#ManiMonday 20/04/2020

Happy #manimonday everyone! Isolation means I’m running out of nail ideas, however, this week I tried a new technique! So, let’s get into this black matte design.

Products used:

Stamping plate: Born Pretty “BP-L004”
Stamping polish: Born Pretty “BP-WN03 Throne”
Base: Sally Hansen “Double Duty Base & Top Coat”, Essie “Licorice” and Revlon “Matte Top Coat 790”

This design was largely influenced by an image that I saw on Pinterest. It looked really cool and simple to create so I thought I’d give it a go. I also can’t remember the last time I used my matte top coat, so it was exciting to do something different. The image that inspired this design used black and I love black in matte, so that’s the colour I went with. Obviously it would be a bit hard to stamp in a matte polish (and I’m not sure it would even with), so we painted two black layers and one matte top coat before we started stamping.

With the colour sorted, it was just the stamping image I had to decide on. The contrast between the matte and shiny felt a bit Art Deco to me (I have no idea why). However, I also wanted an image that wasn’t too fine or too thick, so that both finishes would show through. Mum actually picked this image and I think it’s perfect for the overall look.

In terms of our pick up rate this week, it was pretty successful. I did, however, have to say goodbye to my first black stamping polish as it had finally run out. I’ll have to look back at my records and see, but I think I’ve had that bottle for nearly a year, so it lasted pretty well. You could definitely tell the difference between the old and new polish, as the new one painted onto the plate much easier. However, this plate is quite deeply etched, so Mum did use the dabbing technique again.

One thing to note is that you can’t do a top coat over the stamped image because this would either make your whole nail go shiny or matte, depending on the top coat you use. I’m yet to try stamping a matte top coat on as my final layer, so I would be interested to see if that worked.

I thought this would be a good design to do in isolation because no one would see my nails (other than the photo I took for you guys) as black shows the chips badly. However, I’m really surprised at the how well this matte top coat is performing. Normally after a couple days of typing my pointer starts to wear, but this week’s design was still perfect after two days.

While it hasn’t chipped, if you looking to do this contrast effect and it’s for a particular event, I would recommend doing it the day before. It’s only because I have noticed some of my stamped images have lost their shine, so you can’t see them as well anymore.

Overall, I really love this design as something different and edgy. It’s sparked my love for matte nails too, so you’ll definitely see more of them in the future. If you wanted to recreate this look in a different colour/s you can, but I would stick with darker ones just so you get that stark contrast between the matte and shiny.

Bye for now!