For as long as I can remember, DIY manicures have been a favourite quick fashion fix for me. Recently, I’ve been noticing that the entire fashion community has been in love with intricate nail art, stickers, stamps, special effects nail polish and expensive manicures. A friend of mine recently pointed out that this was likely a phenomenon similar to the lipstick index of the early 2000s— the nail polish index is taking the world by storm and is showing no signs of slowing down.
One of my favourite investments has been the Konad Nail Stamping kit. At under $25 to get a starter kit, it’s an easy way to create incredibly detailed designs on your nails at home.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
- base coat & top coat nail polish
- any base colour of nail polish
- konad special nail polish in white
- konad nail plate (we used m59)
- konad nail stamping kit (includes a scraper and stamper)
- nail polish remover
- cotton pads and cotton swabs
TUTORIAL:
[ BASE COAT ] – Start with a clear base coat to protect your nails from turning yellow! Then paint on a few coats of whatever colour you want. We used turquoise & caicos by essie. Grab a magazine or your favourite blog & wait… make sure to let this dry completely before proceeding.
[ PICK DESIGN ] – You can purchase dozens of different designs of nail plates from konad. There are endless designs to pick from, but we decided to use plate m59 for the cute little snowflakes.
[ APPLY ] – Take your Konad Special Nail polish and apply it over the entire design you picked. Konad brand nail polish works best on these plates, but some other nail polishes can be used to stamp with— it depends on the consistency of the nail polish, so it’s a bit of trial and error if you want to try other polishes.
[ SCRAPE ] – Now take your scraper and scrape off any excess nail polish in a swift, firm swipe. It’s best to have a scrap piece of paper under your plate because the excess polish will end up off the plate.
[ TRANSFER ] – Now take the stamper and immediately transfer the design from the plate to the stamper by pressing it firmly on the plate. You have to be really fast between scraping & stamping or the thin coat of polish will dry onto the plate instead of transferring to the stamper!
[ STAMP ] – Take your stamper and carefully press the design onto your nail!
[ REPEAT ] – Between each stamp, clean your stamp, scraper and plate with some nail polish remover on a cotton pad & then repeat the stamping process on each of your nails.
[ REMOVE ] – If you stamped some of the designs at the corners of your nails, you’ll inevitably have some messiness around your nails, just use a cotton swab and nail polish remover to clean them up.
[ TOP COAT ] – Use a quick dry top coat & paint it on in quick swipes. Try not to go over the same spots twice and try not to paint too slowly because the stamps can still easily smear at this point.
[ GET CREATIVE! ] – Use your stamps with different colours & in different formations. You’ll be addicted! :)
WHERE TO BUY:
Check out Wow So Cool to buy your Konad Stamp & Scraper, Special Nail Polish and Nail Plate. All of those items should cost under $25 and can be reused endlessly!
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Thanks for reading! Are you gonna try this DIY? Tweet us a photo @everybodyisugly
by Sylvia of lipglossandblack
Images by Syl and Sam
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