#ManiMonday 01/07/2019

Happy #manimonday everyone! I’m loving this week’s look so I hope you all love it too! This week includes a review on the Hit the Bottle stamping polish that arrived last week.

So let’s get into this week’s look.

Products used:

Stamping plate: Clear Jelly Stamper “Horsin’ Around” and Lani Nail Art Supplies “All Mixed Up 01”
Stamping polish: Hit the Bottle “Hello Buttercup”
Base: Essie base coat and “Licorice”

It was back to the races on Saturday to see The Velvet King race, which meant that my nails had to be a horse design. For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you’ll know of my struggle to find a horse themed plated (so thank you Clear Jelly Stamper!) and that because I’m limited to one plate it’s hard to come up with original designs.

The design this week was one I’ve had in my head for a while, as I thought I had originally brought a gold polish back when I brought the Born Pretty polishes, but I hadn’t, so here we are now. It’s also inspired by a black and gold look I saw on Instagram. It was perfect for the races this weekend, as my horse’s silks are yellow and red, and as I always using red polishes, this is something different.

This was my first time using Hit the Bottle stamping polishes and I have to admit I was a little disappointed. The Born Pretty polishes picked up perfectly nearly every time and it took both my support worker and I a while to get the Hit the Bottle polish to pick up well enough to stamp onto my nails (we have high standards too). In the end, we found the fast and hard technique worked the best and I think this may be because their polish is thicker and dries faster than the Born Pretty ones. You’ll also know I used the Hit the Bottle topcoat “Shining Armour” last week. Unfortunately this week it smudged the design (I did a test on my left hand which I don’t photograph). I’m not sure why but it could have been because of the black base or maybe I didn’t let the stamping design set enough. This will be something I’ll investigate in the future.

One thing I did love about “Hello Buttercup” was how good it looks against the black. It’s also pretty true to what the colour is on Hit the Bottle’s website. The shipping time was also a long quicker compared to Born Pretty (1 week compared to 3 to 4 weeks). I also contact the company prior to publishing this post, regarding the issues with picking up and smudging. Their customer service is very good and they were very helpful, providing some tips on how I could fix the issue.

I’m interested to see if I have the pickup and stamping issue with the other colours I ordered (A Bolt from the Blue, Join the Cerise Force, Expresso Martini and As Black as Night) and I’ll let you know how they go.

Bye for now!