Today I have another extremely summery stamping plate from Beauty Big Bang to show you, with a variety of beach and vacation themed designs. This plate is BBBXL-002, and it's definitely going to be one I used a lot this summer.

I am mostly obsessed with the anchor/captains wheel design, as well as the fish/mermaid print (how did I not already own a fish print stamping plate until now!?). This plate has 7 full nail sized designs as well as 17 smaller designs. I personally gravitate to full nail designs most of the time, but do enjoy using the smaller ones for accent nails. I really impressed with the quality of this plate (and the other plate I reviewed by Beauty Big Bang), and for only £2.69 per XL plate they are a bargain. If you are going on vacation this summer and looking for a fun stamping plate to accompany you, then look no further. 

Designs using this plate...

This plate currently retails for only £2.69...

A couple of months ago Essence released these five new polishes, part of their The Gel collection. I love Essence's The Gel polishes and these are made even better by their absolutely adorable bottle designs. Each of the polishes has a stick figure character on the bottle. When I first saw photos of these online back at the beginning on the year I assumed that they were a new collection and not just a part of The Gel line because these designs aren't on the rest of The Gel polish bottles. I've tried to find out online why these are different, but can't seem to find any information as the why these have these characters on and the rest don't (if you do, please let me know, because this will bug me for the rest of time haha).

Anyway, onto the actual polishes themselves...

(all swatches are two coats)

Pure-fection

This is a creme nude polish, and is probably my least favourite of the five. I am not the biggest fan of the application of this shade, it is very streaky on the first coat and I could still see a few streaks on the second coat (but this may be me just being fussy). This is a beautiful shade though, I am not one to usually wear subtle or natural looking shades on my nails but if you are then this might be a great addition to your collection.

Flamingold

This is a metallic brown/bronze shade packed fulled of silver glittery shimmer, this was almost a once coater for me, but I put on a second coat anyway of good measure. It's a unique shade to my collection as it's not really bronze but it's not really brown either, I love it. Although it doesn't really fit it's name in my opinion (Flamingold for some reason seems like it's would fit better with a rose gold shade or a pink with a golden shimmer - just my opinion).

My Highlighter

This is a neon yellow polish with subtle golden shimmer. This is a very bright polish, very fitting to it's 'highlighter' name, and is definitely a stand out polish on the nail. I was expecting this to be a pain for streaking (like a lot of yellows, and neons are) but the formula is fantastic and it only needed two thin coats to be fully opaque. This polish, like most neons, is incredibly hard to photography true to life, and even the second photo (with the flash) doesn't do the brightness justice.

Rockablue

This is a pale, almost grey-toned, blue polish, with a subtle silver shimmer (similar formula to My Highlighter). I love this polish, I have a few polishes close to this in shade, but none have the bonus of shimmer like this one. It makes a great base for nail art and is a lovely muted pastel shade.

Fairytale Gone Pink

Lastly is my favourite of the five polishes, this is a bright pink polish with silver shimmer (the same formula type as the last two). This is a great shade for the upcoming summer months and I am already wearing this polish a lot while enjoying the sunshine. The formula is great and is almost a one coater, I do two thin coats but you might be able to get away with one thick coat. 

I recently got sent a few stamping plates to try from Beauty Big Bang, and I've fallen instantly in love. This plate is BBBXL-001 and it is a perfect plate for summer, it's giving me so many vacation feelings! The plate has 14 designs on it, a mix between fruit and tropical themed.

Things I love about this plate...

The quality is great, the plate has a plastic backing and the designs pick up and stamp perfectly.

The designs are unique and fun.

It is a relatively cheap plate (not the cheapest, but nowhere near the cost of some brands).

The designs are a perfect size (in my opinion), they are bigger than my nail so would fix well on longer nails too, but they're not too big that I lose a tone of the designs because I have short nails.

The packaging!! I am obsessed with the cardboard sleeves om the XL Beauty Big Bangs plates. They are adorable.

A lot of the plate designs work great for reverse stamping.

Designs using this plate...

Beauty Big Bang do smaller plates as well as XL plates like this one. They currently had 10 different XL plates and I must own them all!! I can't wait to try more of them.

This plate currently retails for only £2.66...

I recently got sent a few products from Beauty Big Bang to try. I got this bright yellow stamping polish (doesn't have a name, but the box says it's number 005). I love the colour yellow, I don't own nearly enough yellow polishes, and until this didn't own any stamping yellow polishes.

The polish was almost opaque on the first coat, but was pretty streaky, so I applied a second. After the second coat the streaks disappeared and it is a stunning bright yellow shade. It does need top coat because it dries slightly dull (which is the case with most stamping polishes).

The brightness of the shade does make it quite tough to take a photograph the colour true to life.

All of the yellow polishes are I owned until now were not the greatest for stamping, so I was immediately in love with how pigmented this polish was. Even stamped over a black base this polish stamps designs perfectly opaque. 

Plate: Beauty Big Bang BBBXL01 (review of this plate coming soon!)

I was really impressed with the quality of this polish, I like the brush and application. I can't wait to get some more shades of polish by Beauty Big Bang.

This polish currently retails for only £2.65...

When I saw this Born Pretty stamping plate, Sketches BP-X39, I immediately thought of Moyou's Scandi collection (which I absolutely love), so I knew I wanted to try it. This is my first square plate from Born Pretty; it is 6*6cm and has 6 designs on it.

The balloon design and the ferris wheel design are very similar to designs on Moyou's Scandi 01, so if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to that Moyou plate, then this is a great choice.

I really like the designs on this plate, they are detailed but with a simple line style, fitting to the 'sketches' name of the plate.

This plate would definitely be better for someone with longer nails. My nails are short so I lose out on a lot of the design. 

My favourite way to use this plate is to take smaller elements of the designs, rather than use it for full nail designs.

This plate retails for only £1.59.