Nicole Diary Water Decal Review

*provided for honest review

Hey everyone! Today I have for you a review of a new brand, Nicole Diary. You may have noticed that I recently did a nail art mani using one of their decals (here). I stuck with the one accent nail again, but this look has a bright tropical vibe.

My use of water decals has been pretty limited in the almost three years that I've been blogging. They're just not a go-to product for me. After looking at the selection that was offered though, I was really looking forward to trying these. Experience would have payed off though because I did struggle a bit. I had to redo this one because I wasn't happy with the placement. Then once I got this one perfect, I messed up some of the flowers when applying top coat. I have a love/hate relationship with top coat as it can often ruin my best work! Fortunately decals can give you that super detailed look without putting in hours of work freehand painting a design.

Each decal sheet has enough for ten nails, and the designs are a little different for each nail (five different designs x 2). There are wider ones for the thumb and skinnier ones for pinkies. They are pretty tall so they work for longer nails too. That's what I really liked about these, in addition to the beautiful images.

As I said above, some of the flowers were eaten by top coat. You need to have a very light touch, and apply top coat generously so the brush doesn't touch the nail. While the negative space in the decals are clear, I also had a couple instances of removing the image with an opaque white background. It's a mystery to me how that happens. Can anyone explain?

What I used:
Philly Loves Lacquer This Lime Around- green
Philly Loves Lacquer Hip Hop Marmalade- pink
KBShimmer Eyes White Open- white
Born Pretty Store gold leaf decoration
Nicole Diary water decal 02
Seche Vite top coat

Nicole Diary decals can be purchased through their stores on AliExpress and Amazon, and ship worldwide. Use my code "Em2016" for an extra gift in your order worth $2-$5.

Besides my little top coat flub, I am loving the end result of this mani. I really want to master water decals now because I think I could create some more great looks if I can get the hang of it.