Sometimes when I see a stamping plate, I have an immediate inspiration to do a very specific mani, and that's very much what happened with this mani. I've had my eye on KADS stamping plates for a while now, but I hadn't gotten around to picking any up until recently when I finally bit the bullet and ordered a few to try out. The one I was most excited to try out from this order was the NATURE 056 stamping plate, which has a sort of random assortment of images. One of them, though, was this sort of grungey chevron image that inspired me pretty much as soon as I saw it, and basically as soon as the package came this mani ended up on my nails. 

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I knew that because I was going to be covering most of the nail with the stamping design, I wanted to keep the base really, really simple so I grabbed for one of my all time favorite nude polishes - Essie's Last Nightie from the Gel Couture range. I absolutely adore this polish - I'm actually on my second bottle of it - and it never fails me when I want a sheer nude base for nail art with a little bit of extra something in the form of subtle shimmer. For this mani, I applied two coats of Last Nightie, which doesn't quite get to full opacity but does a really solid job of camouflaging my natural nail for the nail art.

When I was choosing my stamping colors for this design, I knew I wanted to keep it in the nude/neutral range, but also provide some good contrast without it being too harsh. (I swear, sometimes as I write down what was happening in my brain while I was making design decisions, it really hits me that sometimes I'm a bit of a nut...) Anyway, I decided to pair a rose gold with a sort of dusty, muted chocolate shade with a hint of rosiness to it, both from Whats Up Nails. If you're looking for stamping polishes that get it done every single time, I highly, highly recommend checking out their polishes. To get this design, I went in with the rose gold first and applied the image in one direction and then I went in with the brown and applied it in the other direction, trying to line up the rows as best I could with an image that I don't necessarily think was meant to be layered this way.

Once I was happy with the stamping, I cleaned up and then sealed everything in with a water based top coat. I decided that I wanted to go matte with this one, so I followed with one layer of matte top coat and voila!

This is another one of those mani's that, to me, simultaneously feels super super and minimal while also very much feeling like a lot and honestly I'm kind of here for it. I msut say, this first impression with KADS stamping plates has been overall really positive for me and I have plans to post more mani's soon feature this and some of the other ones I picked up - and also the ones that are currently in transit to me from my second order. Definitely worth a look - they have TONS of great stamping plates.

Thanks for reading!