Review & How-to-use: MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!

MoYou London has made me extremely happy by coming out with a Gothic collection of plates right in time for Halloween. I live in the US and I got mine in a week, so you still have time to get these plates before the big day if you want them. :)

First, as always, here is my video review:

And here are the stills:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

And to give you an idea of how big the different portions are:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01 vs. Konad

This is a combination plate; it's not completely a collage-style plate, but it's not a normal images-in-neat-rows sort of plate, either. So how do you use it?

1) Use single images. 

There are lots of spaces between most of the images on this plate, so this probably doesn't need too much explanation here. But in case you're not sure how to pull off the image you want without pulling off something you don't, check out my tutorial on how to isolate images/parts of images here.

2) Full-nail images.

Yes, there are in fact several full-nail images you can get from this plate. There are at least 4 I can see,  possibly one or two more if you have smaller nails:

3) Let's build-a-scene!

Probably my favorite thing to do with these plates, you can create a coordinated scene out of the elements on the plate. I've outlined four possibilities for you here, but there are more:

Yellow: Monsters under the bed!!
Red: Graveyard madness
Green: Nightmare-before landscape
Black: spooky tree scene


4) Patchwork-style manicures, with more than one pattern on the same nail, or patterns that transitions across your nails:

The top of the carousel would make a perfect gothic/halloween patchwork mani, with two or more of the patterns on each nail, placed at different angles. You could also do a patchwork mani with the monsters and the surrounding patterns, or a transition manicure with the three monsters over your five nails (dividing them in parts to make them look like they're running across your nails or peeking out). Another great transition mani here is the gate + tree or the tree+ web; for example, stamp the gate on your pinky and ring fingers (half each) and then the tree over the other three fingers. Very cute!!

5) Go goth, baby!

As my friend Inky says, for some of us, every day is Halloween. But for others, maybe we prefer to stick with a goth feel, but not images that are more typically 'Halloween'. There are plenty of images on this plate that can create a great gothic feel without being necessarilly 'Halloween':

How did it stamp? Let's take a look at my test mani. I just got back from spending several days at Disneyland with my cousins, and they told me before we went that my favorite ride at Disneyland, The Haunted Mansion ride, now has a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' theme, and I wanted to do a manicure that celebrates that.

A while back, I reviewed for you the Grim Grinning Ghosts Duo, a pair of indie polishes that were inspired by The Haunted Mansion Ride, and I knew I had to use them for this (duh). So for my base polishes I used The Lady Varnishes Foolish Mortals on my index, middle and pinky, with Sweetheart Polish Hurry Ba-ack on my ring and thumb. Then I stamped using Konad White and Black; I did a slightly different design on each hand:

The Nightmare Before The Haunted Mansion

 I adore this. It's creepy but not too creepy, and the colors are fun but not too bright. Oh, and? Foolish Mortals Glows in the dark, so the pattern is preserved even at night. :)

Hope you're having a great Halloween season!
M.