Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish & m63

Good morning, Dear Reader!

This morning I did a manicure that came to mind the other day when I came across my Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish, and it turned out really well.  Not perfect, but I like it well enough that I don't especially care that it's imperfect.

I started out with Orly Frolic, the lovely two coat purple creme, which I thought would look really cool with Sky Pearl stamped over it.  For the pattern to stamp, I used the swirly one from Konad plate m63 that looks a lot like water marbling.  Since I liked how it was coming out off the bat, I used a coat of Konad top coat to prevent any smudges prior to finishing it off with Poshe.  Here's Orly Frolic with m63 in Konad Sky Pearl in the sun.

Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish over Orly Frolic with Konad Plate m63

You can see the the pearl finish in the Special Polish is very subtle - this is in sunlight, and the shimmer doesn't really show otherwise.  What I like about the Konad Pearl polishes (Black, White, Sky, Violet, ...) is that they don't seem to smudge anywhere near as easily as the cremes and they make exceptionally crisp stamps.

That's all for today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish & m63

Good morning, Dear Reader!

This morning I did a manicure that came to mind the other day when I came across my Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish, and it turned out really well.  Not perfect, but I like it well enough that I don't especially care that it's imperfect.

I started out with Orly Frolic, the lovely two coat purple creme, which I thought would look really cool with Sky Pearl stamped over it.  For the pattern to stamp, I used the swirly one from Konad plate m63 that looks a lot like water marbling.  Since I liked how it was coming out off the bat, I used a coat of Konad top coat to prevent any smudges prior to finishing it off with Poshe.  Here's Orly Frolic with m63 in Konad Sky Pearl in the sun.

Konad Sky Pearl Special Polish over Orly Frolic with Konad Plate m63

You can see the the pearl finish in the Special Polish is very subtle - this is in sunlight, and the shimmer doesn't really show otherwise.  What I like about the Konad Pearl polishes (Black, White, Sky, Violet, ...) is that they don't seem to smudge anywhere near as easily as the cremes and they make exceptionally crisp stamps.

That's all for today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I like my Sally Hansen Creamy Olive manicure so much that I just added to it today, and I used plate XL A with Konad Olive Green Princess Polish to do it.  My stamping job wasn't perfect, nor was my cleanup (I erred on the side of removing too much), but I figured I'd give you a look at Konad Olive Green just the same because it's a great Fall shade and seems to lend itself to stamping over a lot of the Fall cremes.

Here, I stamped using the regular Konad stamper (I keep meaning to break out the XL one for another try, but never remember until I'm tidying up a spot that the regular stamper missed) and Konad Olive Green Special Polish, then sealed the stamping with Konad Top Coat and then a coat of Poshe to dry it.  Here's the finished manicure in the sun, and my pinky nail is the best one to really show stamping.

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish over Sally Hansen Creamy Olive Nail Polish

The places where stamps overlapped and the over-cleaned spots show up clearly here in a blown-up picture, but just walking around it looks fine.  Frankly, these are the ones that drive me nuts because the picture shows a pretty jacked up manicure while it looks cool when I look at my hands, which is why I suggest using the pinky, the only one with a completely clean stamp, to evaluate how the polish and stamp really look when properly executed.

I like the two colors together quite a bit, but I think the pattern is a little too small and busy for this particular combination.  I recently broke out quite a few Konad polishes that have been out of rotation for a while, so that might just bring about more Konad manicures in the coming weeks.

That's my olive green manicure and just about all I have to tell you about this morning, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I like my Sally Hansen Creamy Olive manicure so much that I just added to it today, and I used plate XL A with Konad Olive Green Princess Polish to do it.  My stamping job wasn't perfect, nor was my cleanup (I erred on the side of removing too much), but I figured I'd give you a look at Konad Olive Green just the same because it's a great Fall shade and seems to lend itself to stamping over a lot of the Fall cremes.

Here, I stamped using the regular Konad stamper (I keep meaning to break out the XL one for another try, but never remember until I'm tidying up a spot that the regular stamper missed) and Konad Olive Green Special Polish, then sealed the stamping with Konad Top Coat and then a coat of Poshe to dry it.  Here's the finished manicure in the sun, and my pinky nail is the best one to really show stamping.

