I bought two Essence Nail Art Stampy image plates as part of a large haul the other day and decided to write a review to share my thoughts. Before you spend your hard-earned cash, read this to ensure you know what to expect. When I first read up about these image plates, I’d already purchased two, silly girl, I know! I found that most of the reviews online complained of shallow images and partial prints and images.
I thought to myself that it was probably a combination of inexperience and improper technique that caused all that, so I unwrapped what I believed to be two supreme stamping plates and expected brilliant results.
I could almost hear my enthusiasm fly out the window as I started to struggle. I had every problem in the book with these plates. First, some of them were so shallowly etched, that when I pressed down hard when scraping, the polish would scrape right out of the image! Another problem I had (and this was even with ordinary polishes) was that the polish either dried on the plate itself or on the stamper. The shallow images make for very thin stamping images and they dry too quickly.
I tried both plates with both the stamp polishes I purchased and some of my ordinary polishes, and regardless of which ones I tried, I still got horrible results. The pictures will give you some idea of what to expect, and I was sorely disappointed in these two plates. Granted, they only cost me around $3 each, but still, that’s $3 I could have spent on proper stamping plates from Born Pretty Store!
Just FYI, I never had as many issues with any other stamping plates as I have with the Essence ones. I think it’s amazing that they’re trying to keep up with the latest nail art trends, but they really dropped the ball on this one. The stampy polishes left a lot to be desired and the plates are a total disaster. Come on Essence, we all know you can do better! You’ve already brought us some amazing polishes and special effects top coats now fix that stamping range! Please!