Recently purchased three polishes from the Essence nail art range, and I got the white, black and silver ones. I was super excited to try these polishes (especially since I’ve not been able to find stamping polishes locally until then). I took it home and eagerly started experimenting. Before you rush over to your local beauty store, read on to find out what I experienced.

What can I say? I love Essence products, I really do, but I think I have a hate/hate relationship with their stamping polishes. (It pains me to say this it really does, but all three of the polishes had something about it that ruined the end result somehow. The only good thing I have to say about these polishes is that they only cost around $3 each.

Black Stamping Polish:

This polish was a little on the thick side, so I had to thin it down. I tried it on one of my older stamping plates (one I KNOW works beautifully) and the results were terrible. Even though I thinned down the polish, I still ended up with partial prints on the nail. What frustrated me even more, is that I’d already done a full manicure and didn’t want to remove the polish on those nails to try and redo the stamping.

White Stamping Polish:

This polish was so thick it hardly stuck to the stamper and dried on the plate.  It’s highly pigmented, so it was a pain to clean as well. I ended up with this chalky white residue whenever I tried to wipe the plates. I had to add around 15 drops of acetone to the polish before it was thin enough to use. I had better results with this one once I used it with a few of my other stamping plates.

Silver Stamping Polish:

Urgh. That’s how I should sum up this polish (and then try to forget about the fact that I own it). Where the black and white polishes were far too thick, this one was so runny it bled all over the stamper. There’s no way I’d get a decent image with that, so I didn’t even try to stamp it onto my nail. This one gets a definite thumbs down. If I wanted bleeding and smeared images, I’d use ordinary thinned-down nail polish. This one definitely wasn’t worth the money.

I doubt I’ll invest in Essence stampy polishes again, unless (by some miracle) I can get the ones I already have to work properly.  I’m not a stamping newbie, so I have a pretty good idea of what to do and what not to do, but for some reason, I’m really struggling to get decent images with this polish. The verdict? An overall thumbs down.  I don’t want to have to thin down polish to get it to do what it’s supposed to and that super runny silver polish, well there are just no words for that.  If I can give you any advice it would be to not bother or opt for another brand.