Born Pretty sent me a thermal gel polish to review (Item ID#43620). I wanted to try a particular colour that Born Pretty sells called Truth of Lie that turns black from clear. I've already tried one of the thermal gels from this collection, so I knew that I'd like this polish. Born Pretty included one of their thermal gels from this collection in my last batch of products that I reviewed, which I think was an accident because it's not one that I requested or was told that I'd be receiving. But I'll show you both of the shades that I own!

The thermal gel polishes dry with a demi-matte finish, but if you don't like that you can always top it with a glossy top coat. Truth if Lie will change from clear in warm temperatures to black in cold temperatures. I find that one coat works fine, but you can use two coats. Just be wary that the more coats of Truth of Lie that you use, the smokier-looking the clear colour will be in warm temperatures.



I decided that for Truth of Lie, I wanted to add a design underneath the polish. I chose a stringed-up star design from an old stamping plate that I already owned from Born Pretty (Item ID#36245). I was hoping that with the smoky top coat overtop, that the design would look less like stars and more like barbed wire. I really wanted this design to look grungy!

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Thermal gel nail polish from @bornprettyofficial (Item ID#43620). Colour is Truth of Lie, which is a sheer/smoky clear to opaque black thermal. Sheer when warm and black when cold. The finish is a demi-matte but you can always add a glossy top coat overtop. Thank you #bornprettystore for sending me this polish to review! 🖤

A post shared by Christina - Blondie's Nails (@blondiesnails) on Mar 9, 2019 at 7:29am PST

The other colour from this collection that I own is Strawberry Shake. It turns burgundy in cold temperatures and hot pink in warm temperatures!



I love both of these thermal gel polishes and would definitely want to try out some of their other shades! I got so many compliments when I showed people that my nails could change colours too. If you guys are interested in checking out some of Born Pretty's thermal gel polishes, they currently retail for $3.40 CAD and Born Pretty offers free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase!

Born Pretty Store sent me a thermal holographic top coat to review (Item ID #44195), and I'm honestly digging it. For those who aren't aware, Born Pretty has a wide variety of nail art products for low prices, and offers free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase. This polish is currently retailing for $5.24 CAD.

What intrigued me about this product is that it's marketed as a top coat that can be used over any colour! When I first saw the product several months back, I thought that it was a thermal polish that only came in blue/black and red/black because that's what the stock photos showed.

I wish that I got to photograph some more colours other than the one that I chose to pair it with, but due to an unfortunate incident, I broke my nail on my index finger. So now my picture-hand is temporarily out of commission until it grows out a little.


The colour I chose to test this top coat with is a fun turquoise/green colour called Turned Up Turquoise by China Glaze (Ignore the stock photo on Nail Polish Canada's site if you click that product link. It is waaaaay more green/turquoise in real life than that neon-blue that they show. It also has a matte finish.). I wanted to pick a fun colour that I haven't worn on its own or have been able to fit into any designs I've done in the past.


One coat over any colour of your choosing will look fine, but if you want the thermal polish to be completely opaque over your base in cold temperatures, you'll want to use two coats. The brush is wide and the polish tends to apply a little thick and gloopy. But it finishes really well over the nail and smooths out with thick coat of glossy top coat.


And let's be honest, the results are stunning! The product turns clear when it's warm, and if your nails are long the tips may stay black. When the nails are cold, they'll turn completely black (2 coats makes for a nice opaque black finish).


Photographing thermal polishes is so difficult! Even with a bowl of hot and cold water on standby while taking my pictures, my nails kept changing colours too quickly for me to photograph. My home is warm, so therefore, it will stay my base colour or have the black tips. So how can I get my nails to stay cold? Eventually, I had the bright idea of taking pictures of my nails outside because I'm in Canada and it's winter. Oh boy. Was that the most un-fun idea I've ever had. It worked, but I didn't like it. I stood under the entryway of my home for a good 10 minutes trying to get the right angle and lighting while it was snowing/sleeting/raining a foot away from me. But if it works, it works!

I've received more products from Born Pretty to test and review! I chose a Thanksgiving themed stamping plate as well as a stamping polish to test out and review for you guys. I received them a little too late to post on time for Canadian Thanksgiving, but I hope that my design can at least inspire some of you on time for American Thanksgiving!

I'll try and keep this review short and sweet. Born Pretty sent me some products to test and review, and one of the polishes that I picked was a Peacock Holo Polish in a beautiful purple shade called Rose of No Mans Land (item ID #43165). The polish is a gorgeous colour that looks amazing worn over a coat of black polish or sponged on.

Below I tried wearing the polish three different ways. The first and last nail are one coat of the holo polish over black, my index finger is a coat over white polish, and the ring finger is the holo sponged over black. The polish looks amazing no matter how you wear it!

