2 More Konads......one cute, one yuck!

Two more Konad mani's for today.........

I love, love, love animal prints and had to have the plate M57, which is a must have konad plate for anyone! Hubby got me this one for Christmas so I was dying to try it out Christmas day!

I used a base of China Glaze 'Golden Spurs', from the Rodeo Collection. This was a bit odd to apply, it was kind of thick and thin all at the same time, on the first coat it felt almost 'stringy' in its consistency, really weird, not horrible, just odd. Thankfully the second coat was much better, applied more thickly so that helped too. I love the colour of this polish, a flattering tan/gold, very nice polish. I applied this polish Christmas Eve, in preparation for my M57 plate Christmas morning ! LOL

I then used the leopard print design from plate M57 and konad polish in black pearl. I was not as happy with the result of the black pearl, I was expecting it to be opaque but it seemed to print a bit 'off'.
When I stamped the nail the design would print fully on the nail but the design was also left on the stamp instead of being removed completely. So the result on the nail was a bit more sheer than I wanted. I was not happy so ordered the konad black polish as I wanted a full opaque black. However I had to redo my thumb nail a few days later and redid the base polish too, this time when I stamped, the black pearl lifted completely off the stamp and the design was fully opaque.......I can only assume the problem first time was because I had applied the base 24 hours before and maybe oils from my hands had caused the issue, when the polish was fresh there was no such issue and the black pearl was perfect. One thing to take note of for future konading.



I decided to try the look with a matte top coat a day or two later, really loved it matte, it made it look more velvety and fur-like.......



After begrudgingly removing the leopard nails after 5 days I decided to go for a more naked nail, so time to try my M19 plate..............okay, this was the most frustrating plate to use so far! It seriously drove me batty! I just could not get this straight, after about 6 tries and removals on the left hand I got them straight, but the right hand was just not gonna happen! I was quickly getting annoyed and very tired.
So I removed it all and decided to do the tips using sticker guides. This was where it all went bad, disaster manicure on the way.................
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, what I should have done was add the stickers then use the konad M19 plate to stamp the french tips.......Noooooooo not that smart, I decided to paint them direct from the polish, big mistake ! I have never used stickers and polish directly before, I only used the stickers with a konad patterned french tip, which was perfect. When I used the polish it flooded under the sticker and created this awful bumpy ridged tip. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until after I had restamped over the top with the konad M45 plate, so when I removed the stickers I discovered the horrific mess that was my nails! I was gutted, but I was also so tired by this stage and annoyed too, that I just gave up, added topcoat and decided to live with it, lesson learned for next time! Trouble was it irritated me so much that I ended up removing it the next day, but still took a photo which I share here, see, I even show you my epic fails!

Lumpy tips done with China Glaze Emotion and crappy sticker guides
M45 plate, dot tips in konad white
M20 flowers in konad white



Eeeeuuwwww, disgusting and gross, this still makes me shudder when I see the pic, I hate it! Can you see the horrific lumps where the polish bled under the stickers, it most obvious on my index, middle and pinky fingers. Nice design just really bad execution, not konad's fault but complete user error and crappy stickers! ;o)