Review & How-To-Use: MoYou London Gothic 10

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!

Today's post does all sorts of things--review, how-to-use, before & after, test of the shrink technique, and even satisfies one of my challenge manis! It's all based on MoYou London Gothic collection, and the plate I'll be focusing on today is Gothic 10.


First, here's the video:

And then we have the stills:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 10

MoYou London Gothic Collection 10

MoYou London Gothic Collection 10

And to give you an idea of the relative sizes of the images:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 10 vs. Konad

Okay, let's talk about how to use this plate:


1) Full-nail designs. This plate definitely has a few full nail image designs you can use:

Full-nail images

2) Architectural elements. There are lots of architectural church-like elements you can use from this plate--spires, arches, rosettes, windows, peaks. And don't forget the bottom of the plate; the architectural elements there are clearer if you turn the plate upside-down. My sample mani today uses these strengths of the plate.

Architectural elements

3) Stained-glass elements. Possibly the strongest part of this plate is the stained-glass elements (if you like those, check out plate 09, which I will also be reviewing shortly). If you aren't Christian, you can still use the edges of the circle, you'll still get beautiful designs. And, by the way, all of these areas would be beautiful with the lead-lighting technique. :)

Stained-glass elements

4) Single elements. This plate's strength is not individual designs that you can isolate and use on their own, but there are still a few images you can focus on: the birds, the peacock, and Jesus. If Jesus's face is too big to put on your nails, try the shrinking technique; you'll see it on my nails below and I'll show you a tutorial next time.

And don't forget, especially on a plate like this that has intricate designs that blend into one another, to use Chit Chat Nail's technique to look at all the possibilities of the plate; cut a nail-sized hole out of a piece of paper and move it around the plate to see what different parts look like on your nail:

This looks almost like a family crest

This looks like a beautiful sunrise to me. 

So let's take a look at my sample manicure. This month's theme in my Nail Challenge Collaborative group is manicures inspired by a book; for this manicure, the book I chose is Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.  The book revolves around a cathedral, as several people try to get it built, and several others try to kill it, during the middle ages. That might sound boring, but it's not; the interesting part is the lives of the families that are all entwined in the future of the cathedral

I used several elements from this plate, plus the latin script from Gothic 04a and the angel face from Gothic 09, because I felt like it captured the medieval feel of the book. I used the shrink technique on it, to get enough of it to fit on my nail; I'll have a pin-able tutorial of that for you next time.


For my base polish I used Barielle Autumn In Seoul:

Barielle Autumn In Seoul

For my stamping polishes I used Konad Black and Barielle Kiss Me Kate:

For me, this captures the feel of the cathedral, and the importance it plays for the characters in the books, who include stone-masons and stained-glass lead-lighters. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Hope you're having a great week--one more day 'til the weekend!

Hugs and loves,
M.

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