I have the Vanessa Molina velvet effect magnet, and it works fine for me. However I am intrigued by all the talk about horseshoe magnets.
I am not quite a beginner in magnetics, but don't really use any advanced techniques. Is it worth it to get a horseshoe magnet (in particular the ILNP U Magnet when I make my Black Friday order)?
by butnottoobold
3 Comments
So this one is intended to have the same velvet effect as a horseshoe. I have it and a horseshoe and I prefer the BVM one as the wider bed means I don’t end up with patches on my side walls where the magnet was too strong and too close.
Personally I wouldn’t buy it again if only for the fact I found out Vanessa Molina allegedly stole this design from another maker (there’s [receipts on this sub ](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditLaqueristas/comments/1nkbn31/comment/newwtd7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)but I’m saying allegedly bc she seems happy to throw legal threats around) but I have it and I’ll use it until I can find a replacement.
A classic horseshoe magnet is probably easier to mod and handle if you’re looking to do the glass bead method. A lot of them have a little hole in the U shape that can attach it to spinning mechanisms (if that’s what you’re looking to do, be sure to be safe about it!)
For me, I prefer my horseshoe. Whilst my other magnet (the butterfly from rainbow connection,not the same as yours but similar) produces a nice velvet effect, using the horseshoe just makes it stronger, so the effect really pops. The contrast in the shift is deeper. I now only use my horseshoe for velvet.
My horseshoe cost about £24 I think, so it wasn’t cheap, but not so expensive that I’d be upset if I ended up not using it. I guess it just depends on how dramatic an effect you want, budget etc. on whether you take the plunge or not. This is probably one of those cases where it’s just down to personal preference, rather than one being objectively better than the other.
I prefer my horseshoe magnet 100% I find it easier to get the desired effect. And I can get it to look exactly the same on all my nails. With the VM magnet the magnets come out and the magnetic effect doesn’t look the same nail to nail.