Hello lovelies,

There seem to be new and exciting releases all the time and even though I can't keep up with all of them, I can at least show you some. Today I'll be looking at Polish (yes, the nation, not lacquer ;) indie brand B. Loves Plates. I've made an order in their last sale and Anna has also sent me some new releases so I've been testing them all.

First up is their Crystal Clear stamper. There seem to be tonnes of them out right now and naturally I was curious to try them too. The stampers come with 3 cm transparent stamping head and handle in different colours. I got the milky white one..

The clear head is meant to make the image positioning on the nail much easier and it does. But the head is also quite small and firm so it's not ideal for my curved and long nails. It's great for partial images, French tip stamping or double-stamped images.

I've had some trouble with picking up images in the beginning so I followed an advice from fellow bloggers to wash the stamping head with washing up liquid. That helped quite a bit and I could finally pick up whole images. It still didn't work every single time but it was an improvement. I'd just like to point out that these clear stamper heads are fragile so don't squish them, drop them, prime them with files and don't use acetone or nail polish remover to clean them. I use wide cellotape or lint roller.

This stamper is available HERE in their Etsy shop.

Next I'd like to show you three new-ish stamping polishes and a snowflake stamping plate B.05 Let It Snow that I purchased in their pre-order last year.

The polishes that I was playing with were the new metallic shimmer trio in:

B. an Aurora (bright turquoise metallic with silver shimmer)

B. a Holy Night (denim blue metallic with silver shimmer)

B. a Rudolph (dark red metallic with silver shimmer)

Each bottle holds 8ml / 0,28 fl.oz. and has a the standard brush (not that the brush matters very much in stamping polishes). They are available HERE.

Let me start by saying - these polishes are crazy good! They are super pigmented and stamp beautifully, especially with the B. Loves Jumbo stamper! Actually the whole metallic shimmer range is great (I've tried many others) and they stamp amazingly, better than the creme colours range.

Then there is the B.05 Let It Snow stamping plate. It has a mixture of full-nail snowflake patterns and large and small single snowflakes. I like that there are some large single snowflakes that could be used over whole nail or perhaps as a half-moon partial design. The images stamped nicely with the polishes above but I've had a bit of a trouble picking them up with the clear stamper for a while. When I tried it with the B. Loves Jumbo stamper it was perfect so the problem was clearly with the clear stamper. After a while it started to pick up images better (and after a wash with dish soap). Other than that, it's a great plate!

Dimensions:

Plate size: 9,5cm x 14,5cm
Number of patterns: 32
Pattern size: 1,6cm / 1,7cm x 2,0cm / 2,1cm

On the manicure above I've tested the stamping polishes, the snowflake plate and the Crystal Clear stamper. I've used a coat of B. a Blue Ocean as a base. I wanted to see if I could use a stamping polish as a regular polish and it worked quite well but I wouldn't use it again as it's a bit trickier to work with.

After many failed attempts I've managed to stamp all the fingers and I just had to capture the wonderfully colourful mess. The colours blend nicely into each other, creating different hues of purple where they meet. It's not as visible on the nails but in real life it looked beautiful. In hindsight I should have used black or white base for the colour blends to show better.

So that's all I wanted to show you today, quite a few very good products there to try :) If I had to pick just one though, then B. an Aurora stamping polish would be the winner! You can purchase B. Loves Plates products in their Etsy store or their website.

Have a lovely day! Lucie x

*Post contains PR samples

Hello lovelies,

It's time for a nail art challenge! I'm part of a Facebook group called PAINT ALL THE NAILS and this month's challenge is double stamping. I admit to cheating a bit because I've filled flowers with gold polish as stamped decals, not just pure stamping. But I'm pretty happy with the result so let's have a look at the manicure ;)

How to achieve this look:

1. Apply a coat of base coat on clean dry nails
2. Paint the nails with two coats of grey polish, I've used 'Ard As Nails Slated
3. Then using B. Loves Polish Colour Alike stamping polish in B. a Twilight and chevron pattern from B.01 ♥ geometry is perfect ♥ stamping plate, stamp on the charcoal chevrons
4. Next create the stamping decals, gold roses framed with white. Stamp roses from B.02 ♥ flower power ♥ plate with white Essence stamping polish onto B. Loves plates XL stamper and leave it to dry a minute.
5. Then fill in the roses with gold B. Loves Polish Colour Alike stamping polish in B. a Golden Queen
6. Once it dries paint a layer of topcoat over the decal and let it dry again. I've used Seche Vite top coat
7. Once the decal is dry, peel it off the stamper and lightly press it on the nail freshly painted with topcoat
8. Apply another layer of topcoat over the whole nails and decals
9. Cut off the excess pieces of the decal with scissors and then clean up the rest with brush and acetone

I've also played with matte topcoat (Cuccio Matte Topcoat) and the matte version looks great, so I want to share it with you as well:

As always, if you recreate this look then please let me know by tagging @lucysstash or you can include #lucysstash so I can see your creation. I love seeing your nailart!

Hope you've enjoyed today's post and manicure and please check out manicures from other bloggers: