All In The Family (Review of Kiss Nail Artist Kits)

Hello....it's me...I'm still alive, really!

Life's been a bit hectic and I haven't had/made the time to do my nails very often.  On top of that, I had a few days of "junk nail" manicures that didn't go well, nails that broke or split, and then there was the way I sliced my thumb with a knife preparing oranges and the way I grabbed a hot pot and burnt two of my fingers...they didn't make for very pretty hands to photograph!  Anyway....here's the latest one.  

Remember a few posts back I told you I had these new Kiss Nail Paints I wanted to try out?  Well, this manicure was all about using those Kiss Nail Artist kits.  I challenged my self to use any kind of polish for a base coat and then use only the two Kiss Nail Artist kits to do the rest of the manicure.  So I did a manicure where each nail represents a member of my family, now that there are ten of us!  (Isn't THAT convenient!)  I'll provide my review of the Kiss Nail Art Paints, stencils, guides, and decals as I do.

*Note: I did not receive any compensation for this review.  I was not given these kits to review.  I bought them with my own money and am providing this review because I want to. *

Pictures?

Here are the polishes I used

And here are just the Kiss Nail Artist Kit Contents

The brushes in the paints are long and thin like this

This proved to be a challenge for me because I'm used to working with my embossing tools, (see Thanksgiving Nails here).  Using a brush that was soft and moved in a way that is not quite as predictable as a rigid embossing tools will take some getting used to.

On to the nails!

These represent my Dad and Mom

• Dad:  railroad tracks because he builds model railroads.  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It as the base and Kiss Nail Art Paint White for the tracks
• Mom:  flower because she loves gardening.  I used a nail stencil for this tulip.  The stencils are kind of paper-ish and can only be used once, which is a bummer.  As I was taking the stencil off it tore in two. I used Pure Ice Splash for hte base and Nail Art Paint White for the tulip.

These represent me and my Husband

• Me: just a cool design!  :D  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City as the base with lines of Kiss Nail Art Paint in White, Black, and Soft Blue.  This kind of striping worked really well using the Nail Art Paint!
• Husband: Anchor...because he loves sailing and he's my anchor (everybody on three...awwww)  I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear as the base and Kiss Nail Art in White for the anchor.  The anchor turned out really well with these paints.  The hardest part was getting that little circle at the top.  I haven't quite got that figured out yet with the paints.

This represents my Daughter

• Daughter:  cute daisy.  I used Pure Ice Splash for the base and Nail Art Paint White for the daisy.  The brushes worked well for this.  First I drew straight lines where I wanted the centers of each petal to be, then went back and made the petals.  The paints dry pretty quickly so you can't really do a "dot and drag" like you can with regular polishes, which made the petals kind of thick.  The jewel decal is great because it's nice and smooth, rather than rough like some, so it doesn't catch on things as easily.  Plus, it's pretty flush and doesn't stick up too high, which I like.

Brother C and Girlfriend M

• Brother C:  KU for the best University on the planet!  Sally Hansen Blue It for the base and Nail Art Paint White for K & U.  Again, getting the brush to make the U was kind of tricky.
• Girlfriend M: an owl because she likes them.  I used Pure Ice Splash for the base with back Nail Art Paint for the artsy owl, plus two jewels for eyes....ain't he cute?

Brother K and Girlfriend E

• Brother K: FLAMES!  This one was by far the hardest one to do!  Since my challenge was to use the Nail Art Paints, I had to apply the base and then use the nail art paint to black-out the non-flame part.  Plus this is on my right hand so I painted it with my left hand and was still trying to get the hang of predicting how to make shapes I wanted with those long skinny brushes!  A challenge to be sure!  I used Pure Ice Hot Tamale and Kiss Nail Art Paint black.
• Girlfriend E: I used the chevron nail guides for this one, can you tell?  I used Pure Ice Creme WIld Thing for the base, then used the chevron guides to make the black, then free-handed the Nail Paint in Silver Glitter and Beach Pink.

Baby Nephew D

• Baby Nephew D: an artsy representation.  He has this awesome hair and hairline that I tried to replicate and that strange shape in the middle is supposed to be a pacifier, but again, still getting used to how to make these brushes do what I want!  I used Pure Ice Creme Wild Thing and Nail Art Paint black with a jewel.  After I took this photo, I decided to add top coat just to help keep the jewel on and the Nail Art paint streaked...badly!  So in the future, I'll be gentler and thicker with the top coat.

All in all, I'm looking forward to using these, but don't think I'll be using them all the time.  I need more practice so I'm sure they'll show up again.

Next: I hope to do another KU Jayhawk manicure as we take on our rivals the KSU Wildcats on Saturday (which is the state of Kansas' 150th Birthday)  The game is on ESPN GameDay!  

Until then, happy painting!