If you haven't checked out Born Pretty before, they're worth your time to check them out. They offer a wide variety of inexpensive nail art products with free worldwide shipping. I've been using their products for years and I love trying out their new products!

Hello everyone! Born Pretty sent me more items to review for you, and one of the items I chose to review was a stamping polish from their White Night collection (Item ID#42857). The White Night set of stamping polishes has a gold, silver, black, white and red polish. I ended up choosing the red polish called Dark Amor.

Now if you know me, I hate stamping. I also hate red nail polish because it always bleeds when you apply topcoat and doesn't remove easily from the skin with acetone. So what was I thinking, right?

A couple years ago, I created a Halloween design with blood dripping from the tops of the nails. I loved the design because it had Ghostface from the Scream movies, which is one of my favourite movie series. While the design still looked really cool, the red didn't show very well over black polish. I wanted to create a similar look for a Friday the 13th mani and I knew that I needed a red that would show over the black.

Ghostface/Scream nails from October 2016

Thankfully, I already had a stamping plate to create the blood drips. The plate doesn't actually have a blood drip design, as it was from the nail polish themed "Keep Calm and Polish On" plate. It's technically nail polish that's dripping, but I figured that the design could have multiple uses. I bought it from Born Pretty a couple years ago and never used it (because I hate stamping). Born Pretty doesn't seem to sell this particular plate anymore, so I'm unable to share the product link with you.

Recently I was contacted by Born Pretty to review some more products for you guys. One of the items that I chose to review is a peel off thermal nail polish. I haven't really tried any thermal polishes or peel off polishes before, so I figured that I would kill two birds with one stone.

If you're not familiar with Born Pretty, they're an online nail polish and nail art supply store that offers inexpensive items and free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase required. I love Born Pretty and have been buying their products for years. They're definitely worth checking out!

The collection that I chose from is the Champs Elysees series (item ID#42543). The Champs Elysees collection of thermal polishes has several different colours that are all thermally activated. Each polish is supposed to change into four different shades that are activated by temperature and sunlight.

When the polish is warm, it turns a transparent powder/pastel blue like in the image above. After three coats of polish, the product wasn't fully opaque which was disappointing. As you can see, you can still see my nail tips.


In the sun, the polish turns lilac purple. You can see that it's not fully opaque, but it's a little more opaque than how the polish looked as the powder blue from warm temperatures.

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Beautiful colour changing polish from @bornprettystore! It changes colour in different temperatures and in sunlight! Colour is The Smurfs (Item ID#42543) from the Champs Elysees collection and I used 3 coats. The light blue is in warm water, dark blue in cold water, and it also turns purple in the sunlight. It was hard to take pictures by my window like I usually do because I’d dip my nails in cold water and as soon as I’d go to snap a pic of my nails they’d then purple from the sunlight! Super fun and I definitely want to try out their other colours from this collection.

A post shared by Christina - Blondie's Nails (@blondiesnails) on Sep 25, 2018 at 2:30pm PDT

Application is very easy. You start by cutting the shapes out of the paper, then soak them one at a time in a shallow dish of water for 10-20 seconds. Next, place the design on your nail. When you are satisfied with the placement, press the design down to secure it and then dissolve the excess edges with some acetone or buff it away with a nail file. Lastly, secure with top coat!

Last month, I was sent a magnetic polish as well as a double ended magnetic stick from Born Pretty to review. The magnet stick had a rectangle magnet to create a cat-eye effect, as well as a circular magnet to create radial designs. This month, I was sent another magnetic polish and a different double ended magnet stick to review. This magnet sick has a ridged end that can be used to create a snake skin effect by dabbing it close to the magnetic polish, or straight lines if dragged over the polish. The other end has a flower pattern to create floral designs (Magnet stick product ID #42023).

This polish had a beautiful multichrome cat eye effect. The colours shifted from bronze to green, gold, and pink depending on the lighting. The above picture is what the product looks like in the shade. Again, I will note that you don't see the magnetic cat eye effect very well on the pinky nail because I didn't use a thick coat of magnetic polish. Thick coats of magnetic polish = more magnetic particles that can be pulled toward the magnet. I guess that's what I get for testing the polish on my picture hand instead of my picture-taking hand.


This picture shows what the polish looks like under a camera flash. Here you can really see how the product can look pink in some lighting!


Lastly, this is what the product looks like under direct sunlight. This is when I found the product looked the most green/gold. No matter what the lighting was, this polish looked simply stunning!

