Stamping Polish Versus Regular Polish...What is the Difference.

Hi there everyone!

So your about to invest in some stamping supplies for the first time...... you get your plates and stampers, grab a scraper and then cannot decide if you "really" need the stamping polish everyone is saying you should buy...... Today I am here to share with you what is the difference between stamping with regular polish and stamping polish.

Ok, so you grab a bottle of say...Orly glow stick. A bright yellow neon. Its amazing! you love it! and think OMG it will be awesome stamped over black!!! Imagine that...a black nail with bright yellow zebra stripes........ then you stamp....BOOO!!!!!! Nothing. You cannot see anything. Its not bright.You can hardly see it at all. Why is this the case???

Ok well the first thing you need to remember is that Stamping polish is formulated completely different to regular polish. when you stamp a image, You are essentially putting a super thin layer of polish on your nail, compared to when you paint your nails and it is a lot thicker.

So lets look at the polish it self.

Here is a picture of Nail Stamping Queen fluro green on the left and on the right China glaze I'm with the lifeguard. You can see the NSQ stamping polish on the left when dropped stays in a drop shape while the regular polish spreads out really quickly. This is because of the formula. The Stamping polish is made thicker than regular polish for several reasons. 

It is made with a lot of pigments. This in turn causes the polish to be a LOT more opaque when stamping and the offset it the polish becomes thick. The next reason is due to its highly pigmented formula the polish will take longer to dry. This is great when stamping as due to the thinness of polish when stamping, regular polish will dry super quick and a stamping polish will not dry so quick.

Here is a pic of how the stamping polish reacts to being tipped on its side compared to a regular polish.

The left polishes are Nail stamping queens Fluro green and China Glaze I'm with the lifeguard, and the reds are Nail stamping queen hot lips and Zoya livingston.

Again you can see how the 2 types of polishes behave. The stamping polish is a lot thicker and will not drip as much as the regular polish. 

So what to look for?? Well when buying a stamping polish or even a regular polish to stamp with, make sure the polish is of what I would describe "thickened cream"viscosity. A thinned polish will not stamp as well as a thicker one.

Make sure that the polish is highly pigmented. If the polish is thick but sheer in colour, you will not get a very good stamping image when stamped over dark colours.

 Don't think that if your polish is a "one coater" on your nails it will be a good stamping polish. I have many "one coaters" but when put over dark colours they just do not show up. The stamping polish needs to have a specific amount of white to make it opaque. If you really do need to use a specific colour check out my post and video HERE on how to make a polish opaque over black.

Lastly, give it a go! you will soon find out if it is ok to stamp once you have tried it!

Here are some stamping polishes and a similar colour in regular polish brands to show you the difference.

It is to be noted when I picked the regular polishes they all looked pretty much exactly the same in the bottle as the stamping polish, but once stamped were not opaque over black.

NSQ- Nail Stamping Queen Stamping polish.

NSQ-Nail Stamping Queen Stamping polish

You might be asking "why is she not stamping on white??"well I have found that if something stamps on white it may not stamp over black, but if it stamps over black it for sure stamps over white!!!!

And as you can see some of the colours do look a lot different over black compared to in the bottle.

I hope this has been informative for you all, Please if you have any questions feel free to post a comment and I will reply to you asap.

Until next time......