OPI - Absolutely Alice and a little konad

OMG!!!!! I was so excited when I saw the Alice in Wonderland Collection OPI has launched. I wasn't too fussed about the reds, but the glitters were scrummy. I ordered Absolutely Alice first, to see what I thought, as Mad as a Hatter, though lovely, is maybe a bit too blingy for me and best left to the younger girls.......
Well, Alice arrived today and I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

this photo shows the bling but it is not colour accurate, the real thing has a teeny bit lighter blue (though it will depend on your monitor settings)

I have tried so hard to photograph this for you, but it is a hard one to get the colour right. It photographs very blue, in real life there is a hint of teal with the blue that is not coming through on the pics. I suggest you search through the various blogs to see swatches, it will give you a better idea of colour. I can tell you it is AMAZING. Very beautiful and has so much depth to it. It has this wonderful mid blue with sprinkles of gold through it, all contained in a clear base. The glitter is very dense and it looked okay with two coats, better with three and fabulously blingy with four. The application was fab too, OPI have created magic with this polish, it is simply wonderful. It dries fairly grainy in texture, but one layer of top coat and it was smoothed nicely. My photos show four coats and top coat.

closer to actual shade, shows the mid blue and gold glitter

Now, I have to konad everything, I can't help it, it is a compulsion......this was screaming at me for those gorgeous konad bows. I mean, what Alice would be complete without her bow? So I stamped using the bow from plate M59 and konad white, to represent her white apron. I think it works too, just a little ribbon goes an long way and Alice looks finished.

this close up photo is closer to the actual colour.

taken outside, shows the sparkle

3 More Konad Catch-ups........

Okay girls, here are three more of my konad mani's. A couple more days of this and we will be up to present day, then you won't be so bombarded with konad nails LOL

The first one was a design I saw on a fellow bloggers page. Wan at I Love Nail Polish has some beautiful designs and tutorials on her site so go take a look. This one was so cute I had to try it out, going to do the Gothic Lolita one as well, it is just so fab I have to have a go!
It was my first time doing polka dots and it was so much fun to do. I also did my toes with the same design and it looked super cute! Hubby loved the toes, he called them my happy feet as they made us both smile so much. Honestly, you can't be miserable with this design on your fingers and toes.
Getting the konad design straight was also really hard, I was so fixed on doing this quickly I left myself flustered and couldn't line them up right, I left it though and still enjoyed the mani.
My base polish is a much darker lilac than Wan used, I just didn't have one pale enough, but it still looks kinda cute.

I used Gosh Wild Lilac for the base
M71 in konad white
Misa Heaven white and dotting tool for the polka dots



The next one was back to the snowflake plate, it was coming up to Christmas so it was a must do mani. This time I experimented with a non konad polish for the stamping. It worked okay too, was very impressed with the silver, it was incredibly opqaue and stamped beautifully.

Orly Pixie Dust base
M59 in konad white and Stargazer Chrome Silver




The last one for today features my current favourite nail polish. Misa Sugar Daddy! I cannot believe how much I love this polish. It is just stunning, it looks like crystallized sugar on your nails, though smooth of course ;o) The konad design in a good one too, very delicate and I felt complimented the base colour well. This was my first try at a full nail design, but it is a very forgiving one so a good starter. I love this one, so pretty.

Misa Sugar Daddy base
M63 in China Glaze Emotion



Well, that's it for today, hope you enjoyed them, more coming shortly.........

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.