Mona Lisa Nails + reverse stamping tutorial

Some days I wake up with one thought stick in my mind and there’s nothing I can do than to follow it: this time, I found myself wanting to bring Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on my nails (don’t ask me why, I just wanted a nail art with more “art” than usual) 😀
So, thanks to my recently purchased Wulushang WLS083 stamping plate (obviously from AliExpress), I took my stamping stuff and some nail polishes to finally have my Mona Lisa nails!

Unintentionally I took some snapshots with my phone camera during the Mona Lisa creation process, and after realising that I thought that I could put them together and make a small tutorial on how to make reverse stamping. Sadly the photo quality is lower than usual, as I did them with my phone and not thinking of a tutorial, but I hope you will forgive me 🙂

Reverse stamping is a great technique if we want to colour the designs that come from our stamping plates: it can be done directly on the stamper or on a silicone stamping mat. In both cases the result will be almost the same, but the image will look specular if you do the reverse stamping on the silicone mat, while it will mantain the same verse of the plate if you do it directly on the stamper. I usually prefer doing reverse stamping on the silicone mat, but this time I needed the design to keep the same direction of the plate, as it comes from a very famous painting, so I did it on the stamper.

For this reason my tutorial will show how to make reverse stamping directly on the stamper: but you can read this article if you want to know how to do reverse stamping on the silicone nail art mat.

As for “base” stamping technique, for reverse stamping you will need a stamper and scraper set, a stamping plate and stamping polish. Then, you will also need some nail polishes to colour the design, a top coat and a dotter/a brush/a toothpick to fill in the small portions of the design (I love using toothpicks as I can be very precise).

I used the Crystal Clear Stamper and Scraper by MoYou London, the plate Wulushang WLS083 from AliExpress and the black stamping polish by Ya Qin An/Born Pretty Store (read the review).

First, you’ll have to capture the design with the “base” stamping technique (do not transfer it on nails!). Then, start filling the portions of the designs with the colors you want and then let everything dry.
Now, apply top coat over all the design, wait some time until it is touch dry and then “peel” it off the stamper with a pair of tweezers. Now, turn it on the correct side (as you see in the pic at the bottom) and then place it on your nail. The design should stick easily on the nail surface, but if it doesn’t, you can use a brush dipped in nail polish remover to gently tap the parts that haven’t sticked to the nail yet (be very careful!).
At this point, it will be clean up time! Cut off the parts that are not on the nail and then do a more precise clean up with a brush and nail polish remover. Lastly, apply top coat and here we are: Mona Lisa mission accomplished!

All the nail polishes I used for this nail art are by Kinetics – mostly belonging to the Fragile collection (Autumn 2018): the grey one, named Fragile, for pointer, middle finger and part of the background; Almost Naked for the little portion of sky behind Mona Lisa; So Human for her skin and Alluring Brown for her hair and dress. Besides these shades, I used Daydreamer from the Love In The Snow collection (Winter 2017): it’s those greenish blue that you see on my pinky and in the background.

Read also: Kinetics, Fragile collection (review, swatch) | Kinetics, Love In The Snow collection (review, swatch)

Lastly, let me say that this AliExpress plate really surprised me: assuming that I really wanted it because it’s inspired to famous artworks, I was impressed on how good it worked even with small details. So, if you need artistic stamping plates as I do, here’s where you can purchase it (remember to select the plate wls083): AliExpress.com – 6*6cm Square wulushang Nail Stamping Plates. I just tell you that besides Mona Lisa there are other masterpieces just like the ones by Van Gogh, Picasso and so on.

I know that this is quite an unusual nail art, but I really hope you liked it and that my small tutorial was useful! Let me know your thoughts in comments!