The Born Pretty Aurora Magnetic Polish is now available for purchase on the Born Pretty Store website. If you haven't checked out Born Pretty's site before, I strongly suggest it. They offer a wide variety of inexpensive polishes and nail art supplies. They also offer free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase! This is my favourite part about their store, because I live in Canada and shipping here tends to be pricy. Plus, for a limited time they have an offer where you can get $3 off a $6 purchase, which is so easy to do because they have so many great items to choose from!

If you purchase one of their Aurora Magnetic Polishes, be sure to tag me on social (@blondiesnails) so that I can check out your magnetic mani!

I love trying new and exciting nail art supplies, and I love it when companies reach out to me to review their products. Born Pretty Store contacted me to ask if I would review some of their nail art products for them. Of course I said yes! What I love about BPS is that they offer a large variety of inexpensive nail art supplies and free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase. It's one of my favourite nail art stores because of their affordable prices and because most stores charge a lot to ship to Canada.

One of the products that I chose to review are their laser flakies (Item ID #41970) in colour #1. I've shortened the name for when I have to refer to the product, because "0.2g BORN PRETTY Holographic Chameleon Mirror Nail Powder Laser Flakies Sequins Nail Art Paillette" is a bit of a mouthful! I chose colour #1 because of it's dominant pink colour, as I usually tend to pick blues and purples when I review products. And if anyone recalls, this product is essentially the same as the blue/purple Chameleon Aurora Flakies that I reviewed for Beauty Big Bang awhile back.

This product can be worn two different ways: flakie effect and mirror effect. Both of these effects are absolutely stunning, but I like wearing the mirror effect most to see the multi chromatic colour shifting.

The product page on the Born Pretty website gives directions on how to apply this product and says that you need to use gel polish to wear the flakes. However, I dislike wearing gel polish because the removal process is time consuming. So if you continue reading, I'm going to tell you how you can wear this product without using any gel polish.

Application for the scattered effect is incredibly easy. Start with base coat, a black base, then apply a thin coat of top coat and wait for it to become tacky instead of fully dry. Next, start lightly tapping a sparse amount of the flakes over the nails. Remember to do this in random motions, and to leave space between each part of the nail that you've tapped onto to create the scattered effect. When you are happy with the design, apply a thick coat of glossy topcoat to seal it in.


To create the mirror effect, apply base coat, a black base, then apply a thin coat of top coat and wait for it to become tacky instead of fully dry. Then start tapping the flakes onto your nails until most of the nail is covered. This part is important, because once most of the nail is covered you're going to lightly buff the product onto the nail to cover any spots that are still black. By covering most of the nail before the buffing process, you're preventing the applicator from sticking to the tacky topcoat and smearing your design. If you've missed any spots and the topcoat has dried, simply repeat the process of applying more topcoat, wait for it to become tacky, and buff on more flakes to even out the design. Lastly, finish the look with a thick coat of glossy topcoat.


The mirror effect is absolutely mesmerizing to look at once it is finished. The colour shifts from predominantly pink to gold and green, and interspersed are smaller flecks of holographic flakes. The design can look more evenly buffed in if you use gel top instead of regular topcoat, but as I said before, I hate using gel polish because of the time consuming removal process. And I also wanted to make sure that you guys knew that there's an alternative way to wear this product if you don't own gel polish or a UV lamp. Using regular topcoat for application still creates a desirable look, and I think it would look especially cool if you used nail vinyls that look like scales overtop to create a dragon or mermaid scale design.

I loved wearing these laser flakies, and would definitely wear them again. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Born Pretty's website and check out their other nail art products. They have more nail art supplies than you could ever imagine!

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but I swear it's like every product that I've been waiting to review these past few months have gotten lost in the mail or have arrived super late! And there's been a few products that I've been very eager to review but will never get the chance to because of the packages getting lost. But one of the packages that I thought was lost in the mail finally arrived!

Born Pretty Store sent me some products to test and review and I'm so excited to share them with you. If you haven't checked out Born Pretty Store's website yet, you're truly missing out! BPS offers inexpensive nail art supplies and offers free worldwide shipping with no minimum purchase.

One of the newest nail art trends that I hadn't had a chance to try yet was magnetic nail polish, so when I picked out the items I wanted to review of course I picked a magnetic gel polish! But you can't just buy a magnetic polish and expect it to work on it's own. To make magnetic polish work, you also need a magnet. The items that I'm reviewing today are the BPS double headed magnet (Item ID #42347) and BPS magnetic cat eye gel polish (Item ID #41907). Of course, if you're familiar with BPS you know I've just shortened the names of these products. It's much easier to say "magnetic cat eye gel polish" instead of "5ml BORN PRETTY Holographic Chameleon Magnetic Cat Eye Soak Off UV Gel Nail Polish Black Base Needed". Plus, this product is not holographic, so to say that it is holographic would be lying to you guys even though it's in the name of the product.

