April Challenges - Orange and a Skittle

Today the #30daysofcolourchallenge was orange. There are not many oranges in my collection, and only one untried so that's what I have gone for.
Kiko Cupcake 650 Peach (ok so it's peach, not orange but close enough) is one of the limited edition textured polishes Kiko brought out last year. I really wanted them all but only managed to get 5.
I am not sure why I wanted them so badly, I don't really like pale pastelly shades but these were so pretty and I love textured polishes.
I have to say, peach is probably not the best colour for my skin tone, certainly not at this time of year but I do like it. This is not at all glittery, the finish is matte but it has a really nice look and feel to it. Not too gritty and the sandy particles are mix of peach and a darker orange.
Application was good, 2 coats gave great coverage and they dried nicely.

Claire's April challenge is actually for the 8th so I am cheating a bit but I decided I would stamp over the Kiko for the skittle mani. It was either that or skip it - I am afraid I am way too conservative to wear 5 non-matching nails but I thought I might bear different stamping combinations. I went for a combination of Essence Stampy 001 (white), 002 (black) and Virtuous Polish Ruth (peach).
I chose some of the flower images from UberChic Beauty 1-02.
I am quite pleased with the result but still really uncomfortable with non-matching fingers so I think I'll be skipping future skittle manis.

Kiko Cupcake 650 Peach
#30daysofcolourchallenge

 

UberChic Beauty UC1-02 - the first layer of stamping

Skittle mani - UberChic Beauty UC1-02, Essence Stampy
001,002 and Virtuous Polish Ruth
#clairestelle8april

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Testing my new stamper and Essence Stampy polishes

Today I finally caught up with my work so I had some free time to play, which is great timing as my new stamper arrived yesterday. On the facebook stamping pages lots of people are raving about the Creative stamper, so I had to give it a try. My old stamper died, due to me using the wrong nail varnish remover to clean my plates so I have not been able to stamp for a while and waiting for the new stamper seemed to take forever.
Anyway, it's here now and first impressions, it seems to be excellent.
I decided to do my test stamping over yesterday's mani, as and that was quite a dark base I thought I'd stamp with white. On the recommendation of a number of people I ordered Essence Stampy 001 (white) and 002 (black) from Wilko - £1.50 each!! and asked my husband to collect them on his way home from work.
I used Moyou London Kitty 14 with the white polish and stamped roses over the dark green base. The plate is mostly butterflies but I wasn't quite in the mood for them today. The white is excellent, really opaque and quite a lot brighter than I was prepared for - it is a proper white!
Since I was in test mode and had the time, I decided to try a second layer of stamping and chose more roses on Moyou London XL Pro 10, and the black Essence polish.
The black is matte but top coat really brought this alive and although I was in 2 minds about it at first, after a couple of hours I decided I really like it. The black and white are both excellent polishes and I think they work reasonably well over the green base. I expect the double stamping effect would be more successful over a brighter base, like a red or orange, but I am happy with this as a first attempt and I am delighted with the new stamper, it picked the images up really well.

Moyou London Kitty 14

 

 

Moyou London Kitty 14 and Pro XL 10