Sunday, February 28, 2016

Stamping Saturday: City Skyline

Hello and welcome! I'm a bit late for the Stamping Saturday post, but I've had a busy weekend this time and just managed to sit down at the PC and review my photos. I was actually bummed my nails didn't last longer so I could do a do-over photoshoot as I wasn't too happy with how the results came out, but it is what it is. I'm still on my Nvr Enuff Polish kick so here's what I used this time: Aurora Boreapples and Town Meeting.

These lovely shades worked wonderfully together in a gradient, so check after the jump to see the outcome ;)
I started off with three thin coats of Aurora Boreapples. This was a custom polish made for an indie lovers group on FB. When I found out that NEP was the brand of the month for January, I had to sneak my way into the group to snag this one. It's a pretty popular trend to make custom polishes for groups based on the top voted inspiration picture, and this bunch of apples is what inspired Aurora Boreapples. I think the ladies at NEP did a fabulous job!

Aurora Boreapples is a blue that can look lighter or darker or aqua-ish, depending on lighting, with a beautiful violet flash. There are translucent flakies that really remind me of the dew drops from the inspo pic, and of course there is holo!

As usual, I struggled in capturing the flash on my nails, but it's definitely there!!

When I did my silver roses mani, I was suspecting the blue prototype is for Aurora Boreapples, and after trying out the real thing, I still think so. And I'm glad I have both!

Once in the lightbox the finish looks mattified but it really isn't. It does, however, show off all the gorgeous flakies really well!

I think the macro really shows the flash really well, even if it's barely visible on my nail swatches.
Town Meeting comes into play next. It's a darker blue that's bursting with all kinds of flakies and special sprinkles. I sponged on the gradient.

All the extra particles really show up on the sponge, and my gradient application just highlights it even more. Typically I start sponging on my index finger and then dab some on the middle finger and repeat. All the heavier parts, the flakies, got to hang out on the first dab, and more of the base color went on to the other nails. That's why the ring finger and pinkie have more color, less flakes.

I could say it was intended to be a double gradient - one going down the nail, the other across the nails, haha. But it's just a small application flaw I got to learn doing this.

See how amazing the index finger looks with all those flakies? The ring finger is pretty as well, just not the same.

Town Meeting looks gorgeous in it's bottle. There's so much more stuff going on in there than I first picked up on, that I definitely want to use it on it's own soon. I'm enjoying doing all these NEP manis and I hope it's giving you more insight into what kind of stuff this brand makes!

And that's the end result of this stamping attempt! I just got a few UberChic plates and used the stars from plate 2-02 (with MdU White). I also used MdU Black to pick up the skyline image from the same plate to stamp onto the nails. It was very frustrating and wasn't working well, and if you have the plate and are saying "that's not what mine looks like!" it's because I used a Bundle Monster 414 plate to stamp on top of the UC image. My first issue was using a clear stamper for more accurate placement - and it was just being difficult on pickup. Second, the UC skyline was picking up with bald spots and it was frustrating me because of how many times I attempted it and how much polish I wasted on it. Plus. it's rather a small image, so I had a lot of empty space in the middle of my nails. I guess I just felt defeated by the time I finished it, so that's why there's only one pic. That, and my combo of yellow stopper + SV = nails pop off really fast and I lost one while running a hand through my hair!


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