Now that my daughter’s nails turned out so beautifully, I thought it was time for something new for me. But I like the technique used so I made a variation on the Frozen 2 nails. I call them champagne nails. Because with the gold glitter it looks like the bubbles from champagne. Nice for this time of year and the many parties and receptions.
In this post I will also tell you more about how you can stamp with gel polish. Don’t get me wrong. You cannot stamp with gel polish alone, you need something more. But more about this further in my post.
Subtle party nails
As a base I use the same adhesive and base coat as in the Frozen nails.
I played around with the colors. I used a light beige ‘nude’ color as a base. Just like with the previous post, 2 layers with drying in between.
Then gold for the transition and gold glitter for the finish.
Once you have dried the 2 base layers in Nude under the lamp, apply a 3rd wet layer in the same color. Stamp on the nail edge with your gold gel polish. A bit like a French manicure. You DO NOT dry those layers yet.
With your fan brush or fan brush. See previous post. Carefully blend the gold into the Nude color. You do this with fine lines, large areas quickly look clumsy and too dark.
Satisfied with the result? Then you can dry them under the lamp.
Then apply the glitter to the tip of the nail and dry it under the lamp.
Finish with a good TOP coat.
Can you stamp with gel polish?
The answer to this question is very simple. No.
Then why do I say I did it?
You can stamp with gel polish, but you need extra color pigment for this. I have this lying around from resin art and soap casting. So I thought why not give it a try.
You start in the same way as with stamping with regular nail polish or stamping gel. You ensure that all your material is neat, grease-free and lint-free (with the lint roller).
Apply the gel polish to your stamping plate and then scrape it off very well. Better than regular nail polish because otherwise a sticky layer remains.
The 1st problem becomes visible
If you pick up the stamp with your “stamp” you will immediately notice that you do not get the same result as with regular varnish.
The gel polish forms droplets and the shape is partly lost.
You cannot remove stains with the adhesive roller, they must be removed with alcohol.
Apply the stamp to your nail.
Only after you have removed the stains with alcohol do you dry the stamp under the lamp. You can hardly see the stamp now because there is insufficient pigment in regular gel polish.
The solution
You can solve this by applying extra pigment to the sticky layer of the gel with a brush.
Do not clean your nail with alcohol after the stamp BUT very good BEFORE the stamp. This way the pigment only sticks to the stamp.
Brush off excess pigment and finish with a TOP coat.
This is what the end result looks like. Not really what I expected, but the stamp is now visible.
Next time I will use a different color pigment. This one has a beautiful purple mother-of-pearl shine, but you can’t see it in the photo.
This is the final result and I am quite satisfied with it. While waiting for stamp gels, this is a nice alternative to experiment with.