I was not disappointed. The decal was really easy to apply. I just cut out the part of the design that I wanted on my nail, took the plastic film off, dipped it in water, slid the design off the paper backing and did away with the excess with a combination of cutting and using a brush with acetone. I covered it with a layer of Seche Vite and it held up for a whole week!

I still have enough of the sheet left for probably another four accent nails, which would be one or two more manicures for me. Let's take a look at the mani one more time.

You can grab this water decal pattern or others or any of the huge variety of nail art items from their website. If you use my code "PRK31" you can get 10% off your purchase. Right now, it looks like there's a sale going on for water decals too!

Thanks for visiting!!

Born Pretty Review - water decals

Hi everyone!
I have another review post for you today.  I'm reviewing some water decals from the Born Pretty Store. Until this mani, I had never used any water decals or nail strips of any kind. I was a little apprehensive to say the least. I thought I was going to go through many tries and waste a bunch of this product before I got something I was happy with. Not the case!! I managed to "nail it" almost right away!

To create this nail art look I used these water decals below. They have strips of lace pattern in both white and black on the same sheet. You can't see the white colored pattern below because it blends in with the background paper. The black polish I used was Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Black Out and the white was Sally Hansen X-treme Wear White On. The silver was Zoya Trixie. I find all three polishes amazing for what they are and very easy to use.

Using the actual decals is very easy. Make sure your polish is dry before using the decals. 

     1. Measure and cut out of the portion of the decal that you will be using on your nail. 

     2. REMOVE the clear film on top of the design

     3. THEN place the design in a cup or bowl of water for several seconds, up to half a minute.

     4. Peel the design off the backing with a pair of tweezers and place over your nail.

     5. Align the design properly right away because it may be hard to adjust once it's already on the nail. I found it helped to dip my nail in the water as well and have a large drop of water under the design as I was aligning it. 

     6. Once the design is where you like it, press firmly to get rid of any bubbles of any kind (air/water)

     7. Cover with a coat of topcoat once the nail is dry.

The only flub I kept making was to forget to remove the clear protective film over the decal before putting it in the water. The first time, I remembered within a second of putting it in the water and I was able to fish it out, take off the film and put it back in the water. The second time, I completely forgot and ended up having to peel the design off the plastic film instead of the paper backing. Still salvaged it!!

A few more pictures for your enjoyment....

Here's a picture of the base before adding the decals.

Hope you liked this review and hopefully, if you've been like me, unsure of water decals, you'll be more encouraged to try them out after this post. If you're thinking of getting them from the Born Pretty Store, you can use my code "PRK31" for a 10% discount on your order at checkout. 

Thank you for looking!!

*items in this post were provided to me for honest review*