Konad Olive Green Princess Polish over Sally Hansen Creamy Olive Nail Polish

The places where stamps overlapped and the over-cleaned spots show up clearly here in a blown-up picture, but just walking around it looks fine.  Frankly, these are the ones that drive me nuts because the picture shows a pretty jacked up manicure while it looks cool when I look at my hands, which is why I suggest using the pinky, the only one with a completely clean stamp, to evaluate how the polish and stamp really look when properly executed.

I like the two colors together quite a bit, but I think the pattern is a little too small and busy for this particular combination.  I recently broke out quite a few Konad polishes that have been out of rotation for a while, so that might just bring about more Konad manicures in the coming weeks.

That's my olive green manicure and just about all I have to tell you about this morning, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Special Nail Polish Swatches, Part I, and A Surprise

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

The manicure I showed you this morning was actually my post swatching mani from yesterday. I did more swatches for you this morning. This time, it was Konad Special Polishes I swatched, and I cried Uncle on my ability to take pictures of my right hand, so I used only my left. I still have yesterday's mani on my right, am a little low on time, and have errands to run, so it's looks like I'm going out like this!

Before I get to the swatches, I'll tell you about the surprise. I got an email from Wow So Cool this morning - the owner, who's a really nice lady, wants to give you a thank you gift for your business and support. She's giving one of you a Konad Deluxe Gold Kit, and one of you a $50 gift certificate. WSC offers a zillion different kits, and this isn't the cheapy kit, which is cool. It's the $95 one. I think it might be the one I started out with. It's seven polishes, a bunch of plates, scraper, stamper, all you need to get going. I put the entry form at the bottom of this post, and entries will go for two weeks. I'm just hosting the entries and will give the winners' emails to WSC, I don't get anything out of this giveaway other than knowing one of you gets to start having some Konad fun.

On to the swatches! I'll start with white. You'll see, my skintone reads very differently with white and grey, but I don't think it threw off the polish colors, as I went through the pictures. I didn't choose the pictures that were the best poses or the best of my nails, I chose the ones that best showed the polish.

Konad Special Nail Polish Swatches over OPI Alpine Snow Matte Topped with Diamont before And after Stamping

Konad Special Nail Polish Swatches over Diamond Matte Smoke Topped with Diamont before And after Stamping

They are, left to right and top to bottom:

1. Blue: perfect blue creme. Stands up to color, always gives a great stamp.

2. Dark Orange: dark orange creme, is kind of bright over the white. also no trouble at all.

3. Yellow: I smudged the stamp on the Grey swatch a bit, but I'd already done the black one, so I couldn't erase it. The yellow creme is reliable.

4. Black: gives a much blacker stamp than regular nail polish.

5. Gold Brown: light slightly orange brown with a gold shimmer. I also smudged this one on the grey, but again, it was the second stamp on the nail. I've used this one a few times now and like it.

6. Gold: as you can see, it's merely a shimmer on the white, but shows up, subtley, on the grey. The Silver and Gold are best used for a subtle effect over dark colors. For a Shazam!!! metallic, I suggest the old SH Chromes or old Revlons.

7. Pastel Pink: reliable pastel pink creme.

8. Silver: like Gold, best used over dark colors for a subtle effect.

Those are the first eight Konod Special Polish swatches, Dear Reader.

Here is your entry form for the Wow So Cool Says Thank You Giveaway (ETA: which is open to everyone world wide!):

Good luck, and until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Princess Nail Polish Swatches, Part I

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

A couple of days ago, reader Cinthia put forth a request that was both a great idea and quite a challenge. She asked if I would swatch Konad polishes for you. Well, I've taken up the gauntlet and figured out a way to make it a manageable task for me to do as for you to refer back to.

What I'm doing for this is eight colors per post, keeping Special and Princess in separate posts, and I will add a tab at the top as soon as I'm done writing this which will be in outline format. It will have Special and Princess with color families, such as Brown, in alphabetical order, and links top the posts there.

