Before & After: Imperial China with Born Pretty Store Acrylic Paints

Hello!!

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that free-hand nail art is not my strong point. And that's an understatement. But, when I do free-hand nail art, I mostly do it with nail polish, and I've been told that you can do a lot more and do it better if you use acrylic paints. So I jumped at the chance to review a set of acrylic nail art paints from Born Pretty Store. The set they sent for review includes four nail art brushes, two palate plates, and 12 tubes of paint in a rainbow of colors:

Born Pretty Store acrylic paint set

Born Pretty Store acrylic paint set

Last week in my Llama Nails Time Periods challenge, the theme was 'Imperial China', and I knew I wanted to do a manicure with the Great Wall of China on it, and I knew I wanted to use acrylic paints. So I'm a little late with it because I held off until I got them. This is the picture that inspired me:

(Click here for source)

I started with Zoya Skylar as a base for my manicure, to mimic the deep blue sky:

Next I painted some mountain on the bottom of the nails with China Glaze Holly-Day, bringing it up to a peak on my ring finger. I sponged over some China Glaze Tree Hugger to add in some foliage.

Finally, I brought in the acrylic paints. My idea was to try to do something like a one-stroke technique to paint the wall, so it would give a nice graded effect. Weeeellll, that didn't come out quite right (keep in mind this is my first time using acrylics!) so I went back over it a second time to give the wall a little dimension. The thing I'm most proud of is the gate-house at the top of the mountain--I love how that came out:

My rendition of the Great Wall of China

It probably goes without saying, but these paints are sooooo much easier to work with than trying to use nail polish for your free-hand nail art. They take ages longer to dry, so you have lots of time to work and the consistency stays the same while you work. The colors are really rich and beautiful--I was worried they'd be sort of washed out and dull like the acrylic paints I remember working with in my grammar school art class, lol, but no worries here. But the most important thing is...

YOU CAN ERASE!

(proper use of all caps in blog post = +10. because if you've ever struggled with no-going-back freehand while using nail polish as your design medium, you will understand and completely agree with my use of caps here.)

Yes, that's right, you can wash off your design if you don't like it. Even if your design is completely  dry, you can wash it off--it takes a bit more effort if it's dry, but you can do it. And your polish underneath remains pristine. This is soooo freeing! Even if you mess up the nail art, you don't have to go back and start the manicure again! Woo-hoo!! I'm going to be doing a lot more free-hand art now, I can tell you that. Stamping is still my #1 love, but this has opened up a whole new world for me. :)

As you might have guessed, I absolutely love and recommend this set of paints. :) I also should mention that I love that the nail art brushes come in little tubes with caps at either end, which means I won't ever lose their protective cover. And for all the paints, the brushes, and the palettes, it's only $10.89. You can't beat that price with a stick.

You can find these paints on the Born Pretty Store site by clicking here. You can also use my coupon code to get 10% off of anything and everything you order:

As always, I am not affiliated with them and don't make money if you buy from them or use my coupon code. :)

Thanks for reading!

Hugs and love,
M.

(The acrylic paints reviewed in this post were provided for my honest opinion.)