This manicure is pretty darn awesome. I got this, frankly, fantastic plate to review from the Born Pretty Store, and at the same time they sent me some gold powder. I decided to combine the two. Despite being a very simple manicure it looked awesome (if I do say so myself) although it required two extra layers of various to coats.

So, I started with a dark blue holographic polish (Downpour by ILNP), top coated it as usual (Seche Vite) and let it dry for the standard time (maybe 15 minutes). I then added matte top coat and let that dry. To make the gold stamping happen, I took my stamper and rubbed the gold glitter into the stamper head using the applicator/eyeshadow brush until there was a thin shiny film over the stamper head. Then I took my usual black polish (Black on Black by Sinful Colors, I didn’t even use a stamping polish not that I have many), applied it to the stamping plate, scraped it off, and picked it up using the stamper (so, business as usual). When I went to transfer the design to my nail the only part that came over was the area that had the black design under it. Clean up was a breeze.

Of course, I had to top coat with a water-based polish and wait for that to dry so as not to dull the glitter, and THEN another coat of Seche Vite. Needless to say, this mani lasted 7 days without any wear (which is what happens when you functionally use 4 layers of topcoat).

Prior to all of this, I tested a few stamping techniques with the glitter on my mat. If I stamped as normal and tried to rub glitter in over either a matte background or a normal glossy background it somewhat worked; glossy trapped more random off-target glitters than matte but neither worked very well. When I tried the apply-glitter-to-stamper over matte and glossy, the glitter only stuck exactly where the stamp was on a matte base, but stuck somewhat non-specifically for the glossy base (you could still see the design, but there was a lot more random gold around as well, and the transfer was not as crisp). Ergo, use glitter on the stamper head and apply the stamp over a matte coat of polish!

I cannot recommend either this plate (which I have already used two additional times in two weeks because the designs are incredible) or this gold glitter highly enough. The plate has since disappeared but I promise is lovely if it ever shows back up, and the glitter is $3.29, here. Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!