Simple Thoughts: A Review on Nail Decals + How To + NOTW

3-in-1 post, huh? Just finished my 180 lab exam and from here on end, it's about finals. Wish me luck!

Anyway

A while back, I posted a collective haul which included a purchase from an online store on multiply called My Online Shop. I bought a dotting tool and a few nail decals from there and after about three weeks, here I am, finally, using them!

Yesterday I had severe polish withdrawal. I couldn't do papers, couldn't review for my exam, why? Because I couldn't stand not having anything on my nails for over a week! So, do to fear of being reprimanded if I wore anything bold, I just put on two coats of China Glaze 2030, a wonderful chrome gold. It's most stunning without a topcoat but I put one on anyway just to protect my nails and it turned a more tame, old sort of gold that was pretty and unique all the same.

Today I couldn't wait 'til I got home because I could finally play with my decals :)

So off we go!

HOW TO

What you need:

• base coat (I used Orly Top2Bottom)
• base color/polish (I used China Glaze 2030)
• A small dish or cap of some sort with some water
• decal sheet
• scissors
• tweezers
• tissue/random piece of cloth
• top coat (just used Orly Top2Bottom again :3)

Steps:

1. Put on your basecoat!
2. Apply a few coats of your polish of choice as needed
3. Cut the decal to your desired shape
4. Let a piece sit in water for a few seconds
5. Take your tweezers and bend the sheet a little to check if the film has separated from the paper, if not, just give it a little more time.
6. When the film separates, hold a bit of it with your tweezers and position it on your nail
7. Take a tissue/random piece of cloth to blot out the excess moisture from the decal
8. Repeat steps 4-7 with all your other nails
9. Let it set (My OCD told me to go for 15 mins, but you can get away with less, maybe)
10. Put your top coat on, let dry and admire your pretty digits!

A few pics for you:

Soaking the little decal piece in one of the compartments of a medicine thingy I don't use. Resourceful? Yes.

Tiny bits I cut for my wee little nails.

The film is actually clear letting your base color pop through :) The tweezer just makes your life easier separating the film and positioning the decal on your finger. Your finger tips may not be fine enough to position the decal well :)

NOTW

And now, here's what my nails look like :)

Thought I'd let you see what CG 2030 looks like before designing/decal-ing all over it.

So there you have it :) Pretty isn't it? It's my first try so it's not completely neat as I hope it'd be, but c'est la vie. My OCD can't always win :p

REVIEW

Well, I got this (along with 3 other design sheets) from http://shopmyonline.multiply.com for 50php per sheet. I'd say each sheet is about 2.5in x 5in by the looks of it, but I haven't really busted out a ruler to check. I've seen other online shops (well, one on Facebook) that carry this type of decal BUT so far this is the cheapest, so unless you want to pay double the price, this is probably your best bet. Before getting this, I watched a few how-to's on youtube just to make sure I'm not getting myself into anything too complicated and after some time, I finally got to ordering.

LOVE:

• Not worrying about the design
• How you can get intricate, neat, crisp and consistent designs
• The ease of application
• Getting a lot of uses from a single sheet (number of uses vary with your nails size/shape, etc)
• The price! I think it's pretty worth it :) Can't say the same if I bought it from the other online shop I saw. I guess it's great but knowing that I can get it cheaper would of course tick me off :p
• Tons of designs to choose from

HATE:

• Having to cut out the shapes for my nails. My OCD found it a little frustrating

Tips:

• I thought about how to make shaping easier if you wanted to cover the whole nail and I thought of a way to make it a little easier to get the perfect shape but it takes a little effort and time. It entails using paper and a pencil. You place the paper on your nail, outline it, cut it out, trace on the decal sheet and cut out. The down side is that it's tedious and your nails are rarely the same size and shape every single time. But if you're OCD, you may want to go the route of making yourself a guide to cut out with.
• Use tweezers for ease of manipulation
• Use a light colored base color to let the design show.

Verdict:

I had fun! This was a really, really cool experience and I didn't have to worry about making a booboo with drawing on too thick or whatever. The sizing thing may be a pain, but that's pretty much the only down side to this process. Otherwise, it's pretty cool and I'm definitely excited to use my other decals!

Score:

I give it a 4 out of 5 because it's pretty good but there's some degree of difficulty to get the size just right.

Do Love, Do Need, Do Like, Meh, or Do Not Want?:

Do Like

I don't find that this is a necessity. With nail art, to each his own. It's something that's nice to have, but obviously, you're not really missing out if you don't have it. It's more of a nice to have than a must have :)

Extra info:

If you like the decal or are interested in checking out other designs, just head on over to My Online Shop on multiply. Just click and you'll be taken there :)

If you're into the China Glaze 2030, your best bet would probably be to get it from eBay. I believe I got mine for $2.99 excluding shipping. I think my first purchase from eBay then was pretty good since I would've paid much more given that I purchased elsewhere. I know there's some scary crap going on there but I guess I was lucky with this one :) Here's the seller's page if you're interested in getting anything from her :) Not sure about stocks though, they're pretty random.

If you're fretting about not having an ebay account or a paypal account, I suggest you turn to someone who can buy your stuff for you. My recommendation would be MdE (Maison d'elan) aka House of Flair. Just be sure to read their policies and all and you should be fine :)

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, just comment below.

Have you ever tried decals before?

What do you think?

My extra info makes me feel like I should make a disclosure policy soon. Though I've never been sponsored or whatever, people might think I'm promoting stuff/sellers/whatever when I'm really just raving about stuff I like. Rest assured, I work with 100% integrity on here but of course, I'd want things clear because my OCD is terrible :p.

So that's it. Hope you enjoyed this one :D

'Til then,

Love muchness,

Ciao!