As for keeping it manageable for me, I'm using both hands and two stamps per nail. Here, you shall see why I don't show my right hand. I am the polar opposite of ambidextrous. I apologize in advance for the right hand picture, and am ashamed to admit it's the best of seven...

The stamp I chose for the samples is the Coraline profile from plate CO1. Although I have a great love of my Coraline plates, that's not why I chose it... I picked it because it's small enough to stamp on my nails twice, and it has a good sized section that's solid as well as fine detail lines, so it seemed a good choice to show how well a given polish performs.

The polishes I chose are simply the first eight Princess polishes I dug up. I ordered them on my nails so as not to have similar colors together (such as a blue and a purple), lest the color balance of the pictures get thrown off. For the base, at Cinthia's request I used white on one hand, which clearly displays the color itself, and on the other, I used grey to show how the color was affected by a pigmented polish. The colors used were OPI Alpine Snow Matte and Diamond Matte Smoke, both with Diamont on top before and after stamping, since that would be normal conditions. I chose the two base polishes for color and dry time. Here are the pictures, I'll tell you about the polishes after.

Konad Princess Polishes over Grey

Konad Princess Polishes over White

Please note that all of the stamps on my left hand, the grey, are good. Some on my right hand are iffy. Again, that's because my left hand is really uncoordinated, it's not the polish. I think going forward, I'll put the white base on my left hand.

From left to right and top to bottom, they are:

1. Princess Chocolate: this is the ones that seems thin, probably best suited to small patterns that are fine lines. The streaks are visible on my pinky with the white base. It's a chocolate crown creme.

2. Princess Light Gray: perfect, I've had this one the longest and never had a problem. It's a light grey with a touch of lilac and a bit of shimmer.

3. Princess Violet Pearl: this is a shimmery deep violet that stands up against the grey polish. I have no troubles with this one.

4. Princess Coral Blue: excellent cool blue creme which I've used a lot, and never had a problem with. On the grey, I smudge it, I see. That was user error.

5. Princess Pop Green: despite being a light green creme, this one is so heavily pigmented that it is unaffected by the grey polish. I have never had any trouble with this one.

6. Princess Cool Red: a strong red creme that produces very clean lines.

7. Princess Olive Green: just what it says, olive green creme. Also trouble-free for me.

8. Princess Deep Jungle: this one is testy, but worth it. I found that the polish doesn't want to come off of the stamper if it's used in the normal manner. What I do is pick is up as usual, wait 10 seconds, then apply to the nail. Then it works. It's a blue green shimmer.

Those are the first eight Konad polishes on what will be an I-don't-know-how-many part series. I'll likely try to alternate between Special and Princess for this. It's certainly not an attractive manicure I'm left with!

That's all I have for you today, Dear Reader. I'm off to add a tab to organize things... Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

Konad Polish Swatches

Konad Polish Swatches

Each color's full name is a link to its review, and bottle pictures are included for easy reference (see note at the bottom of the page regarding permissions).

I will be adding to this page as more reviews are published.

I. Princess Polishes

A. Blue

i. Princess Coral Blue

B. Brown: Princess Chocolate

C. Green

i.Princess Deep Jungle

ii. Princess Pop Green

iii. Princess Olive Green

D. Grey: Princess Light Gray

E. Purple

i. Princess Violet Pearl

F. Red : Princess Cool Red

II. Special Polishes

A. Black

i.Black

ii. Black Pearl

B. Blue

i. Blue

ii. Pastel Blue

iii. Sky Pearl

C. Brown

i. Gold Brown

D. Gold

E. Orange

i. Dark Orange

F.Pink

i. Pastel Pink

ii. Pink

G. Purple

i. Dark Purple

ii. Violet Pearl

H. Red

i. Wine Red

I. Silver

J. Yellow

III. Glitter Top Coats

Note: Since the bottles are not labelled in any way, I used the images from WowSoCool, where I bought them, to identify the names. I used their naming standards here, and have used their bottle pictures with permission for ease of color identification so you're not flipping back and forth between sites).