My first venture in the world of Konad

Okay, when my kit arrived last month, I was ready to go. It had 2 plates (M2 and M3), 3 special polishes (red, white and blue), the long stamp and scraper. I was a bit scared to try at first, as I had heard of issues getting it to work.
I had a go and just went for something simple, just a small design on my ring and thumb nails. It is not a great work of art, but I was just happy it had worked at all!
I added some freehand french tips, which was fun as I had not done this for at least 15 years! As you can see, I need some practice. My poor hands are not really up to scratch, and my nails need to grow a bit, though I don't like them too long, they just break anyway :o(

Try 1

My second try was much better, I was very happy with this one, looks kinda cute. I stuck to doing the design on the ring and thumb nails only, wasn't quite ready to do all the nails yet!
I used plate M59 for the snowflakes, this is one of my favourite plates, it never fails to look cute! I used the konad white polish for those.
The base polish was China Glaze OMG, this is an amazing holographic polish, but my camera skills are rubbish and it just wouldn't show on camera.

Try 2

Try 3 was fun to do and I think looks really sweet. I love french tips and to be able to do patterns with konad is great!

I used french tip guides for this, trying to do konad tips freehand drives me nuts! I can never get them straight on both hands, the left hand is okay, but the right hand is always lopsided. These designs definitely have a learning curve!
Using french tip sticker guides helps immensely, though I will one day get the tips right freehand, it is my mission!
This design was stamped using konad white polish and plate M56.

Try 3

Some Konad Tips

Make sure you have everything to hand: plate, stamp, scraper, polish, polish remover (one without oils, I use pure acetone), cotton bud (q-tip) and paper towels. I have the plate holder but never use it. I think it works best if you put the plate on a paper towel and scrape onto that. The cotton bud can be soaked in polish remover and used to clean-up any polish that ends up on your skin.

Use a top coat over your base polish. When you make a mistake, you can simply give the nail a quick swipe with polish remover and the base polish will be fine as only the top coat will be removed. Once you add your final top coat the dullness caused will be gone and the nail will look great!

You need to work quickly. Once the polish is on the plate, scrape and stamp pretty swiftly. If the polish dries, it will not pick up or transfer to the nail properly. We are talking under 10 seconds from polish on plate to transfer, sounds fast but you'll be amazed at how fast you actually do it.

You don't necessarily need to buy the Konad special polishes, some other polishes work very well, chromes and thicker, opaque polishes are worth a try. I use China Glaze Romantiques and Khromes collections with great success, however, they dry super fast so you need to be quick.
The Konad special polishes are very thick and dry more slowly, giving you a little bit more time. They are very opaque and show up well, they will also give you a fighting chance as you learn to Konad. If things are going wrong and you are using normal polish, you won't know if it is your technique or the polish at fault, this is why I recommend at least starting out with the konad polishes. The white and black ones I think are valuable ones to get anyway. The gold and silver konad polishes are not great, quite sheer, I use China Glaze Khromes for this.

If the design isn't picking up, try wiping the stamper and plate with acetone, this works for me every time. Oils on the stamp or plate will stop it working correctly, the acetone will remove all traces. I wipe clean after every nail. Some people gently file the stamper to get it to pick up. I personally have never needed to do this, I have 3 stampers (the short, long and double ended stampers) and all them pick up fine just making sure they are clean.

Another sticking point is the top coat application. I have tried a cheap top coat and it smudged. I use the Konad top coat and it seems great. You can apparently use other top coats, like Seche Vite, but I don't have it so can't comment on it's success rate. The trick with any top coat and konad, is to only go over the design once, and do so very lightly.