The type of magnetic polish that I chose to review comes in five different colours, but BPS has many other magnetic polishes on their site. And let's be frank, these names are kind of intense! There's Eye of God, Forever Young, Pillars of Eternity, Galaxy in Flames, and No Darkness Within Thee. Whenever I get to pick products to review, I tend to choose blue and purple colours because those are my favourite colours to wear on my nails. However, I decided to pick something different this time and chose Galaxy in Flames, which is a nice, burnt orange colour.

I prefer not to use gel polish unless it's necessary for using certain nail art supplies such as powders and pigments, so I don't have any gel polishes other than gel top coats. But as long as you have a UV lamp to cure this polish, then you can use regular base coat, black polish, and top coat with this product.

To use this product, start off with a base coat and then apply a black base. Apply an even coat of the magnetic polish, and then hold the magnetic stick as close as you can to the nail but without actually touching the surface of the uncured gel polish. The magnetic stick has two ends, one long magnet for straight lines, and a small circular magnet for radial and wavy designs. I chose the long magnet to create a cat eye effect going across the nail and found that using the magnet for about 3-5 seconds worked best to achieve a bold and pigmented strip across the nail. The longer I had the magnet close to the nail (about 10 seconds) the more the pigment tended to disperse across the nail instead of making a clean, more centralized strip of magnetic pigment. I probably had a bit of a shaky hand, causing the magnet to make the magnetic particles in the gel polish travel across the nail. Another important thing to note is that it is best to try and keep your fingers splayed apart so that the magnet doesn't get close to more than one nail at a time. It's a small magnet, but stronger than you'd think. It can ruin the design of the nails that you've already finished if you haven't cured them yet.
Next, you'll want to cure your nails under a UV lamp. I found that even after the product was cured, the polish on my nails were still very sticky, so I used an alcohol wipe to clean them off. This helped so much! Then lastly, I applied a regular topcoat to protect the design. The finished result is so lovely and my pictures don't do it justice. There's much more of a holographic effect on the nails. Not like HOLO (shout out to my fellow Simply Nailogical fans), but like the holographic/lenticular shifting images that you used to see on plastic collectable cards as a kid.

Overall, I wish that the cat eye effect looked more bold like it did in the pictures advertised on Born Pretty Store's product page. However, I was pleased with the effect that I achieved and would definitely try it again. I'd like to test out a radial or wavy design next time, and would also like to see if I can mix the magnetic gel polish with one of a different colour to create a multicoloured look.

Six months ago, I reviewed a few products from a company called Beauty Big Bang. BBB is like Born Pretty Store; a Chinese based nail art company that offers cheap nail art and beauty products as well as free world wide shipping. When they first offered to send me nail art products, I was concerned because they were a new company in the nail art scene and I hadn't heard of them before. But after I selected the products that I wanted to try out, within a month the products were in my mail box for me to test and review. I had been astounded by how fast the products arrived. A month is pretty fast for China post, which is usually a 2-3 month wait.

After trying out the items and sending BBB my reviews, they told me they were satisfied and offered me a chance to review their products again. Four months go by, and I didn't receive the products to review. I didn't press into the issue because the products were free, but I had my doubts about BBB sending me the second set of products at all. After about 2 months, Born Pretty Store is like an annoying child, nagging you with, "did you get it yet? How about now? What about now? Oh you finally have it? We want all of your reviews done within the week." BBB didn't pester me at all so I kind of forgot about the products.

It wasn't until after 4 months of agreeing to send me the products that BBB decided to reach out to me to ask if I received the package. When I told them that I didn't receive them, they told me to pick out some new items to review. A month and a half goes by and I don't see the package in the mail, so this time I reached out to the company to ask them if I should be concerned. They told me to pick out new items to review again.

So in summary, its been six months of waiting for items that have not arrived, even though they have tried to send me packages twice now. It may not necessarily even be the company's fault though. China post doesn't tend to have reliable tracking numbers, and packages from overseas can get lost. Its definitely happened to me in the past (although rarely) when I've bought from AliExpress and eBay. But the sellers always offer refunds if you don't get your purchase by the estimated arrival date. However, this does make me question if this happens often to their actual customers and how they react and aid their customers in events where they don't receive their purchases. Until I get some items to test and review from Beauty Big Bang in the mail, my opinion of their company has gone from 5/5 stars to 2/5.

*UPDATE*

It's been 11 days since I originally posted this. The second set of items finally made it to me. I reached out to the company to let them know that I received them and I will still review them as soon as I can. I'm glad that I finally have them and that they weren't lost in the mail! The company advises to wait 2-4 weeks for delivery and it took nearly 2.5 months to get to me. I'll be sure to try and get out my reviews of these products as soon as possible for you all!