Nail stamping supplies
Hi everyone!
Today I am going to be telling you a little bit about nail stamping. This is something that a lot of nail technicians and none of my nail clients new about. Let me tell you this now - it's one of the things I offer for FREE thats keeps my clients coming back. Why do I offer it for free? Because it is quick, cheap and easy (once you've got the hang of it). If you're shy with nail art then nail stamping is definately a service you should be offering.
So what is nail stamping?
Essentially you have a metal stamping plate with images engraved on it, you use a highly pigmented stamping polish to cover the image and scrape the excess off leaving the engraving full of polish. A rubber or silicone stamper is then used to pick up the nail polish pattern and then the pattern is placed on the nail!
I'm not going to go into anymore detail as to the technique on stamping here as I will be releasing a stamping tutorial video soon (watch this space!).
What supplies do you use?
It is up to you which brand of supplies you decide to go with. I have tried many (MANY!) and found the following to be the best:
Stamping plates from www.moyou.co.uk
They have an amazing selection of designs and their plates are reasonably priced. I also found that they are the easiest to pick up the images from, so they are great for beginners. I have a collection of around 50 now. I'll post a video later on how I store and display my plates for easy selection.
Stamping polishes from www.moyou.co.uk and www.konad.co.uk
Special stamping polishes are needed as they are slightly thicker in consistancy and have much more pigments in them than normal nail varnishes. Originally I tried Mundo de unas stamping polish (which I imported) however I found that, whilst they stamped amazingly, they smelt horrific and had a tendancy to dry out and become thick quickly. Now I use the above as they stamp very nicely, are reliable and reasonably priced. The konad polishes also come in 'princess' mini sizes so if you want a colour that you don't think you'll use too often you don't have to spend quite so much on it.
Stampers and scrapers:
I have many different stampers and I use each for picking up different types of images (blocky, detailed etc).
The stampers I couldn't live without are:
Clear jelly stamper from www.weheartnailsuk.com
'Sticky marshmallow' stamper from www.moyou.co.uk
Finally I also use lint rollers to clean any remaining polish from my stampers to avoid exposing them to acetone. Usually I get these in a multipack from poundshop or somewhere equally cheap.
If you're thinking about starting nail stamping I highly recommend you have a look at the above sites as their products really are great.
Stay tuned for the promised nail stamping tutorial and stamping plate storage videos!