Maniology Mani x Me Subscription Box Review - April 2019

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Hey there!  I'm a bit on the late side with my review of Maniology's Mani x Me box for April.  This month's theme is Fossilized.  As an Albertan, which is a province that essentially lives off of old dinosaurs, I have to admit I loved this box.  Dinosaurs have always been fascinating to me.  This month's offerings have both classic prehistoric dinosaur imagery and some fun 80's/dinosaur combos on the two stamping plates.  In addition to the plates, there's also two polishes (which double as regular polish and stamping polish) and 4 sheets of nail stickers.  Since I had more time to do manis this month, I did a couple more than usual.  If any of my manis inspire you to try out this box, be sure to get your order in this week.  I believe the boxes switch to the next month on the 23rd of the month.  And also be sure to use the coupon code COPY10 to save $5 on your first box, or 10% on any other Maniology order.

Ducky

The polishes this month are named after two adorable characters from The Land Before Time.  Ducky is a pastel (neon-ish) yellow-toned green.  I found it to be a tiny bit streaky so 2 coats were required to level it out.  This shows those two coats plus top coat.  It photographed a bit more neon than it is in real life.  

I decided to test the polishes out for stamping on swatch sticks.  Here's a look at Ducky. It's opaque over both black and white, though the color is a bit more muted over over black.  

Littlefoot

Littlefoot is a red-toned medium purple polish.  The formula is great - nice and creamy with no levelling issues.  This is two coats plus top coat.  

And here's a look at it's stamping ability.  Like Ducky, it's also opaque over both black and white bases but less bright over black.  It's tough to find a good purple that stamps visibly over black and this one is great.  

MXM004

I know I'm flipping the numerical order of the plates but MXM004 is super duper so I'm starting with it.  I don't think I could have envisioned a plate if you told me someone was going to mix retro feels with dinosaurs but I'm so glad this plate exists.  

For the first mani I'm sharing, I did a mani with two coats of Littlefoot or Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  The reverse stamping was done with Mundo de Unas Black, filled with both Ducky and Littlefoot.  The studs were some I had got from Born Pretty years ago and they match Ducky perfectly.  

Next up I wanted to do a more typical fossil-looking mani.  I did a stamper marble with OPI You Don't Know Jacques, Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh and Get In The Expresso Lane and stamped with Mundo de Unas Bones.  

My last MXM004 mani was actually the first one I did with these plates.  I've seen some incredible manis on Instagram with these images but I kind of failed with them.  I was disappointed with how the dinosaurs on the grid image actually translated onto the nail.  Since I did a second mani with Littlefoot and Ducky I wasn't going to show this one but I figured it might be useful to share my less-good results as well.  

MXM003

MXM003 is more of one giant dinosaur-filled scene.  If you wanted to pick and choose certain areas, you could get just plants or dinosaurs or skeletons.  Or you could just use the clouds if you don't have any other cloud images in your collection.  

For this one I wanted to do it as a full scene.  I used a bunch of Cirque Colours polishes here for this reverse stamping:  Nocturne, Lucid Dream, Red Hook, Central Park After Dark, Lafayette, Hedonist, Pebbles and Glitteratti.  I'm actually wearing Pebbles again today since I had a grown-up meeting yesterday and didn't change my mani last night.  

For my final stamping mani, I used 2 coats of a Polish Pickup polish, Altered Ego Altarf AKA Beta Cancer as my base.  I then stamped the part of the plate that looks like an exploding sun for the background with Hit The Bottle Poison Apple.  Then I selected the fossil images at the bottom of the plate and did them with Mundo de Unas Black and White.  It ended up look like a rock-n-roll dead dinosaur mani and I was more than happy with that.  

Nail Art Stickers

The last item in the April Mani x Me box were these four sheets of nail stickers.  There's two sheets of colored foliage stickers, a metallic silver sheet and a holographic gold sheet.  The thing I love about Maniology stickers is that they're thin so there's not really thick edges that are hard to smooth out.  The metallic ones are a bit thicker so you can see the edges in my photos but they weren't noticeable in real life.  

For my final mani today, I used the gold holo stickers over Tonic Polish Phoenix Parade.  I wore this as a full mani for a day and it just felt so warm.  These gold holo stickers are to die for.  

Thanks for sticking around to the end of this long blog post.  I hope I've at least provided a bit of inspiration, either to use the box (which you have already received) or to buy it for yourself.  The Mani x Me box is technically a subscription but you are able to buy month by month or, if sign up for a longer subscription length and don't like a certain box, you can always email them and skip a month.   Also, if you're new to the box, you get a free Ice Cube clear stamper with your first box!  

$20-25 USD/month, depending on subscription length

Available at Maniology

Use code COPY10 to save 10% off your order 

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'Til next time...