Konad - Nail art system

Konad - Nail art system

I finally took the plunge and bought into the Konad system. I've been dying to get ever since I caught a glimpse of it on anonther blog. I've never been skilled at doing my nails. I've finally mastered painitng my nails smoothly, without a whole lot of mess. That's a real accomplishemnt in my books.
But the Konad results look SO amazing.
I bought my Konad items on G-market, for awesome prices. The stamper and scrapper were only 4000 won, the plates 3500won each, and the polishes 3000won.  I spent 34000 in total, and got extactly the plates I wanted to start out with an exactly the colors. Since the kits range from 16000 to 20000, for a basic one including the one sided stamper, scraper, two polishes, and two or 3 plates. My haul with 4 colors 4 or 5 plates, the double ended stamper, sponge, and scraper, along with two packs of free rhinestones and a bottle of nail polish remover, was an excellent deal.
Plus since I spent over 30000, shipping was free!

So here are the items

The scraper

The Double ended stamper. 
The long size makes it way better the regular. Plus the short side is perfect for touch ups, or multiple stamp patterns.

As you can see the stamper and the scraper have the Konad logo, and little butterfly. The finger indentations on the scraper are a ncie addition, though not entirely necessary.

The red side is significantly larger than the green. The red being bigger than the quarter, and the green smaller than a nickel. For some reason, the images don't stick to the green side as well, so I generally use the red side, unless I need to be extra exact.

The Plates

Plate #56 - celtic designs

                               

Plate #66 - Cherry Blossoms, Lotus flowers, and bamboo (My favorite!)

                              

Plate #S9 - Flowers, and Japanese designs

Plate #73 - Whole nail patterns (music, squares, etc.)

Plate #79 - Whole nail patterns (Super cute clouds, and others :) 

                               

The Nail Polish

I purchased four colors, Pink, Purple, Black and white. However the seller sent me black pearl, and white pearl! Not what I ordered or wanted at all....
I ordered regular white again from the same seller, but got pearl again. So i ended up ordering it from a different seller....

Also interestingly enough the polishes came in two different packages, even though they were from the same seller. Two came in packages with Korean, and two in English. Mind you the packaging does not make a difference, it's just curious.

I got a few free gifts also, A sponge, for doing shaded nails

Also two packs of rhinestones, in pink and white. The are sooooo tiny!

The Review
Though I've never been big on painting my nails, unwilling to do anything than slick a quick coat of paint on them. I think this is partly due to my lack of skills, and my desire for simplicty.
After living in Japan, with the ridiculous fake, over decorate nails, I tend to like simple designs.
The Konad system gives me really pretty nails, and it's only up to me whether I want something simple and classy, or wild and crazy.
Using the system is simple, a little frustrating, but simple. You paint you nails a solid color. Then you aply the special nail polish to the plate, you swipe of the excess polish with the scraper, and press down with the stamper.
You then press the stamper onto the nail, rolling from one side to the other (for small designs just pressing down is usually fine). Then cover it all with a quick coat of top coat.

The special nail polish is super tiny. They are only 5ml, Nail polishes are usually at least double that. Plus considering these tiny Nail polishes are ~3000won ($3) each. In Korea Full sized Nail polishes cost 1000 or 2000won($1-2). Thats really expensive for something so tiny.
I thought when I was buying the system, that the size wouldn't matter. I mean it only takes a tiny little bit of polish to do each design. But that's only half true. It does only take a tiny bit of polish to do the super thin layer needed for each layer. To make that thin layer requires a gob of polish. I've tried spreading only a thin layer, but sometimes parts will dry out before it can be stamped. The thiner I spread the polish on the plate, the worse the results.
That means a lot of wasted polish for each application. Then theres the fact that half of the time you stamp a design, something goes wrong. Sometimes it only picks up some, some stick to the plate (meaning you were to slow or the plate wasn't clean enough), or the design blurs (meaning there is too much polish on the plate, or you jiggled the stamper too much), or something else goes wrong....
*sigh* the result is you have to do at least twice as many stamps than you would think should be required. It's ridiculous.

Because of the cost, the size and the limited color selection available, I've done a few attempts with regular Nail polish. The Konad special polish is really different than regular polish. It's super thick and sticky. Its like liquid rubber.

Regular nail polish is a thin liquid. So the results with other polishes are a bit hit or miss. Nail art polishes work pretty well since they tend to be thicker. Just normal nail polish also works for big designs, without intricate detail.
The problem with using any other Nail polish is it makes the whole process even more frustrating. Instead of having some bad stamps, lots are bad, and they ten stamp tends to blur a lot easier. You end up using so much nail polish, that you're not saving anyone money.  It's really just a lot easier and quicker to use the Konad special polishes. Unless I'm looking for a particular color, I don't bother.

The images last as long as regular nail polish, but look soooo cool!
It's way easier than airbrushing (obviously) and even stickers.
Once I got the hang of it, I was doing all kinds of super cool things.
Plus, since you can get all the parts on G-Market for way cheaper than it is to buy a kit, you can get exactly what you want, without paying a ton :)

I recommend this system to everyone. It is just that cool, that easy, and that affordable :)