N.A.I.L. - October - Favourite Indie & Born Pretty Store review: autumn leaves water decals

*press sample*

Hi all!

For today's N.A.I.L. we had to make a mani with our favourite indie. It is impossible to choose one particular polish, so I chose my favourite indie brand: Lucky 13 Lacquer. It's geeky, like me, has lovely labels, good polish and creator Kyoti is lovely. All the Lucky 13 Lacqueristas hang out on this Facebook group and Kyoti is always around. She teases us with sneak peeks, asks for our input on things and has great customer service. Choosing which L13L I wanted to show today was not easy... I have quite a few and a lot still haven't been blogged about. But because I had to wear a low key polish yesterday, I chose A Man of Many Hawaiian Shirts.

This polish is a nude with a tiny twist, there are tiny metallic green glitters in there. So tiny I can't tell if they're hexes or squares (probably hexes as that is the most common shape). I am wearing 2-3 coats depending on the nail (I started out with some very thin coats that left a tiny bit of VNL, which I hate) and G&G HK Girl top coat.

I felt very sophisticated with nude nails, but... I couldn't leave them alone once I got home. I added some autumn leaves water decals from Born Pretty Store that I received for review. These water decals are item 16748. As you know I have a thing with leaves... so it was a no brainer I had to get these.

All I used:

• Lucky 13 Lacquer - A Man of Many Hawaiian Shirts
• Born Pretty Store - #16748 Autumn leaves water decals * provided for review

Above is the entire sheet of water decals you get, there are some clustered leaves and a lot of single leaves. I love how many different ones there are!

Applying these water decals was dead easy. I have not used many water decals before, only some indie ones. The instructions said to cut out what you needed and soak it in water for 10-20 seconds and to use warm water in winter. I just used cold tap water and needed about 15 to 20 seconds before I could easily lift the decal off the backing paper with my tweezers. You are supposed to wet your nails with water to apply them and be able to shift them around. If your nail is wet, you can't move the decal and you'd have to apply it in the spot you want in one go. As if that is going to happen with me. So I tried dipping my nails in water, wasn't really doing it for me. So, and this might not be your thing at all, I simply licked my nails before I applied the decals. This way it was wet and I could slide them into place without having too much water around. I dabbed it dry with a tissue to remove all the water before I added a coat of G&G HK Girl top coat.

I used part of the cluster of leaves on my thumb, I really like how this looks, but cutting them out was a bit harder.

I'm still wearing these as I type this, also on the Cinderella hand. Water decals like these are lovely for anyone who wants something intricate on their nails and does not want to spend ages free handing it. Not that I could do leaves as detailed as this free hand....

Born Pretty Store kindly gave me a discount code to share with you all! If you use code BBL91 you get 10% off your purchase! You can find their nail art products here! And they offer worldwide free shipping! Please keep in mind that the estimated delivery time is 3-5 weeks (mine arrived in 3,5 weeks).

Have you used water decals before? Do you like them? Let me know!

Love, Brethil

More indie-love down here!